With the Jays in disarray and the Red Sox en route, the current nine game losing streak is in jeopardy of reaching 12.
I've been on this beat for 17 seasons now and on the flight home from Baltimore following the unimaginable 12-10 loss on Wednesday I racked my brain trying to remember a loss that left me more stunned.
I couldn't come up with one.
This bad boy was in the bag through seven innings with 'Doc' Halladay doing what he does best: just 29 balls of the 102 that he fired at the Baltimore batters failed to find the strike zone. But I did scratch my head when I saw Jesse Carlson running out of the bullpen to start the bottom of the eighth, with hindsight being 20/20 and all. Just six outs to get, surely the ace of Jays could have come back out?
But I'm not paid to make those decisions, only to comment on them and we all know how this horror show unfolded. Jesse Carlson, who had allowed seven runs on 11 hits - two of them home runs - over his previous 11 appearances, and had pitched 1.2 innings on a misty, rainy night less than 16 hours prior, came out of the bullpen and allowed five of the six batters he faced to reach and eventually score. Scott Downs, now becoming less effective as a closer than he was as a set-up man, was then forced to come in an inning early than the script said and the only three batters that he faced each drove in single runs to tie the game.
Using hindsight once again, I question why Jason Frasor wasn't tabbed to come in instead of Carlson? All he did, once the game was tied, was strike out four over his two innings, allowing the Jays the opportunity to jump back in front on Hill's two-run jack.
B.J. Ryan was summoned from the 'pen in the bottom of the 11th, which made sense to all of us in the booth, but what we found out rather quickly is that confidence in his ability to close out games is no longer there. One now has to wonder how much longer Ryan will be with the team if the confidence isn't there to have him finish games anymore. Brian Wolfe, with a grand total of zero career major league saves, relieved Ryan with one out and one on, and in the blink of an eye, it was hit, hit, three-run walk-off homer ... game, set, match. And it was not like they snatch defeat from the jaws of victory; it was more like it was carved from its chest using a dull knife.
So now the Boston Red Sox roll into town for a weekend series which could easily mean that the losing streak could reach 12 games. For the second time this season, Halladay will not be available to face a divisional foe, leaving it to Casey Janssen, Brian Tallet and Ricky Romero to fight the good fight. The Red Sox won't be sending its top two starters to the hill, either, with Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka having pitched the final two games of their series in Minnesota.
Sometimes the MLB scheduler gets it right. The off-day after the Wednesday's debacle couldn't have been timed better. It will be interesting to see which Jays' team shows up: the one that teased us with thoughts of October baseball through the first seven weeks of the season, or the one that has made many look away in horror in the span of nine games.
Let's hope it's the former, but something tells me that the halcyon days of the first 41 games are a thing of the past.
