Blue Jays must keep pushing as big-picture decisions loom

With two base-runners on and two outs in the bottom of the 10th, Aledmys Diaz connected on a slider to drive in Teoscar Hernandez for the winning run and hand the Blue Jays a 4-2 victory over the Orioles.

TORONTO – The challenge for Toronto Blue Jays players in these dark times is to block out the growing negativity that surrounds them, avoid the standings and the grim conclusions they offer, and find ways to believe a happier ending remains possible, playoff odds be damned.

Really, at the clubhouse level there’s no alternative but to keep on pushing, to not let seven weeks of losing sap the will to compete, even as the bigger-picture decisions about the club’s immediate and longer-term future take place in the offices above them.

To this point, as bleak as things have been, the compete by and large has been there, even as byproducts of extended struggle – mental errors, not running out balls, poor body language – have seeped into their play.

They’re doing the best they can with what they have, which is the only way for players to stay sane amid the daily gut punches baseball’s cruelly relentless grind keeps throwing at them, and as the walls close in around them.

Still, maintaining the semblance of composure only gets harder the longer their current slide continues. A four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles certainly seemed like an opportunity for a respite, and against a substantially worse roster there came a break, a three-run rally in the ninth setting the stage for Aledmys Diaz’s walk-off single in the 10th inning of a 5-4 win Thursday night.

“The way things have been going,” said manager John Gibbons, “you didn’t see that coming.”

The comeback certainly did come out of nowhere as the Blue Jays (27-35) were on the verge of squandering a solid outing from Jaime Garcia, who fought through blister issues to allow one run over six innings in the club’s fourth straight quality start.

A two-run Randal Grichuk double – taken the other way with two strikes – and Kevin Pillar RBI single erased a 4-1 deficit in the ninth before they came back to win for just the sixth time in their past 23 games.

“Any time you’re not playing well a big comeback win late does a lot to the team, it feels great,” said Grichuk. “You hear it in this clubhouse, the guys are going crazy. That’s the kind of stuff that carries over and you create winning streaks from that.”

You also create winning streaks against teams like the Orioles (19-42), not that the Blue Jays are in position to take any team for granted. They’re 14-29 since sitting a season-best seven games over .500 at 13-6 on April 20, and they’re now 5-13 since a team meeting May 18, in the hours before a 3-1 loss to the Oakland Athletics.

“We haven’t put our heads down,” Diaz said through interpreter Josue Peley. “We know it’s a long season, we know we have to grind and it feels great to have a win like that. Hopefully it will keep going.”

[snippet id=3966765]

A focus at that meeting was on continuing to grind out games, to not try and correct weeks of struggle in a night, to see each game as an opportunity to turn around the season, and failing to do that, to see the next day in the same way.

The Blue Jays often look that way at the beginning of games, but the longer things go without positive results, the more they start looking tense, as if they feel the burden of the cumulative struggles.

“As tough as things have been, one thing I know about the guys is they show up, they don’t quit,” Gibbons said. “Sometimes things look ugly. But I know what’s going on inside their heads and inside their guts. Obviously we desperately needed that, if you want to know the truth. Maybe that will get us rolling a little bit. We’ll see.”

A Manny Macahado sacrifice fly in the first off Garcia put the Blue Jays in an early hole, but Curtis Granderson’s leadoff homer in the bottom of the inning immediately got them level.

Things flatlined for them afterwards, as they wasted a Grichuk leadoff double in the third and ran into a double play in the fourth when Hernandez was thrown out trying to steal second as Justin Smoak struck out.

Eventually, the Orioles delivered some big blows. Austin Wynns’ first career home run, a solo shot off Tyler Clippard in the seventh inning, broke a 1-1 tie before back-to-back homers from Danny Valencia and Mark Trumbo in the eighth off John Axford seemed to push things out of reach.

But in the ninth, Luke Maile opened the inning with a walk, Diaz followed with a double, Grichuk scored them both with a double and came around himself on Pillar’s single.

They then won it in the 10th, as Hernandez opened the inning with a risky hustle double – “That’s one of those ones where you go, ‘Oh oh, ooh, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,’ and then when he’s safe you go, ‘Great play,’” quipped Gibbons — Smoak was walked intentionally and after both Kendrys Morales and Maile struck out, Diaz lined a base hit into the left-field corner.

For a change, the Blue Jays enjoyed some bedlam on the field and continued to whoop it up in the clubhouse after.

“It just shows we’re not down and out whenever most people think we are, even after the tough games and a tough stretch,” said Grichuk.

Maybe, but probably sooner rather than later shoes will begin to drop, sure to start with Gibbons before moving on to the roster. Until then all the Blue Jays can do is approach each day believing good things will happen, flushing the outcome when they don’t, seeking to build on them when they do.

[relatedlinks]

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.