The Blue Jays dropped two of three in a crucial series with the Baltimore Orioles this week, letting Baltimore tie them for first place in the American League wild card race. That sets up a frantic final weekend, with Toronto, Baltimore, Detroit and Seattle all battling for two spots in the wild card game. But before we can look ahead to that, we must look back on a series the Blue Jays let slip away.
A good start
It all started so well as the Blue Jays cruised through the opener on the back of an excellent start by Aaron Sanchez. The right-hander struck out 10 Orioles over six strong innings, allowing just a run in what may be the final start of a remarkable season for the 23-year-old. In his first full season as a starter, Sancehz has pitched to a 3.06 ERA over 185 innings.
“A lot of my game-planning is off what my strengths are, and then you try to adjust during the game depending on the swings they’re taking,” Sanchez said of his approach facing the Orioles for the fifth time this season. “I’m always aggressive with my heater and I think the book’s out. But it’s going out there and making quality pitches because I feel like when it’s a well-executed pitch, you’ve got a pretty good chance to succeed when you’re out there. Tonight, I repeated my mechanics a lot of the night for that to happen.”
Osuna falters
The Blue Jays let one slip away in the series’ second game, as normally reliable closer Roberto Osuna blew a one-run lead in the ninth, surrendering a two-run home run to Hyun Soo Kim. The Orioles outfielder is a stubborn hitter and fouled off four pitches in the at-bat before getting a well-located fastball on the inside black that he hammered over the right field fence.
“He just got beat,” Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said of Osuna. “That kid is a tough out. Nobody knew anything about him coming into the season but we’ve been watching him all year. He’s got a great ability to foul off tough pitches to stay alive, he uses the whole field, he’s really a nice pick-up for those guys over there. He just got [Osuna].”
Lirinao strong in a losing effort
The late inning collapse was a shame as it wasted a terrific start from left-hander Francisco Liriano, who is enjoying a strong run of success late in the season. Liriano struck out 10 over 6.1 innings, allowing six hits and no runs while walking just one. He has a 2.03 ERA in six outings this month—including four starts and two relief appearances—as he’s given the Blue Jays something to think about when it comes to how they’ll structure their pitching staff in a potential postseason rotation.
“You look back at [Liriano’s] last few starts, he’s on a roll. Still has a great arm, a lot of strikeouts, his fastball is going both ways and he’s keeping it in the zone,” Gibbons said. “He has that great slider, a strikeout pitch. And he’s throwing a pretty good change-up, too. So, he’s got it all working right now. He did a super job.”
A flat effort in the finale
The Blue Jays simply couldn’t get anything started against Ubaldo Jimenez in the final game of the series, mustering just one hit against the Orioles starter in a 4-0 shutout. Marcus Stroman was serviceable, allowing four runs over seven innings, but it’s impossible to win when your team doesn’t score you any runs.
A silver lining for Stroman is that the outing pushed him over 200 innings pitched for the season, a goal he set for himself at the beginning of the year.
“It’s cool but it’s not something I’m really thinking about right now,” Stroman said. “That was one of the goals going into the year, but at this point, you need to do everything you can to keep your team in the game to win. And at the end of the day, I didn’t’ do that.”
Shipping up to Boston
The Blue Jays have now put themselves in a less than ideal situation as they head to Boston for the final three games of the season against the division champions. The Blue Jays need to win as many of those games as possible, or else they’ll be in the unfortunate situation of hoping other teams lose in order for them to qualify for the playoffs.
Jose Bautista says the team simply needs to get back to basics to start scoring runs gain.
“We just need to get back to hitting the baseball, getting on base, and knocking them in. We had seven chances today with runners in scoring position and we didn’t do that. Obviously, that falls on guys like me to drive the runs in. We’ve got to do a better job,” Bautista said. “It’s been a slow month for the offence. But for the most part we’ve been scoring enough runs. We’re 15 games over .500 and our pitching has been outstanding. So, we’ve had a very good season. Obviously, we’ve got to clean it up and get these victories that we need to secure the playoff spot. That’s it. We just have to go out there and execute better and get those wins.”