TAMPA — The physical toll of a gruelling, 162-game grind really hits at this point of the season and a team’s place in the standings can be fuel to power through, or a multiplier for the fatigue and stress. “You always feel better when you're in it, so whatever you feel, you kind of just don't feel it, because you're playing meaningful games; you try to put that on the backburner,” is the way Toronto Blue Jays ace Kevin Gausman put it. “Me and Vladdy (Guerrero Jr.) were talking, nobody feels good, but let's go. That's kind of what it is right now. Give whatever you've got.”
The Blue Jays did that more successfully in the front half than the back half of four dragging, draining days at George M. Steinbrenner Field, where they split a four-game series with the Tampa Bay Rays that was capped by Thursday’s 4-0 loss.
Under mostly cloudy skies and in a soul-sucking humidity that made it feel like 36 C, Chris Bassitt laboured through 89 pitches — 24 of them fouled off — over 4.1 innings, getting bled for three runs during the decisive three-run second inning. Relievers Eric Lauer, Braydon Fisher and Seranthony Dominguez handled the rest, which wasn’t ideal ahead of the final series in a stretch of 13 games in 13 days set to begin Friday at Kansas City.
Also not ideal is that the Cleveland Guardians beat the Detroit Tigers 3-1, keeping the Blue Jays’ magic number for clinching a post-season berth at three games, while the New York Yankees cut their lead atop the AL East to three games by beating Baltimore 7-0.
Max Scherzer starts Friday’s opener against the Royals, followed by Shane Bieber on Saturday and Trey Yesavage, coming off a sensational five-inning, nine-strikeout debut, getting the call Sunday.
No matter what they do on the mound, the Blue Jays need to get their offence back on track after a trying series in which they scored just three runs outside of a 6-5 win Tuesday night.
“They pitched us tough, not just here the last couple days, but throughout the season series,” said manager John Schneider. “They had good arms and tough to string some traffic together here. Not making excuses for the weather or the conditions or anything. They threw the ball well, didn't make many mistakes and we didn't get much going the last two days.”
The Blue Jays had only four hits in the finale and among the most frustrated hitters was Guerrero, who went 1-for-4 to cap a 3-for-17 series. It showed most during a seventh-inning strikeout, when he didn’t like a borderline called first strike, flung his bat over the Blue Jays dugout swinging through strike two and then waved at a Kevin Kelly sweeper for strike three, slamming his bat to the ground afterwards.
Guerrero rallied to single on an infield chopper in the ninth, but Bryan Baker induced an inning-ending double play from Addison Barger to close out the win.
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“I think he kind of just gave that at-bat away against against Kelly and Vlad's one swing away (from getting hot), he's one swing away, basically, all the time,” said Schneider. “It was a frustrating series for him here and he let that show a little bit. Hopefully he can get going (Friday) in KC, but he's always close. I think we kind of let things, not unravel, but kind of snowball here a little bit the last two days and Vlad wants to be right in the middle of everything we're doing.”
The Rays, meanwhile, pressured Bassitt in the first and came up empty before getting to him with two outs in the second, as a Chandler Simpson bloop single plated two runs and a Brandon Lowe grounder just beyond Ernie Clement’s reach made it 3-0.
Bassitt worked his way into the fifth, where he needed Lauer to finish the frame, while the lefty gave up Carson Williams’ solo shot in the sixth. An 11-pitch at-bat versus Jake Mangum in the second, along with eight- and seven-pitch duels with Josh Lowe in the first and third innings helped drive up his pitch count.
“There's really no adjustment because they're not really hitting the ball,” said Bassitt. “So hopefully they make an adjustment to put the ball in play. Overall, it is what it is.”
On a day in which the most notable development for the offence was Anthony Santander’s home run during his rehab assignment at triple-A Buffalo, that was too much to overcome.
That homer, his second on rehab, came from the right-handed side of the plate against Scranton/Wilkes-Barre’s Jayvien Sandridge and left the bat at 111.5 m.p.h. It also featured a 41.61-second home run trot, so slow that Schneider actually checked with Blue Jays medical director Andrew Pipkin to ensure the slugger was OK.
“Didn't waste any energy there,” Schneider quipped. “He was just kind of fatigued, generally tired from playing a lot of games. … I'm not doing everything off of exit velo and bat-speed stuff, but that's encouraging. For not having that many at-bats or reps right-handed, to see him hit the ball like that was good.”
The Blue Jays planned to huddle with Santander to set a plan for the weekend, with the Bisons heading into their final three games of the year. A group of stay-ready players will remain in Buffalo in case injury reinforcements are needed, while Santander could get some at-bats in Toronto next week to test where he’s at ahead of the post-season.
Even without the workload of other Blue Jays, his struggles to overcome a shoulder injury means Santander is feeling the toll like everyone else. Bassitt, who had a five-inning outing in his previous start when he admitted that he wasn’t feeling great, said this time that he was, “fine.”
“No one feels good this time of year,” he added. “So, yeah, fine.”
The possibilities of October help see to that.
