TORONTO – The little blips are felt all the more intensely at this point of the season, with each little play made or not becoming increasingly magnified as the stakes rise while the games remaining decline.
A bad day here and there is going to happen, of course, no matter how good a team is, but after consecutive games in which the Toronto Blue Jays were undone by two areas of recent strength, they had plenty to lament heading into their final series of the season against the New York Yankees.
On the heels of Saturday’s 7-6 loss to the Boston Red Sox in which a two-run lead disappeared in the ninth inning, a sloppy, three-error mess led to Sunday’s 4-3 defeat, a setback more jarring in how it happened rather than in the final result.
"I don’t think we’re going to worry about it," said manager John Gibbons. "It was one of those games, (Saturday) was one of those games, we coughed up a lead late. We saw it a lot early on and it was costly, but we haven’t seen it (since the trade deadline), so I’m not going to dwell on that, I don’t think they need a speech over that, go out there, get their work in and show up tomorrow.
"It was costly today, but I’m not concerned about that by any means."
The catalyst for the go-ahead run in the eighth was a Brett Cecil error on Pablo Sandoval’s weak squib to the first base side of the pitcher’s mound, slipping just under his glove. On came Mark Lowe who after inducing a 5-3 groundout by Rusney Castillo, gave up a full-count single to Sandy Leon that put men on the corners.
Had the Red Sox been more alert, both runners might have advanced further on the play, as Jose Bautista’s throw home from right field bounced over Dioner Navarro but was collected by Lowe, who was smartly backing things up.
Jackie Bradley Jr., followed with a fly ball to centre and Kevin Pillar’s on-line throw home easily beat a tagging Sandoval, but Navarro couldn’t corral a tricky short hop that struck the edge the turf before the dirt cut-out for home plate.
There’s your final score.
"It was tough man," said Navarro. "I knew it was going to be an in-betweener, and I knew if I went to go get it I wouldn’t have time to go back and catch him so I just stood my ground and unfortunately the ball hit the lip of the (turf) and shot up at me. If the ball would have the (turf) or the dirt, I would have had a better chance. Stuff happens."
Stuff does, and their lead atop at the AL East was down to three games pending the result of Sunday night’s Yankees tilt against the cross-town Mets.
The Blue Jays dropped two of three to the Red Sox for the second straight meeting to finish the season-series against them at 9-10, but will take an 11-5 mark into Monday’s opener with New York.
"To tell you the truth I’m actually glad Boston is getting out of town," said Gibbons. "They’ve been tough on us the last few times we’ve met up. They’ve got a scrappy team, it’s a different look than earlier in the season. We play New York good, let’s hope we can continue that. … We’ve got the right guy going (Monday), hopefully get the bats going, and we should be fine."
The right guy would be David Price, and the Blue Jays certainly need him to change their fortunes after losing in such surprising fashion over the weekend, given how solid defence has been since the trade deadline.
They gave away a run in the fourth when Xander Bogaerts alertly turned for third with no one covering as David Ortiz grounded into a defensive shift, and then scored when Mark Buehrle tried to hit a running Josh Donaldson with a throw but instead bounced it into foul territory.
"I tried to be an NFL quarterback, leading a guy, and it’s not the easiest thing," said Buehrle.
The Red Sox then tied it in the fifth on Travis Shaw’s two-out, two-run single, capitalizing on a double play not turned earlier in the inning on Mookie Betts’ grounder to short. Cliff Pennington’s relay to first pulled Chris Colabello off the bag.
Ryan Goins also made a fielding error in the sixth, and while it didn’t cost the Blue Jays in terms of runs, it underlined the lack of crispness with which they played. Buehrle also didn’t get over to cover first base on Shaw’s grounder to first in the fourth, although he had to first make sure he avoided a broken bat.
"I don’t think it was a great game defensively by a lot of us," said Buehrle. "Had some double plays that could have been turned, me making that throw, Cecil didn’t field the ball, it wasn’t a very good game overall defensively. We’ve been playing outstanding defence, we were due for a clunker like this."
Making his second start since a cortisone shot into his achy left shoulder, allowed three runs over six solid innings of work, although he did need to navigate his way through base runners in all but one frame. He allowed eight hits and two walks, and is 14.2 innings away from a 15th straight season of 200 frames with two starts left.
"Location-wise overall I felt like I was good, making pitches," said Buehrle. "They were finding holes, it wasn’t like they were hitting the ball off the wall or over the fence the whole time. They were putting the ball in the right spot. That comes back to needing some luck on your side and them hitting it at our guys."
The Blue Jays built a 3-0 lead in the second inning off Rich Hill, who otherwise gave the offence fits.
Navarro ripped a two-run homer that opened the scoring and later in the inning, Kevin Pillar slid into first on weak grounder for a single, advanced to second on a Ryan Goins single and then slid in around a Leon tag on Ben Revere’s single.
"I know Hill hasn’t been in the big-leagues for so long, it’s tough when you get a new guy like that," Navarro said of the journeyman lefty making his first big-league start since last September. "You can go through all the video you want, and all the talk you want, but until you actually see it you don’t have an idea. He did a great job, he threw the ball well for him, he was mixing up his pitches really well, he did a great job."
That he did, and an attempted rally in the ninth fell short, as Justin Smoak struck out after Russell Martin’s pinch-hit, two-out double. On a day when runs were scarce, there was no way to mask the mistakes that ultimately cost the Blue Jays.