TORONTO – At the outset, a clarification on the Toronto Blue Jays’ record within the American League East, which is really a product of struggles against the Baltimore Orioles, to whom they just lost a third series, and the Boston Red Sox, whom they are winless against and face next. Their 3-4 records against each of the Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees to this point really aren’t the problem, although with nothing but those two teams over the final two weeks of the season, there’s certainly the potential for a pitfall.
But a 6-1 loss Thursday afternoon to the Orioles left the Blue Jays 2-8 versus the AL East leaders, which when combined with an 0-for-7 so far against Boston, does the work in their 8-23 mark within the division. Without a correction this weekend at Fenway Park, the Blue Jays (60-50) could lose their grip on the third wild-card spot to the Red Sox (57-51), now only two games back.
Pretty wild, especially when you consider that the Blue Jays are 2-15 against Baltimore and Boston, and 58-35 against the rest of baseball. The incongruity there is hard to fathom and while baseball sure can be weird – remember the 16-3 dominance of the Red Sox a year ago? – this seems extreme even by small-sample-size randomness standards.
“I mean, if I had an answer for you, we probably wouldn’t be in this situation,” Kevin Gausman, grinded out for three runs on eight hits and two walks in 4.1 innings, said of how he’s wrapping his head around the disparity. “Both (Baltimore and Boston) have a good amount of young guys that I think are OK with really diving into an approach and listening to a hitting coach and not trying to do too much. Maybe that’s why. I don’t know. We played really well against Red Sox last year so they’re probably gunning for us this year. I don’t know.”
Tied within that mind-bending mess is the way Ryan Mountcastle continues to decimate the Blue Jays at a level that no other hitter with at least 150 plate appearances against them ever has.
The first baseman has a career OPS of 1.054 in 208 plate appearances against the Blue Jays – ahead of Mike Trout’s 1.032 (322 PAs), Michael Brantley’s 1.009 (226 PAs), Mike Easler’s 1.007 (150 PAs) and Matt Stairs’ 1.005 (237 PAs) among players beyond that cutoff – after adding four more hits and another RBI to his tally.
Over the four-game series this week, he was 11-for-13 with four doubles, six RBIs, five runs and three walks. Only former Red Sox outfielder Mike Greenwell, with 12 knocks in a 1991 clash, has had more hits in a single series against the Blue Jays.
“I’m going to put a massive Rogers Centre banner in his locker just to remind him of what it feels like to hit here,” said Orioles manager Brandon Hyde. “There’s some intent in that swing. If he can swing the bat somewhat like this the rest of the way, we’re in good shape.”
To further put his numbers against the Blue Jays into context, Mountcastle has now faced the Blue Jays 49 times in 402 career games, 12 per cent of his big-league workload, producing 16 per cent of his hits in the majors, 64 of 395, 20.5 per cent of his home runs, 15 of 73, and 17 per cent of his RBIs, 42 of 246.
When the 26-year-old from Winter Springs, Fla., becomes arbitration-eligible for the first time this fall, a good chunk of his production versus the Blue Jays will be getting him paid.
“Maybe it just lines up with when I’m hitting well or whatnot, I don’t know,” Mountcastle said. “They’ve got a good staff over there and I just laid off some good pitches and got the good ones to hit.”
His production is such that Blue Jays players reaching first base have “tried to touch my jersey and rub it off on them,” he replied sheepishly when asked if he’s heard some good chirps from his rivals. “That’s about it.”
The consistency with which he’s done damage stands in stark contrast to how hard everything seems to be for his hosts when facing the Orioles.
Their only run Thursday came on a Vladimir Guerrero Jr., RBI single plopped into right field, a rally made possible only when Kevin Kiermaier slid in safely at second base on a force play, initially being called out only for that to be overturned on review.
That made it a 3-1 game but Jack Flaherty, making his Orioles debut after being acquired at the deadline from the St. Louis Cardinals, struck out Matt Chapman and got Alejandro Kirk on a fly out to left to keep the score there.
The Orioles proceeded to add on runs in the eighth and ninth innings and are now 7.5 games up on the Blue Jays atop the AL East. They have one series remaining, Aug. 22-24 at Baltimore.
“We’ve got a pretty good record of playing winning teams well,” said Hyde. “It starts on the mound – look at what Flaherty did today – we got really good starting pitching in this series, we’ve got a couple of guys in back end of the bullpen that have done a great job all year so if we can score enough runs, we feel pretty good about it. I think our record against above .500 teams (46-35) speaks for itself and we feel like we can play with anybody.”
Gausman, starting on an extra day of rest thanks to Hyun Jin Ryu’s return to the rotation, came out of the gate with his A stuff, getting up to 97.7 m.p.h. while striking out both Adley Rutschman and Anthony Santander in a bossman first.
But the Orioles began wearing him down during a 41-pitch second with Mountcastle – obviously – playing the role of catalyst with a one-out single. Adam Frazier, another thorn in the Blue Jays’ side, followed with a single as did Austin Hays, bringing in Mountcastle to open the scoring.
After a Ramon Urias walk and Ryan McKenna strikeout, a Rutschman base hit to right made it 2-0 before a strong thrown home from Daulton Varsho in left nailed Hays at the plate to end the frame.
Gausman recovered with a clean third, escaped a bases-loaded jam unscathed in the fourth and then found himself in trouble again in the fifth, when he left men on the corners and one out. In came Bowden Francis to face Mountcastle, who promptly lined a ball to deep right to easily score Gunnar Henderson for a 3-0 Orioles lead.
Mountcastle then added base hits in the seventh and ninth innings, and is batting .267/.307/.473 with 13 homers and 49 RBIs in 78 games overall.
“If you look at the scoreboard and the numbers look like they look and then I think against us, it gets turned up a notch,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “You can say that about a lot of different hitters against a lot of different teams, our hitters included against other teams as well. Maybe it’s something here in Toronto that he likes, whether it’s Tim Hortons or some poutine or the backdrop here, who knows. But yeah, he had a really good series and he’s a good player. Part of it is mis-execution and part of it is him being really comfortable.”
The Blue Jays, on the other hand, not as comfortable, dropping three of four, down Bo Bichette, heading into Fenway Park to face an opponent they’ve yet to beat, their hold on a playoff spot on the line. They still have two months remaining in this weird season to keep pushing for those numbers to normalize, for sense to be found within the senseless.
