TORONTO — As each loss nudges the Toronto Blue Jays closer to the type of subtraction deadline they’re seeking to avoid, their growing challenge is in finding their game amid the increasing urgency of the moment.
Manager John Schneider hit on that theme after Sunday’s 3-0 loss to the Chicago White Sox, saying that he didn’t want to put more pressure on his players but they needed to turn things around soon, and the start of a four-game series Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays only amplified that push and pull.
The American League East leaders rolled in on a five-game losing streak after dropping four straight to the surging Boston Red Sox out of the break, yet it was the Blue Jays who played tight in a 7-1 loss. Over the course of the latest disappointing nine innings, lowlighted by three errors and missed chances at the plate, small plays made or not compounded into a one-sided result in a way that mirrors their season.
At 46-54, they hit a new low at eight games under .500, and their run differential, now minus-51, suggests that they’re actually one game better than their expected record. Their playoff odds, meanwhile, another objective measure, are increasingly bleak, down to a season-low 12 per cent, according to Fangraphs, after they fell 5.5 games back in the wild-card race.
Opportunity remains to play themselves back from the brink, but the degree of difficulty keeps rising by the day, a bigger picture that can make winning the day all the more difficult.
“The push and pull is like, OK, recognize that, but if you let it kind of swallow you up, then you don't play to the capabilities that we can play to,” Schneider said before the game. “It's hard because it's like, yeah, every game, every play, every at-bat is important, but at the same time, you don't want guys to play tense. So there is a little bit of back and forth and it's a big four-game series, but it's a big one-game series today.
“That's kind of what I told them today in the hitters' meeting,” he continued, “where, you know what, if we lose today, we're going to play tomorrow. We have a roof, it's not going to be rained out, we are going to play. You have to just focus on today and figure out what's important to try to beat (Nick) Martinez and the Rays. It's tough, but they all understand the urgency part of it. But 7:07, you've got to just go into compete mode.”
They tried, but the Rays pushed and pushed and pushed their way to a lopsided win. Victor Mesa Jr.’s solo shot in the second off Dylan Cease, the first homer he’s allowed since May 24, opened the scoring. A Taylor Walls double followed by Cease’s errant pickoff throw led to Jonathan Aranda’s RBI single in the third. Errors by Kazuma Okamoto and Andres Gimenez and a Yandy Diaz caught-the-defence-napping stolen base led to two more runs in the fifth, right after Alejandro Kirk’s RBI single in the fourth had pulled the Blue Jays back into the game.
Given their current offensive struggles — they’ve scored only twice in the last three games — each run against becomes all the more daunting, which can lead to errors defensively. But Schneider instead credited the Rays for forcing mistakes, offering them the type of compliment rivals gave his club a year ago.
“The way that the Rays play puts pressure on you,” he said. “They do all the little things pretty well, whether it's getting a bunt down, stealing a base. We talked about it before the series, we know they're going on contact, and it forces you to be perfect. At other times in the year? Yeah. I don't think so today. It's the fact that we know how they play and they make you play fast.”
On the flip side, the Blue Jays' offence isn’t applying similar pressure. And symbolic of the wider struggle was Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s third-inning bid for his first home run in Toronto this season, a promising drive to the left-field wall that nestled into Chandler Simpson’s glove 351 feet away, the slugger slamming his helmet into the turf after.
“He wants to be the guy. That part I appreciate,” said Schneider. “And I've got a lot of confidence that he will be the guy. … He's frustrated like we're frustrated. I have no problem with him showing it every now and then. The dude's been everything we could have asked for his entire career here. So I think that kind of just speaks for everyone right now, that level of frustration. But it's a chance to start over tomorrow.”
It is, but the Blue Jays are running out of tomorrows before they need to pick a lane ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline. For the time being, they can operate on dual tracks, exploring what opportunities there are to add and subtract and wait until very late to act, giving their roster as much time as possible to try and get hot like the Red Sox, who looked dreadful when the Blue Jays swept them June 16-18 at Fenway Park but are now on a 14-game win streak.
With no pressure to shed payroll, they don’t need to sell off their expiring contracts, so they’ll need to be enticed by the return to diminish their on-field product. And while they’ll consider trades for now players under contract beyond this season, only a quick and substantial turnaround would force them to consider rental reinforcements.
So, all those bigger dynamics loom over the on-field challenges the Blue Jays face, which is what makes an already difficult task all the more complicated. While the Red Sox offer an example of how quickly things can turn, making it happen here requires them to balance the need to play loose with the urgency to perform as the end of the runway nears.
How do they navigate that tall order?
“It's a good question, I wish I had an exact answer to it,” Daulton Varsho said after Sunday’s setback. “You've just got to go through it. I mean, we're grinding, this group. Everybody's feeling it. You've just got to trust each other, pick each other up when you need to. It's sombre. So it's just like lighten the mood, you've got to find joy in the day and go out there and enjoy baseball.”
Added Cease: “It's just frustrating when it doesn't really feel like we're giving teams our best bullets. At the end of the day, we just have to let go of the past and show up tomorrow ready to play.”
As they try to keep their season from sliding further to the brink, there’s no other alternative.
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