TORONTO – From Marcus Stroman not being particularly sharp to the offence getting diced up by Drew Smyly, the Toronto Blue Jays certainly struggled with the big things Friday night, but it’s the lackadaisical manner in which they handled the little things that is most concerning.
An 8-0 loss to the crisp and tenacious Tampa Bay Rays made for a bitterly deflating start to a nine-game homestand, and the final tally was made far worse by poorly executed plays on the margins of the box score that let a close game slip away.
Things like Stroman not keeping tabs on Wil Myers after a leadoff walk in the fourth, allowing him to easily steal second, eventually advance to third on a wild pitch and score on Kevin Kiermaier’s two-out bloop double to open a 2-0 advantage.
Or Colby Rasmus slugglishly fielding Kiermaier’s little dunk shot and watching the firestarter burn into second base, complicating the rest of the inning for Stroman.
Or Jose Bautista nearly making a phenomenal catch on Matt Joyce’s leadoff drive in the fifth only to have it go off his glove for a leaoff double.
Or, a walk later, Danny Valencia double-clutching on James Loney’s tailor-made double play ball and delivering a late relay to Steve Tolleson, who under pressure bounced a throw to first that Edwin Encarnacion couldn’t corral. Worse, the ball trickled away and Joyce scored on the E4 to make it 3-0.
Or Tolleson fielding Joyce’s chopper in the sixth and relaying late to Jose Reyes at second rather than taking the sure out at first, leaving the bases loaded for Evan Longoria, who promptly delivered a two-run double that made it 7-0.
Whether or not better execution would ultimately have made much of a difference in the final result is open for debate – Smyly, part of the Rays return for David Price, allowed only two hits in a complete-game gem – but put it all together and the Blue Jays didn’t give themselves a chance.
A deficit of one, two, even three runs doesn’t feel insurmountable, but beyond that with Smyly – who retired 19 straight batters to end the game – pitching the way he was? Forget about it.
“I thought overall we played a lousy game,” said manager John Gibbons.
“When you fall behind like that it can suck the wind out of you. It shouldn’t, but it does,” he added later. “I figured we’d come out there with a little more energy, we didn’t have it, we made mistakes, couldn’t turn a big double play, laid back on a couple of balls, things like that. But Smyly was pretty good.”
The challenge for the Blue Jays is to ensure that a here-we-go-again mentality doesn’t set in once things start to go wrong in games, and that the weight of each loss doesn’t erode their fight as their already infinitesimal odds of reaching the post-season lengthen further.
“When you’re hot everything is going to go your way, when you’re struggling everything is going to go against you,” said catcher Dioner Navarro. “A couple of plays here and there would probably have changed the outcome of the game. They outplayed us today, they outpitched us and they outshustled us. We’ve got to come back (Saturday), we’ve got a fresh day and play a hard game, try to do our best.”
A strong performance by Mark Buehrle would help, as Stroman had a rough outing for the third time in four starts. Friday was a vast improvement over last week in Chicago, when he didn’t make it out of the first inning, but he still allowed six runs, five earned, on 10 hits and three walks in five-plus innings.
“I was just up a little bit. My sinker was pretty good, changeup wasn’t bad, some curveballs were up in the zone and they capitalized on it,” said Stroman, who attributed his recent troubles to, “a mix of things, not necessarily one thing. I’m just in a little bit of a rough stretch here, but it’s baseball, you’re going to have that. It’s not something to get discouraged about, just looking forward to the next one, put this behind me.”
Navrarro’s simple assessment: “It’s hard to pitch behind in the count.”
His advice to Stroman? “Get ahead.”
The Blue Jays’ resiliency this year and ability to milk the production they have gotten from a handful of replacement-level players has been admirable, but as Orioles manager Buck Showalter noted earlier this month, “There’s only so many of those things you can withstand.”
Timing plays a role in that, too.
The Rays took their hits early in the season with injuries to Jeremy Hellickson, Matt Moore, Alex Cobb and Ryan Hanigan, among others, and were left for dead when they fell 18 games under .500 on June 10.
They’re 39-13 since, and at 63-65, have a realistic chance of overtaking the 65-63 Blue Jays. While their post-season dreams aren’t realistic by any stretch of the imagination, they’re charging hard to the end and seeing where it takes them.
The Blue Jays need to do the same thing, but to this point there are no signs that the stupid-hot stretch they need to make a decent run is ever going to come.