TORONTO – The dividends, not to mention the buzz, from Troy Tulowitzki’s third-inning grand slam – probably the most electrifying moment at Rogers Centre since Jose Bautista’s bat flip last October – didn’t even last half a frame. The payoff provided by Edwin Encarnacion’s second homer of a wild afternoon? It survived one inning before it disappeared.
And once that edge was gone, the Toronto Blue Jays were out of answers.
Simply put, the Boston Red Sox had too much firepower for their reeling rivals Sunday afternoon, taking the rubber match of a pivotal three-game series 11-8 Sunday. Their lead atop the American League East is back up to two games and while by no means are they invincible, they headed home for the start of a three-game series with the Baltimore Orioles looking like the class of the division.
The Blue Jays, on the other hand, remain unsteady after holding a players-only meeting Saturday, with losses in eight of their past 11 outings. They’re tied with the Orioles in the wild-card race, two games up on the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees, with a visit from their nemesis, the Tampa Bay Rays, starting Monday.
“It’s two good teams, I think you take that out of [the Red Sox series],” said Tulowitzki. “They’re good over there, we’re good, they know that and we know that, it’s going to come down to the end, it’s going to be exciting. …
“I think we competed a little bit better these last two days and didn’t have any quit. Just keep on doing what we do. It’s a veteran clubhouse, we’ll be just fine.”
They’ll be fine if they get more of the big blows they delivered Sunday, but their offence is by no means out of the woods just yet.
Of their eight hits, all but two came from Tulowitzki and Encarnacion, while the heart of the order worked all seven of the team’s walks. Josh Donaldson walked twice and scored both times but is mired in an 0-for-23 rut and hit into an inning-ending double play in the eighth. Bautista also walked twice but hasn’t yet found a groove the way he can.
Still, the Blue Jays hadn’t scored eight runs since putting up nine Aug. 28 against the Minnesota Twins.
“We’d been searching for those outbursts with the bats, so maybe that’s the start of something,” said manager John Gibbons. “They’ve got a good team over there and they keep coming at you offensively. We just weren’t able to shut them down at key times. Hopefully that’s the start of something. It needs to be the start of something, that’s for sure.”
The pitching, of late, isn’t making up for it, either.
Aaron Sanchez – throwing on a normal four days rest for the first time since July 9 – struggled with a blister on the inside of his middle finger that essentially eliminated his secondary stuff. He allowed six runs on five hits and four walks, failing to escape the fourth in his shortest outing of the season.
The Blue Jays were planning to give him a break during the team’s upcoming West Coast swing anyway, so it looks like his next turn will be skipped in Anaheim with R.A. Dickey sliding in, and Sanchez pitching again in Seattle.
“I felt [the blister] maybe on the fifth pitch of the game, after that everything else I tried to throw but the heater didn’t feel right,” said Sanchez, who’s worked around blister issues off and on all season. “I’m not the type of player that’s going to come out for something like that, but this late in the season, you’ve got to be smart, they took me out before it got too bad. Move on.”
Eight relievers followed and they couldn’t keep the game on lockdown, even after Brock Holt inexcusably killed a rally in the fifth when he tried to steal home for the inning’s final out with Jackie Bradley Jr., at the plate.
The Blue Jays led 8-7 at that point after Hanley Ramirez’s solo shot earlier in the inning off Joe Biagini ate into a two-run deficit. But in prompting Gibbons to bring in Aaron Loup for Bradley, the stage was set for the implosion in the sixth.
Really, the Blue Jays needed two frames from Biagini to bridge the gap to the late-game troika of Joaquin Benoit, Jason Grilli and Roberto Osuna. Forced to piece together the sixth instead, Loup came back out to strike out Bradley before Gibbons turned to Bo Schultz for Dustin Pedroia and Xander Bogaerts, who both hit groundball singles.
Gibbons then brought in Benoit for David Ortiz, who turned the 2013 ALCS with a Game 2 grand slam off the right-hander when he was with the Tigers. Benoit threw a first-pitch split that Ortiz missed badly but he timed his next swing perfectly when the reliever doubled up on the pitch.
“The key was I thought maybe we’d get two innings out of Biagini,” said Gibbons. “He’s been doing that, he was well rested, I thought that would be the key. Get him through the sixth inning, then it set up that we could run our three late inning guys. But he had that tough inning. … We were really trying to get two outs from Schultz against some right-handers, not an easy assignment, but if we were in a jam, if I thought the game was on the line, go to Benoit. The game was on the line.”
The three-run homer opened a 10-8 lead that Brad Ziegler – cutting through a swath of righties – Fernando Abad, Matt Barnes, Koji Uehara and closer Craig Kimbrel made stand up.
The game ended in controversy as with one out in the ninth and Encarnacion on first, Russell Martin poked a ball down the right field line initially called fair for a double. The umpires discussed it amongst themselves, changed the call to foul and then went for a review, which confirmed that the ball hit foul.
Gibbons argued until he got booted anyway.
The loss came after a beginning with promise. A Mookie Betts RBI double on a liner misjudged by Kevin Pillar put the Red Sox up 1-0 in the first but Encarnacion matched it with his 38th homer of the season in the bottom half.
A Bradley three-run homer in the second put the Red Sox up 4-1 but the Blue Jays blew the door off Clay Buchholz in the third, as Martin worked a bases loaded walk before Tulowitzki pummelled a first-pitch meatball for his third career grand slam.
A crowd of 47,816 made the stadium shake in celebration and the moment felt cathartic for a team that had been so desperate for a big blow.
“We’ll be all right, veteran lineup, we go through some good times, some bad times,” said Tulowitzki. “Ideally you want that middle of the order to click all at the same time. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. When they do click at the same time, that’s when you do see those big offensive games.
“Hopefully we can get that going here, soon.”
The 6-4 lead was gone five batters into the top of the fourth as Sanchez surrendered Bogaerts’ two-out, two-run bouncer up the middle that tied things up. Gibbons then burned Brett Cecil early, bringing him in to get the final out of the inning against Ortiz.
Encarnacion spanked his 39th of the season, a two-run drive off Heath Hembree, in the bottom half to put the Blue Jays back up 8-6, but it was another lead they couldn’t hold.
What remains now for the Blue Jays are questions, serious ones, as they fight through their worst stretch since dropping eight of 11 May 7-18.
“We’re fine,” said Sanchez. “This is the beginning of September, there are a lot of games left, there are a lot of in-division games left not only with us but also with the four other teams playing each other, they can help us out. We understand what we’ve got to do. It’s coming to the ballpark and figuring out what it takes to win ballgames. I know these guys aren’t worried, it’s just a little rough patch and we’re glad to hit it now and not in late September. We’ve got to pick some things up and you guys will see it.”
In possession of a wild card spot, within range of the Red Sox, the Blue Jays still control their own fate, but if they don’t get things going soon they won’t for much longer.