TORONTO — In Patrick Corbin’s last start, on Saturday at Wrigley Field, his struggles were overshadowed by a late-inning Toronto Blue Jays’ comeback victory over the Chicago Cubs.
On Friday, however, the dramatics fell just short and weren’t enough to mask the left-hander’s performance.
Corbin dug an early hole, and while the Blue Jays staged a late rally, they ultimately fell, 5-4, to the Texas Rangers in front of 41,689 at Rogers Centre. The loss extended Toronto’s losing streak to four games, and after nearly returning to the .500 mark earlier this week, the club’s record has dropped to 39-43.
Although Friday’s loss shouldn’t be pinned completely on Corbin — the Blue Jays’ offence didn’t come alive until too late — there’s no denying that the veteran’s inconsistency in June has hurt the club.
Corbin walked Wyatt Langford to open the contest against the Rangers, then hit Josh Jung before Brandon Nimmo ripped a run-scoring double to right field. Justin Foscue and Ezequiel Duran added RBI singles to put the Rangers up 3-0 and the visitors added to that lead in the third inning, when Foscue belted a two-run homer.
“A lot of deep counts,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “A lot of foul balls, a lot eight, nine-pitch at-bats and that kind of adds up.”
In total, Corbin allowed the five runs on seven hits while lasting just 4.1 innings on 94 pitches to continue a troubling trend. He hasn’t completed five innings since June 3 and over his five starts this month, Corbin’s surrendered 19 runs on 30 hits across 19.2 innings.
Those results have led to four Blue Jays’ losses and Corbin’s abbreviated outings have placed a continual tax on the bullpen.
“It's just tough to not go deep in games,” Corbin said. “It feels like I'm looking up and I'm at 60-70 pitches already in the third, which is just tough.”
Corbin will need to figure things out because there’s no clear, immediate replacement for the 36-year-old in the Blue Jays’ rotation. Right-hander Max Scherzer was set to receive a cortisone shot in his back on Friday in Texas and is likely weeks away from rejoining the club. And so, unless the Blue Jays decide to resort to more bullpen games or turn to minor-leaguers like Chad Dallas or CJ Van Eyk, Corbin will continue to receive starts.
The Blue Jays’ rotation depth, an enviable strength in spring training, has since been whittled down and that’s why general manager Ross Atkins recently identified the rotation as the team’s biggest area of need ahead of the trade deadline.
The Blue Jays have worked with Corbin on trying to end at-bats “a little bit earlier,” by trying to induce weak contact like pop-ups or groundouts instead of strikeouts, according to Schneider.
Corbin said he’s trying to accomplish that and noted that on Friday, he made the adjustment of increasing his slider usage. That didn’t resolve things, though, and he’ll have to refine his approach between starts.
“Just some long at-bats,” said Corbin. “Made some pitches they fought off and then eventually just maybe leave one a little too much on the plate that that finds a base hit for them.”
Meanwhile, Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi, a 36-year-old veteran of 15 seasons, had no such issues on Friday. The right-hander scattered five hits over his seven scoreless frames while walking one and striking out nine.
The Blue Jays were able to get to the Texas bullpen, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s two-run, opposite-field single and Kazuma Okamoto’s two-run homer in the eighth inning cutting the Rangers’ lead to one run and igniting the crowd.
It was Okamoto’s second homer in as many days, with his ninth-inning homer on Thursday also bringing the Blue Jays to within one run.
Yet, in both cases, closer Jacob Latz secured the victory for the Rangers (40-42), leaving the Blue Jays with questions to ponder.
“It's the same game as yesterday with the same bad ending,” said Schneider.
Kevin Gausman’s rough start on Thursday also put the Blue Jays in an early deficit that they couldn’t recover from.
“You get down five, it's tough to come back,” said Schneider. “The guys are doing it, they did it again tonight, which is a credit to the offence. Big swing from Vlad, big swing from Kaz, who seems to be riding a pretty good heater right now.
“And then just didn't get one more big hit,” he continued. “It's a tough ask to come out from five or come back from six.”
