CHICAGO — The Toronto Blue Jays didn’t allow Chris Sale to become the first pitcher to strike out at least 10 batters in nine consecutive outings, and put themselves in position to join the Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays as the only teams to beat the ace left-hander this season.
Suddenly, in what was literally an instant, a slim lead disappeared, a Jose Reyes error on a routine grounder opening the door to a decisive three-run eighth that spoiled a Mark Buehrle gem in a 4-2 loss to the Chicago White Sox.
All four runs against the veteran lefty were unearned, which is why this one really hurt.
“There’s no excuse — I need to make that play,” said Reyes. “The ball didn’t do anything. Groundball right to me, that has to be an out right there. That’s why we lost the game. Buehrle was pitching an unbelievable game. I need to make a play right there.”
The Blue Jays built a 2-1 lead on solo shots by Chris Colabello in the third and Josh Donaldson in the sixth, and combined with a handful of defensive gems were poised to open a four-game set at U.S. Cellular Field by beating one of the game’s best hurlers.
But Gordon Beckham opened the eighth with a grounder that squirted through Reyes’ legs, two outs later Adam Eaton blooped a single that put men on the corners and after Jose Abreu’s single tied things up, Melky Cabrera chopped a ball down the left-field line past a diving Donaldson for a 4-2 lead.
What happened?
“I was hitting my spots when they were putting the ball in play,” said Beuhrle. “A couple of bloopers found some holes, then I made a bad pitch on Melky, he hit it down the line, and those were the two runs that cost us. I felt good, I was hoping to get out of that inning and go back out for the ninth.”
The Blue Jays tried to give him that chance, bringing the go-ahead run to the plate in the top of the ninth but Danny Valencia hit into a double play as Sale completed another dominant effort.
The electric lefty, who screams ace in just about every way you’d imagine, collected six strikeouts in this one, ending a streak of eight straight starts in which he’d struck out at least 10 batters, a stretch that tied him with Pedro Martinez for the longest such run ever.
“The stuff he has, he should dominate guys,” said Buehrle, who helped mentor Sale before he left the White Sox after the 2011 season. “If I had that [stuff] I feel like I’d strike out 20 every game. He’s outstanding. Everyone knew coming in it was going to be a low-scoring game, we got a couple of runs there, gave us a chance to take the lead, but that’s the way he is, he shuts guys down.”
Buehrle — an ace in results, if not in prototypical mould — allowed four runs in his eight innings of work, on nine hits and no walks with two strikeouts. The other run against came in the fourth when after a Cabrera single, a bloop base hit by Avisail Garcia was fielded by Jose Bautista, who tried to throw behind him at first base after a wide turn.
Chris Colabello couldn’t come up with the throw and Cabrera scored on the E9.
Still, the mishaps were aberrations in what was otherwise a spectacularly fielded game by the Blue Jays.
The best examples of that came in the sixth, when Kevin Pillar all casual ran back to the centre-field wall and jumped to steal a homer from Tyler Flowers before Donaldson fielded the deflection of a Carlos Sanchez comebacker off the inside of Buehrle’s right ankle for a spectacular 1-5-3 putout to end the frame.
Precautionary X-Rays after the game were negative.
“It’s fine but George [Poulis] wanted to be on the safe side,” said Buehrle. “It got me pretty good, it was a little sore when it first happened. I pulled my pant leg up [after the game] and there was a pretty good knot there, bigger than I thought it would be. I’m sure it’ll be sore the next couple of days but it will be all right.”
Right after the Reyes error Bautista made a terrific sliding catch in foul territory to get Flowers, which only served to underline the strange juxtaposition of how one fluky, ill-timed error undid a night’s worth of strong plays.
“In tight ball games,” lamented manager John Gibbons, “that’s usually what happens.”
After the eighth, Buehrle gave Reyes a pat on the shoulder, trying to comfort his teammate. Over the course of 162 games, such mistakes happen. The timing of this one made it especially costly.
“To me whenever a guy makes an error you try even harder to get out of a jam because these guys are out there diving, making plays for you the whole game,” said Buehrle. “When a mistake like that happens, he didn’t try to do it, you just go up to him and say, ‘Hey, I know you didn’t mean to, I tried to pick you up, and it’s more my fault because I didn’t make pitches to get the final out of the inning.’”
Said Reyes: “I’ve been in this game a long time, I know there’s going to be a tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll try to make the play and see what happens.”
Felix Doubront starts for the Blue Jays on Tuesday when they try to rebound.