TORONTO — Trey Yesavage took a step forward during Sunday’s contest against the Chicago White Sox.
However, unfortunately for the Toronto Blue Jays, that didn’t impact the result as the team’s offence continued to sputter.
Yesavage righted himself after an outing that was marred by wildness, yet the Blue Jays couldn’t muster any runs during a 3-0 loss to the White Sox in front of 41,288 at Rogers Centre. With the loss, the Blue Jays dropped two out of three games in the weekend series and fell to 46-53 on the campaign.
Toronto now sits four games behind the third American League wild-card spot with two weeks left until the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Simply put, the team feels the sense of urgency.
“We talk about it, players talk about it,” said manager John Schneider. “We gotta start winning. That's just the bottom line. And it doesn't really matter how you do it. If you win 1-0, if you win 10-9, you gotta start winning. You got to just understand what the situation calls for every game and you got to go out and try to execute it.
“I don't want to put pressure on the guys because the season is where it is and the calendar is where it is, but you got turn it around in a hurry.”
That much is understood inside the Blue Jays’ clubhouse.
“One of those things where you got to get out of it and gotta get out of it quick,” Daulton Varsho told reporters following Sunday’s loss. “As a player, you just got to play loose. You got to trust the person behind you. That's all I can really say. I know it’s what we've been saying all year, but it's got to turn at some point. And right now, we just got to do it a little bit faster. Sooner rather than later.”
Added Yesavage: “You have to win tomorrow. There's no coming into tomorrow with the mindset possible of losing. We need to win tomorrow.”
Yesavage did his part today. Walks have been an issue for the right-hander this season and that became glaringly evident during his previous start, when he couldn't find the zone and issued seven free passes in just 1.2 innings against the San Diego Padres last week.
Following that outing, the rookie said his wildness was the result of a mechanical issue — he was leaning too far back during his delivery and that was causing his front side to fly open. Yesavage worked with the coaching staff to correct that after returning from the all-star break.
“With the unique delivery comes a lot of moving parts and making sure that they're all in sync,” Schneider said this weekend. “The fact that he's aware of it is good. It's not like we're sitting here screaming, ‘This is what you're doing.’ He felt that. He was aware of it.”
Yesavage certainly looked sharp out of the gate on Sunday as he struck out six out of the first nine hitters he faced. He ran into trouble in the fourth inning when the White Sox opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly and then again in the sixth, when Chicago shortstop Colson Montgomery launched a solo home run and right-fielder Braden Montgomery added a hard-hit RBI single that pushed the lead to 3-0.
All told though, Yesavage authored a quality start by allowing three runs on five hits over six innings. He walked just two batters and punched out nine while generating 21 whiffs, a clear indicator his mechanics and stuff were back to normal.
Perhaps most impressive, though, was that Yesavage filled up the zone. He recorded first-pitch strikes to 22 of the 24 batters he faced while 69 of his 95 total pitches were strikes (72.6 per cent).
“He was on the attack, he was locating well, kind of got them in swing mode early because he was in this zone,” said Schneider.
Under most circumstances, such a performance would be worthy of a win. But that’s not the case when a lineup is experiencing the kind of struggles the Blue Jays are going through.
The offence was shut down by White Sox starter Sean Burke, who surrendered just two hits over 6.2 frames, and remained punchless against the Chicago bullpen.
The Blue Jays put the first two runners on base in the ninth inning against Chicago right-hander Grant Taylor but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. flew out to right field and Kazuma Okamoto grounded into a game-ending double play.
“[In] some of the at-bats we were kind of playing defence a little bit as opposed to playing offence,” said Schneider.
The Blue Jays tallied just five runs during the three-game set and sit 26th in the majors in OPS (.687) and 27th in runs (397).
Sunday began on an emotional note with news of the passing of former Blue Jays pitcher Duane Ward, who died on Saturday of natural causes. The team held a moment of silence for Ward, who was an impactful reliever during his nine big-league seasons with the franchise. He was 62.
Up next is a pivotal four-game series against the AL-East leading Tampa Bay Rays, beginning Monday at Rogers Centre.
“We know they can pitch, we know they play defence, they've got three of the best hitters in the American League at the top of their order and they're not going to shoot themselves in the foot,” said Schneider. “So, we've got to come ready. We've got to come in here tomorrow with a real sense of urgency that tomorrow is the most important game of the year and then move on to the next day, that's it.”
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