BOSTON — Four days of shiver-inducing freeze made simply staying loose, let alone gripping a baseball, swinging a bat or besting an opponent, hard. Yet amid the miserable conditions and a correlated power outage at the plate, the Toronto Blue Jays found a way to win three straight and were on the verge of their second ever four-game sweep of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, the only one coming June 2-5, 1988, before falling short.
A wild finish in Thursday evening’s 4-3 finale kept them from their second four-game win streak of the young season, as they rallied back from a 1-0 deficit with an opportunistic two-run seventh, surrendered the advantage in the eighth on two errors and a wild pitch, retook the lead in the top of the 10th on a George Springer sacrifice fly, but let it slip away in the bottom half on Jarren Duran’s RBI single and Trevor Story’s run-scoring groundout, which Andres Gimenez couldn’t field cleanly enough for an out at home.
And some frustration with home-plate umpire Manny Gonzalez’s zone, especially in the latter part of the game, gave the ending a little extra heat amid a wind-chill dipping toward freezing point.
“I thought he did his part,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said of reliever Nick Sandlin, who saved Wednesday night’s win but couldn’t close out Thursday’s follow-up. “It’s tough to battle nine hitters and an umpire. I got all the respect in the world for him. But it wasn't a great day for him behind the plate.”
Sandlin, covering with Jeff Hoffman down after two innings Wednesday, looked to be in good shape when Tyler Heineman threw out Duran trying to seal after his game-tying base hit, but a Rafael Devers single followed by pitches that hit Alex Bregman and Triston Casas loaded the bases and set up the fateful groundout.
The disappointing end came after a remarkable turn of the rotation – with Chris Bassitt, who fought through tightness on the right side of his neck, adding 5.2 innings of one-run ball to the dominant performances by Jose Berrios, Easton Lucas and Kevin Gausman in the three games previous – extending a strong run out of the gate for the starting staff.
“They played their asses off. We pitched so well. It's tough to hit in these conditions. (Boston starter Walker) Buehler was really good today. And guys were expecting to win ... just didn't go our way,” said Schneider. “I love the way we're playing and we're still not even clicking yet offensively. But the pitching staff as a whole, this series, really stepped up. And they were they were outstanding.”
Given how hard runs have been to come by for the Blue Jays, the pitchers have had to be.
The lineup managed a mere three extra-base hits across 166 plate appearances in the four games, underlining the way they’re just scraping by, entering play tied with Kansas City for the fewest homers in the majors at six.
The six homers are also a franchise low through 14 games, yet they’re still 8-6 as they head to Baltimore for a three-game set versus the Orioles starting Friday.
“I know we have them. We have homers. Homers are things that come, they come in streaks, they come in bunches,” said Bo Bichette, who drove a couple balls during the series that probably clear the fence in warmer conditions. “Good teams, good players are able to hit and be productive when they're not there. We've done that.”
Bregman’s RBI single off Bassitt in the sixth opened the scoring but the Blue Jays responded immediately in the seventh on Heineman’s RBI single and a run-scoring fielder’s choice by Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who entered the game a pinch-hitter.
The lead held until the eighth when pinch-hitter Rob Refsnyder reached on an error by Will Wagner at third to open the inning against lefty Brendon Little, who walked Duran before rallying to strike out Devers, ending his outing.
In came Yimi Garcia, who induced a grounder to third which the Blue Jays couldn’t turn two on, and a wild pitch to Casas, the next batter, allowed Refsnyder to score, with a Garcia error on the relay moving Bregman to third.
Garcia got Casas to end that jam and then escaped another in the ninth, when Story opened the inning with a single stole second and was left there.
Bassitt quipped that he was “part of the grandpa club” because his neck spasmed while watching the series opener Monday, when it was 2 C on the field amid a persistent mist that chilled the air further.
“It was just awkwardly tight for a couple days,” he said, but team medical staff helped loosen it up enough for him to pitch and while he had trouble finishing his pitches, he still held the Red Sox to five hits and a walk with five strikeouts.
“The biggest thing for a starting pitcher is always just give your team a chance to win and I think we're doing a really good job of that one through five,” said Bassitt. “As long as we're keeping our team in the ballpark we're going to win a lot of games. It obviously sucks losing today, but it's very exciting for us knowing how well we're playing and I feel like we have the capabilities of being a lot better.”
More runs are key to that and while the Blue Jays at .246 are 14th in average while hitting with runners in scoring position, they’re 26th in slugging at .284, making big innings harder to come by.
That they’re 16th in the majors with 52 runs in spite of that is a result of being “tough outs, one through nine,” said Bichette. "That's been our goal from spring training, be the toughest outs we can be every day, knowing that we can get things done whether we're on fire or not. We've shown that we can make things happen … and I think that we should hang our hats on that every day.”
Bassitt described it as “scrapping out wins that pretty much no one wants to be a part of,” through the relentless cold, biting wind and, on Monday, a swirling mist.
“It's definitely not fun playing in the wind chill and things like that,” said Bassitt. “Obviously the offence is going to be a lot more explosive, I think, in the future. We're winning games kind of the gritty way. The more and more games you can win that way, just grinding guys out, grinding at-bats, when the offence truly starts clicking, watch out, because, if you keep that mindset, it's going to be really tough.”
They were that in a steely series win in Boston, which was a blueprint for the toughness they’ll need to make a habit in the months to come.
