NEW YORK – Little things continue to end up costing the Toronto Blue Jays big, and with their vaunted offence unable to provide some margin for error, they have no room to withstand sloppy little mistakes and plays not made.
The latest in a long line of painful examples came in Saturday’s 5-4 loss to the New York Yankees, when they blew an early three-run lead and a late one-run advantage in extending a poor start that’s becoming more and more concerning.
Through 25 games, 16 have been decided by two-runs or less. They’re 3-6 in one-run games, 3-4 in two-run contests – and the line between winning and losing is perilously fine.
“You know what? Right now we’re not good enough, it’s that simple,” said manager John Gibbons, as frustrated as he’s been this season. “There comes a time in every game where you’ve got to make a big pitch or you’ve got to get a big hit. That’s eluded us all year long. …
“It’s frustrating. I’m giving you guys the same comments every stinking night. I’m getting a little bit tired of it.”
Leading 4-3, things fell apart in the eighth, when Robinson Cano ripped a one-out double off Esmil Rogers, Vernon Wells followed with an RBI single, advanced to second on a groundout, stole third and the scored on Travis Hafner’s triple off Brett Cecil, a drive off the tip of Rajai Davis’s glove against the wall in centre.
That it came to that is a function both of their woes on this day and others before it.
In the fourth, the Blue Jays opened up a 3-0 lead on Jose Bautista’s solo shot – the first of his career in 21 at-bats against CC Sabathia – and Edwin Encarnacion’s charge home on a Brett Lawrie fly ball that resulted in catcher Chris Stewart’s error.
But J.A. Happ walked the first two batters in the bottom of the frame before Hafner crushed his 2-1 offering over the wall in centre to knot things up.
“What really hurt today, we get a 3-0 lead and we got out there and walk the first two guys and a homer,” Gibbons said. “You’ve got to have shutdown innings after that and we didn’t get that. And they did, they got the big hits, we didn’t, Sabathia wasn’t really on for what he normally does but he gutted it out, got some big outs when he had to, that’s what it’s all about.”
Then in the fifth, Davis and Melky Cabrera reached to open the frame, but Sabathia held them there.
Brett Lawrie homered leading off the sixth to restore the lead, but the Blue Jays couldn’t add on, with Brett Gardner snuffing out a potential rally in the seventh when he made a leaping grab against the wall on a Bautista drive to centre.
It was similar to Hafner’s drive in the bottom of the inning, but Davis twisted up his route to the ball and never really had a good shot at it. Even if he had been direct to the ball it was a difficult play, but playing a bit shallow to try and cut off the run at home on a single made it more difficult.
Joba Chamberlain closed things out in the ninth, working around a pair of one-out singles to secure the win.
“You’ve got to get some guys on and you’ve got to get that big knock somewhere,” Gibbons said. “Every game we’re in … part of the time that’s been defence, but there also comes a time when we’ve got to make a big pitch or you’ve got to get a big hit. It’s that simple.”
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THIN LINE: The Blue Jays are 1-4 when tied after seven innings and 0-12 when trailing through seven, to go with their 6-10 record. They’ve also fallen to 5-4 when scoring first, and collectively it adds up to little margin for error.
“Most of the time you can play baseball and make, as a team, one, maybe two mistakes a game and still be able to win,” Jose Bautista said. “It seems for us if we make one mistake it ends up costing us. … At least we’re not losing because we get beat-down, three and four run losses all of the time. We’re not giving up seven, eight, nine runs a night and we’re not getting shutout every night.
“We just have to step it up individually and that will make the whole team better. Maybe we need to focus each person on what makes each individual better. I’m pointing at myself first, I’m the first one who needs to be on base more and I need to come through more often when I have a chance to drive in runs and I haven’t done a good job with that. It’s something I’m working on and I need to get better in order for us to win more games.”
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WHERE THINGS STAND: The Blue Jays (9-16) lost for the ninth time in 12 games before 40,258 at Yankee Stadium and are assured of losing a series for the sixth time in eight attempts. The Yankees (14-9) won for the fourth time in five contests and look for a four-game sweep Sunday, when they start Phil Hughes against R.A. Dickey.
“We’re going to be fine, it’s still early, it’s a long season,” Bautista said. “We can’t just hang our hats. If we had the opposite record with the same amount of wins instead of losses we wouldn’t think that we would have a foot in the World Series. It doesn’t change anything. We still have to come out here and play hard every day and look for wins.
“We have to make the adjustment, we have to do whatever it takes every night to win and we haven’t found a way to do that so far, but I’m confident that will change.”
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THE BATS: The Blue Jays hit two more solo shots in this one and now have 12 home runs through the first six games of their road trip, accounting for 16 of their 21 runs.
Curiously, seven of the 12 homers have come leading off an inning, which has kept them from taking more advantage of their big blows.
“We just have a lot of guys underperforming, myself included,” Bautista said. “Once we individually pick it back up, the team effort is going to be better. Each person needs to get back to doing what they’re good at and that’s it.
“Once everybody gets going better individually, the team is going to get better offensively.”
The Blue Jays also scratched out a run in the third when Maicer Izturis singled, Emilio Bonifacio doubled and Rajai Davis hit a run-scoring groundout.
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THE ARMS: Save for the fourth inning, J.A. Happ gave the Blue Jays what they need, allowing three runs over six innings of work while allowing eight hits and two walks.
He left in position to win with a 4-3 lead, but his messy fourth underlined how little margin for error Blue Jays pitching has right now.
“I thought I could do better than that,” Happ said. “Every little bit helps. We’re obviously struggling in these close games so it would’ve been nice.”
At least the six innings came in handy after the bullpen only got 2.2 innings from spot start Aaron Laffey on Friday and the workload issues came into play as primary set-up man Steve Delabar had to be used in the loss, leaving secondary set-up man Esmil Rogers pitching in a key spot with the team in position to win.
Regardless, no one is fresh with the starters leaving too many innings to clean up, so when the Blue Jays need their relievers to be at their best, they aren’t necessarily able to bring out their top stuff.
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REMEMBER ME? Vernon Wells joked about how he was going to Napoli the Los Angeles Angels when they traded him to the Yankees this spring, but so far he’s really been haunting another former team, the Blue Jays.
In six games this season against the team that drafted, developed and signed him to the $126-million, seven-year contract that runs out next season, he’s batting .440 (11-for-25) with three homers, six RBIs and seven runs scored.
“Vernon’s a Jays-killer,” John Gibbons said, and it’s tough to argue.
