Blue Jays start key stretch with late letdown against league-worst A’s
The coming schedule offers chances for the Toronto Blue Jays to make a push up the standings before the all-star break. But that will require beating below-average teams, something Toronto couldn’t do on Friday against the lowly Oakland A’s.
TORONTO — As similar as the core of the 2023 Toronto Blue Jays is to the clubs of the previous two years, it’s also fairly apparent nearly halfway through this season that the current team is also pretty different. They definitely defend better. They definitely run more often. Though the batting lines between this year and last are nearly identical, they certainly feel less explosive at the plate. Not coincidentally, the Blue Jays of 2021 and 2022 had a pretty clear identity as a slug-centric group with enough pitching to be a threat, but now?
“I think we’re still finding it a little bit, we’re still finding our way,” said Matt Chapman, the star third baseman who is a driving force on the field and in the clubhouse. “We’re in a good spot but we’re starting to figure out what’s going to take us over to make that next step, what’s going to allow us to have a sustainable version of winning. When you start to figure out how you can play as a team and how you can find ways to sustain winning is when you start to get hot.”
A two-week stretch of games that provides ample opportunity for the Blue Jays to accomplish all of the above began Friday with a 5-4 loss to the Oakland Athletics, the worst team in baseball by a wide margin, settled on Shea Langeliers’ ninth-inning solo shot off Jordan Romano.
Starter Chris Bassitt, looking to bounce back after a pair of rough outings, gave up a three-spot in the first highlighted by JJ Bleday’s two-run shot, cruised through the next three innings as the Blue Jays spotted him a slim lead, and then surrendered a Bleday sacrifice fly in the fourth that tied the game 4-4.
The Blue Jays did all their damage in the third as back-to-back doubles by Danny Jansen and Kevin Kiermaeir cut into a 3-0 deficit and eventually Vladimir Guerrero Jr. launched his first homer at the dome this season, a three-run shot that was also his first longball since June 4.
But from then on there was nothing for both clubs until Romano hung a middle-middle slider that Langeliers launched well beyond the left-field wall. Trevor May locked the victory down to the chagrin of 34,988 at Rogers Centre, stranding a leadoff double by Guerrero as Chapman lined out to third baseman Jace Peterson, Tony Kemp stole a base hit with a diving stab on a Whit Merrifield soft liner and Daulton Varsho flew out to left.
Between going 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position and a throwing-hands-up strike zone where “it was a ball, ball and a half off (the plate) that were getting called,” in the words of manager John Schneider, it made for another confounding result.
“Every night it seems like someone has a question about a strike zone,” continued Schneider. “And that’s not an excuse. You’ve got to be consistent with (an approach) and you’ve got to trust that strikes are strikes and balls are balls. If you get into battle mode, you get into battle mode. But if we can get the ball in the box and take good swings on it, we’re going to be just fine. I don’t think that was the total issue tonight. Some of it is being a little bit more contact-oriented when you need to be.”
The current stretch for the Blue Jays, who had won two straight coming in, also includes series against San Francisco, Boston, the White Sox and Detroit. So far this season, they’ve really made hay outside the division, going 7-17 against the American League East and 34-19 versus the rest of baseball. Given the disparity, capitalizing on the current stretch is essential.
“I know what our record is outside of the AL East, that’ll be interesting to see how it plays out,” said Schneider. “But we’ve been talking about it for the last week or so where, it’s time to really just show who we are, you know what I mean? No matter who we’re playing, no matter where we’re playing, it’s kind of time to show who we are consistently. It’s just being locked in mentally for nine innings every single game.”
Part of the Blue Jays figuring out who they really are revolves around Guerrero, who looked like the best version himself through the first six weeks of the season but hasn’t been the same force since.
His 10th homer of the season is the latest sign he may be turning the corner — a 14-pitch walk in Texas last weekend seemed like another — but there have been false starts on that front, too, and the key springboard moments have yet to come to pass.
“I’m looking to try to feel comfortable at the plate, not a specific approach or mechanics,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron. “Once that happens, then I can do damage.”
Bassitt mitigated the damage against him during a messy first, although that caught up with him in a five-inning, four-run outing in which he allowed five hits and two walks. The Athletics stacked their lineup with seven lefties, the righty’s nemesis, but he managed to keep a lid on things and was much better after handing the pitch-calling reins to Jansen in the second inning.
Having surrendered 17 runs, 15 earned, over his past 11.2 innings, Bassitt plans to run with that, saying “I think I’m done calling pitches.”
“Obviously I’m struggling a little bit right now and just less is more,” he explained. “I’m not sure if I’m tipping, the way I sequence pitches, I’m not sure what’s going on right now. It’s just a matter of less is more. I think it really went well. I feel at times I’m thinking too much on the mound rather than competing. It’s a funky dynamic.”
That goes for the Blue Jays as a whole, too.
On Friday, they made some great plays in the field, including Varsho’s sliding catch on a Ryan Noda ball in foul territory in the second, Kevin Kiermaier gobbling another Noda drive in the seventh and George Springer making a diving grab on a Peterson flare in the ninth. Chapman was thrown out trying to stretch a base hit to open the second but Conner Capel had to literally be perfect to get the out and that’s the type of aggressive baseball the Blue Jays are trying to build into their DNA.
But then came the missed opportunities and too many easy innings against a team that shouldn’t have many of them.
“Just play as a team,” said Chapman. “When you start to figure out how you can play as a team and how you can find ways to sustain winning is when you start to get hot. The fact that we’re in this position we are now, still just scratching the surface of what we’re capable of, I think is a real testament to how good our guys are. You don’t want to get hot until this time of year, anyways. There’s no point to get hot at the beginning and then just fade off. We have to continue to work and we’ll get hot at the right moment.”
Perhaps finding themselves along the way, too.
