In possible final Gausman start, Blue Jays can't muster Red Sox-like surge

BOSTON – The contrast at Fenway Park was palpable Sunday afternoon.

On a beautiful day for baseball, 36,795 fans watched the Red Sox continue their summer surge, winning for the 17th time in 19 games.

Meanwhile, on the visiting side, the Blue Jays’ hopes of ever going on a run to save their season diminished yet again with a 6-1 loss that was never really close.

With the loss, the Blue Jays fall back to 10 games under .500 at 48-58 and their playoff odds took another hit, falling to 7.0 per cent. Despite a strong effort from Kevin Gausman in what could prove to be his final start for the Blue Jays, the Guardians are now 5.5 games ahead of the Blue Jays for the final wild-card spot.

"It's a team that's probably the hottest team in baseball," Gausman said in a brief and candid session with the media outside the visiting clubhouse. "We came in ready for them. But yeah, it would have been nice to win in a series."

Offensively, the less said the better for the Blue Jays in this one. They avoided a shutout with a ninth-inning run while recording nine hits against an impressive Ranger Suarez and the Red Sox bullpen.

They recorded just two extra-base hits, a double by shortstop Andres Gimenez in the third inning and an Ernie Clement double in the ninth. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, this wasn’t an outlier performance either. More than 100 games into the season, they rank 30th among the 30 MLB teams in runs scored.

"We’ve got to string it together," said manager John Schneider. "We said it's a big series coming into this and they take two out of three. That's the bottom line. There were some good things, but just not enough."

Gausman did his part, holding the Red Sox to three runs on five hits over six innings while recording six strikeouts. It wasn’t the dominance we saw from Dylan Cease Saturday, but the outing was good enough to give the Blue Jays a real chance.

Afterwards, he said he felt more like himself with better command over all three of his pitches. Yet enough hits fell in for the Red Sox to build an early lead.

"I thought I pitched pretty well," Gausman said. "The way I'm going right now is everything that could be a base hit is (falling for) a base hit. So it's frustrating, but that's the way the game goes."

"Just not quite good enough," he added.

Barring any shuffles to the rotation, Gausman would line up for one more start before the Aug. 3 trade deadline and pitch at home against the Cardinals next Saturday. If that’s the way things unfold, the crowd at Rogers Centre is sure to shower the 35-year-old with well-deserved affection.

Yet, it’s also possible that the Blue Jays could trade Gausman by then or simply hold off on starting him if trade talks are intensifying by that point. In a market that’s light on starting pitching, Gausman’s likely to be coveted along with fellow trade candidates like Freddy Peralta, Reid Detmers, teammate Shane Bieber and, potentially, Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers.

Asked about how he handles the uncertainty, Gausman said it’s a little different pitching in a rival stadium than it is at Rogers Centre.

"The last one (in Toronto) I kind of tried to take advantage of the time there knowing it might be my last," he said. "But not so much on the road. I don't want to go anywhere. That would be my wish, and that would mean that we're playing good baseball. But I also realize it's a business. So whatever happens, it's kind of out of my control."

As of Sunday, there’s no need to make a final decision on what to do with Gausman and other free agents like Bieber and Daulton Varsho. But this much is already clear: for the four and a half years he’s been a Blue Jay, Gausman has embodied on-field excellence and accountability while connecting deeply with the team’s wide fan base.

From his Blue Jays debut against the Rangers in April of 2022 to Game 6 of the World Series to this outing in Boston, Gausman has been an exemplary teammate and performer. If the 2026 Blue Jays remain a last-place team, it certainly won’t be on him.

After Gausman’s departure, Braydon Fisher got into some trouble and Brendon Little entered, allowing a pair of doubles that put the game well out of reach.

"They didn't execute very well," Schneider said. "Just plain and simple as that, especially when they were ahead in the count."

From here the Blue Jays go to Washington, where they’ll play three against the upstart Nationals before returning home. Max Scherzer will rejoin the rotation Monday, facing the team with which he won two of his three Cy Young Awards. Those in uniform continue to preach a one-day-at-a-time mentality, and fair enough. What else can they say?

But it’s one thing to talk about going on a run like the Red Sox. As it turns out, it’s quite another matter to make it happen.