NEW YORK – Attrition is inevitable over the course of a baseball season and with Brett Cecil headed to the disabled list and Brett Lawrie day-to-day after getting struck on the left hand by a pitch, the Toronto Blue Jays continue to have their depth and mettle tested.
More injuries, even one that may not cause a prolonged absence as it seems in Lawrie’s case, is the last thing a team that has lost eight of its past 11 outings after Wednesday night’s 7-3 setback to the New York Yankees needs at the moment.
The Blue Jays offence was already thinned out by Adam Lind’s day-to-day status with a bone bruise in his right foot, Juan Francisco’s extended slump and the need to play Munenori Kawasaki at second base right now. Taking Lawrie away – even after Colby Rasmus returned from the disabled list with an RBI single that provided a short-lived 2-1 lead in the fourth – would make the lineup even easier to manage.
While it’s on the heart of the order to pick things up – as manager John Gibbons noted before the game, they’re the ones who must do the heavy lifting – the amount of damage they can cause gets curtailed when the bottom of the lineup isn’t helping to set the table.
The pressure on opposition pitchers simply isn’t the same.
"That’s baseball, it’s not like it happens to just us," Gibbons said of the injuries. "You deal with it and if you’re good enough, that’s why teams are successful, they get through those things, somebody steps in and does the job.
"That’s what you’ve got to do."
A little steadfastness in the face of adversity will surely go a long way, but what they really need is some offence. The Blue Jays have scored only 24 runs over the last 11 contests and that rut is increasing the burden on the pitching staff to put up as many zeroes as possible.
Case in point was Mark Buehrle on Wednesday.
More often than not six innings of three-run ball would be good enough for a win, but one mistake to Brian McCann that resulted in a dinky two-run homer in the fourth – right after the Blue Jays took a 2-1 lead in the top half – was too much for the offence to overcome.
"I feel like overall I pitched pretty good," Buehrle said. "I gave up a fly-ball-to-right-field-two-run homer and we end up losing the game. Same thing (Tuesday), we lost on a little 318 foot fly ball that ends up going out. These are the dimensions of the stadium, obviously, you’ve got to play with it, but it’s frustrating when you come out and battle and pretty much two losses over that short little porch in right field.
"We’re struggling to score runs, we come out and take the lead and I came out and give it right back up. That’s the frustrating part."
The Yankees blew things open in the seventh when they loaded the bases with one out against Chad Jenkins before Cecil, feeling unsteady on the left groin he tweaked Friday in Baltimore, walked in one run and three more came in on McCann’s triple past a diving Rasmus in centre.
Cecil managed to escape the frame but didn’t look right, and said after the game he was going to the disabled list. No corresponding move was announced.
"It’s not really pain but it was just real uncomfortable to pitch," said Cecil, who said tightness in his groin increased with each pitch he threw. "You start doing things you’re not normally doing and you hurt something else. It’s probably the best thing right now."
The Blue Jays scratched out a run in the eighth on back-to-back doubles by Melky Cabrera and Jose Bautista, the latter a clever chopper down the first-base line that capitalized on what the opposition was giving him, but any thoughts of a bigger rally were quickly snuffed out by the hulking Dellin Betances.
The victory moved the Yankees (37-33) to within 2.5 games of the Blue Jays (41-32) for the AL East lead and should they complete a sweep Thursday when Drew Hutchison starts against David Phelps, the outlook for both teams will have shifted dramatically over the past week.
Remember, bad things happen to the Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium, where they’ve now lost 15 consecutive games in what’s become their new house of pain.
"That’s a mystery, who knows why," Gibbons said. "Our offence has gone silent the past couple of weeks, it really has. But you’ve got to keep battling, they don’t let you up."
Lawrie was hit on the bottom of the left hand – the same one broken by another HBP in 2011 – by Chase Whitley in the fourth inning, helping set up Dioner Navarro’s RBI single, and his coming around on Rasmus’s base hit. He played the field in the bottom of the frame, and came out of the game in the fifth.
X-Rays were negative, and he hoped to be ready Thursday, although that may be unrealistic.
"It’s not too bad, it’s just a little sore, obviously, swelling in there, but for the most part it’s all right," said Lawrie, who was just getting over being hit on the top of the left hand in Baltimore over the weekend. "I feel I should be able to go when I get up (Thursday). We’ll see how it feels once I grab a bat and stuff."
The Blue Jays need him, and others, to come in feeling good Thursday. They’re going to need the hands of everyone to help seal the tiny cracks appearing in their foundation.