Jays continue to innovate in finding ways to lose one run games
It is an axiom of baseball that to give the opposing team a fourth out in an inning is to invite trouble. To that wisdom the 2024 Blue Jays in the 7th inning retorted: “Hold my beer, what about five outs?”. And from there, things went downhill.
But the story of this unravelling actually begins a half inning earlier. Having built a 3-0 lead and cruising towards a win, Alejandro Kirk lined a double with one out. Addison Barger followed with a routine fly ball ton right-centre on which Ceddanne Rafaela and Wilyer Abreu converged, failed to communicate, and collided with the ball falling from the latter’s glove.
Kirk was only able to advance to third on the two base error, but the Jays failed to capitalize on the gift as a pair of groundouts to short left Kirk stranded. The visitors would not be so kind in the next inning.
Making his Blue Jays debut, Eason Lucas had thrown a perfect and very efficient 6th inning on 11 pitches, and started off the 7th by getting Trevor Story to popup a 1-2 pitch behind the plate, almost to the netting. Kirk tracked it back and got underneath it, but had it bounce it off his glove for an E2.
Undaunted, Lucas got Story to chase a sweeping breaking ball for the strikeout, and the next batter easily on a comebacker. A few pitches later, he induced a popup about 185 feet down the first base line from Vaughn Grissom that Spencer Horwitz tracked, but got twisted around and overran, and had drop near him. Not an easy play, but a very makeable one. With the new lease on life Grissom drew a walk, and Lucas couldn’t get the following lefty Abreu as he too walked.
So it was Ryan Burr time. Danny Jansen hit a grounder into the hole for an infield single to load the bases, and then Rafaela smoked a two run single. to narrow the lead to 3-2. The While it was still a lead, by this point it had the feeling of one that wasn’t going to stand up. The Jays naturally followed with three straight groundouts in response.
Enter Genesis. “Let there be hits”. And there were hits. “Let there be run”. And there was a run as the Jays were separated from the lead as lightness was from darkness.* Three singles brought in the tying run before Chad Green ended the inning and after a scoreless 9th it was off to extras. Oh, for that 4th run!
*Yes, I’ve used this bit before. It’s the end of September and I’m wanting for fresh material. And how could one not with such a perfect fit, I mean, “made the dome…and called the dome sky”? Not to mention Cabrera shouldn’t even really be here at this point, but the front office has delusions aspirations of contending next year so they didn’t move him at the deadline when he probably could have brought back something useful.
To whom that the Jays turn in a high leverage critical situation? Tommy Nance, naturally (who always makes me think of John Nance Garner, FDR’s first vice president noted for describing said position as “not worth a bucket of warm [spit]”. Which in turn I then inevitably reflect is a fitting description of this year’s bullpen).
Anyway, it didn’t go well. Ernie Clement snared a liner that had go ahead single written all over it, but disaster was temporarily forestalled. After a ball Triston Casas was intentionally walked, which promptly blew up in their face as Story crushed a double off the left-centre wall to plate the Manfred Man and put Casas 90 feet away. He scored on a groundout for the critical 5-3 run, though Grissom obviated the sting of the Red Sox executed by lining a single that would have made it 6-3 anyway.
I would say the Jays deserve some credit for battling and almost pulling it out in the bottom of the inning, but I don’t feel like giving them any credit right now, so instead we’ll say the Red Sox almost gave them the game right back. Leo Jimenez smashed a double leading off to make it 6-4, and three walks sandwiched around a pair of flyouts (including one by Vladdy that really felt the key at-bat if the Jays were to comeback) made it 6-5. But Barger popped out and it was just a giant tease. You didn’t really think the Jays would win a one-run game did you?
That was the bad, but there was actually five-and-a-half really good inning that preceded it. Bowden Francis once again turned in a strong start. After the ignominy of having a no-hitter broken up by the first batter last week, this week he waited until the first batter of the second. Again it was a double, again the batter got to third with one out, and again he stranded him.
That aside, The Red Sox didn’t really threaten, with another leadoff double by Grissom stranded in place in the 5th. He was just 71 pitches after 5 innings, but managing his innings count the Jays opted to shut him down on a high note and thus his 2024 campaign belongs to the ages with an outing of 5 shutout on 3 hits, a walk and 4 strikeouts.
For the part, the Jays were feeble in three of Bryan Bello’s four innings. But in the 3rd inning, some elusive control resulted in two walks and brough Vladimir Guerrero to the palter with two out. He smashed a double off the left-centre wall for the 2-0 lead. The Jays followed a similar recipe in the 5th against Lucas Sims, drawing a leadoff walk before George Springer cranked a one out double and Nathan Lukes executed with a sac fly.
Jays of the Day: Francis (+.268 WPA), Green (+.225), Vladdy (+.144), Jimenez (+.096). Lucas comes in at +.050 and technically the last two batters walking is on him, but you can only ask a guy to mitigate so much, so he gets one too for what by all rights should have been two perfect innings.
Suckage: Nance (-.407), Cabrera (-.235), Clement (-.232), Barger (-.172), Horwitz (-.115 plus the could/should have caught popup), and Burr (-.109).
Tomorrow, the Jays will try to stave off the sweep behind the resurgent Kevin Gausman at 7:07 EDT. Can they avoid another one run loss if it comes to it? Probably not, but at least there’s Vladdy chase to 200 hits to walk.