Blue Jays bullpen exposed again in ugly loss to Rockies

Drew Storen allowed four runs in relief as the Blue Jays blew a 4-0 lead and lost 9-5 to the Rockies.

DENVER – The Rocky Mountain air is as thin as the high-leverage bullpen options for Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons, who watched Drew Storen and Jesse Chavez torch not only a winnable game Monday night, but perhaps also the relief order that had developed in recent weeks. Protecting a one-run lead for nine outs is never a simple task, especially at Coors Field, but the self-destructive way things went down in a six-run seventh that propelled the Colorado Rockies in a 9-5 win was disconcerting.

Welcome back to Denver, Troy Tulowitzki.

The Blue Jays seemed to be in good shape when a Josh Donaldson RBI single and Edwin Encarnacion two-run homer opened up a 4-0 lead in the sixth. But Marco Estrada, cruising through five having allowed only two hits and a walk, went walk-double to open the bottom half and after a Nolan Arenado strikeout, coughed a three-run homer to Carlos Gonzalez that opened the door to a comeback.

“He hit a good pitch, I got it down and away, he was all over it, he’s a good hitter,” said Estrada. “I made my pitch and he hit it. Move on.”

Storen, moving closer to the type of pivotal role envisioned for him when he was acquired in the off-season, took over in the seventh, having rebuilt himself over his previous 15 outings, during which he’d allowed only three earned runs in 14.1 innings. But Brandon Barnes opened the frame with a single and pinch-hitter Tyler Anderson, Wednesday afternoon’s starter, laid down a two-strike sacrifice bunt that seemed to frustrate Storen.

He followed by hitting Charlie Blackmon and Cristhian Adames while ahead in the count to load the bases for Nolan Arenado, who ripped a two-run single to give the Rockies their first lead of the night at 5-4. That was all for Storen.

“I tried to get on it a little too much and tried to throw a little too hard and I yanked it,” Storen said of the hit-by-pitches. “I missed location on a couple of other pitches and that’s pretty much it, you’re not going to find much success late in the game if you’re doing that.”

Chavez, who also has been working his way up the pecking order lately after a rough start, was greeted by a Gonzalez single that loaded the bases before Mark Reynolds walked to cash in another run, Daniel Descalso ripped a two-run single and Barnes added an RBI double to cap the frame, the largest against the Blue Jays this season.

Ryan Tepera finally came in to strike out pinch-hitter Ryan Raburn and end the frame.

Yikes.

“What they did is probably not uncommon around here,” lamented Gibbons. “A one-run lead there, we just couldn’t get anybody out.”

The concern for the Blue Jays is what they do now in the bullpen to get the ball to set-up man Jason Grilli and closer Roberto Osuna, especially with Gavin Floyd on the disabled list. Brett Cecil is expected back from his rehab assignment Thursday and he’ll give Gibbons the left-hander currently lacking, but he wasn’t pitching well before he left. There’s no guarantee he’ll return and be who he was last year.

Bo Schultz was recalled when Floyd hit the DL and he brings big velocity, but he’s an uncertain commodity, while Tepera hasn’t yet managed to really leverage his power arm.

The ongoing issue for the Blue Jays in finding a leverage combination that works may simply be the product of there being no workable combo as presently constituted, unless someone can clone Osuna, stat. The Blue Jays very much need Storen to be reliable, and after an awful April, when he pitched to a 10.13 ERA and a 1.875 WHIP in 10 games, he was trending that way. Until Monday.

“I bounced back from that first month of the season so adversity is nothing new,” he said. “It’s not an ideal situation tonight but I’ll be ready for (Tuesday).”

The shame on this night was that some good work from both Estrada and the offence went to waste.

Estrada struck out eight over his six innings and Gibbons wasn’t going to let him pitch the seventh to protect the right-hander’s back which tightened up in his last outing. The last thing the team needs is for his back to worsen.

“Early on it was tight, the more I threw the better it felt and then the later it got, the worse it felt,” said Estrada. “It still wasn’t anywhere near what it was the outing before so I’m optimistic that it’s going to be perfect by the next one. It’s really not a big deal, I deal with it, whatever.”

Tulowitzki received a standing ovation from the crowd of 36,419 before his first at-bat, and Rockies catcher Nick Hundley made a classy gesture by heading out to the mound to extend the moment. A rare display of emotion from Tulowitzki followed, as he took off his helmet and waved it to the fans.

“It was a cool moment for me, brought back a lot of memories. It was great to see the fans reacting that way, it was definitely exciting,” he said. “I feel like when I was here I had a good relationship with the fans, the whole Tulo chant thing, I remember seeing a lot of jerseys, so I knew they were going to be good to me.”

Despite that, they roared approval for his strikeout in the second. Tulowitzki finished 0-for-3.

Devon Travis, on the other hand, homered to dead centre off impressive young starter Jon Gray in the first, and then doubled ahead of Donaldson’s single in the sixth.

Encarnacion complemented his two-run drive in the sixth with a monster solo job to right-centre in the ninth that cut into a Rockies lead that was Coors-proof. All that was left afterwards were questions, the same ones the Blue Jays have asked all too often this season.

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