BOSTON – The danger for a team making things up as it goes along – precisely what the Toronto Blue Jays have been doing for some time now – is that additional concerns emerge once forced improvisation has already left the roster exposed.
Josh Donaldson’s departure from Monday afternoon’s 8-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox with left calf tightness coupled with Aaron Sanchez surrendering a career-high seven earned runs certainly qualify in that regard, two more potential flash points for a club unequipped for more fires.
The Blue Jays are already into their second week without a natural shortstop on the roster and over the past four games, have started their everyday catcher at both shortstop and left field, used a starting pitcher acquired in the final week of spring training and had Plan C close out games for them with Plan A on administrative leave and Plan B having blown a couple of games.
Combine all that with a lineup that’s almost collectively cooled in recent weeks, and you have some root causes behind the Blue Jays’ inability to win consecutive games since claiming three straight April 29-May 1.
Donaldson’s calf tightness is especially worrisome given that over the past week he’d started to warm at the plate, going 8-for-25 with five walks in his last six games plus Monday. With no depth to lean on at this point – shortstop Aledmys Diaz is just starting a rehab assignment Tuesday at double-A New Hampshire, the Blue Jays can ill afford his absence.
“I don’t think I injured it seriously at all,” said Donaldson. “It’s a little sore right now, a little tight, we’re going to do some treatment and stuff on it and see, play it by ear, see how it responds (Tuesday) and go from there.”
Donaldson missed time with a right calf injury last year after he experienced some calf tightness in 2016 as well, but said what he felt Monday was more akin to the mild cramping he endured back in spring training. He felt it a bit throughout the game and by the time he reached first in the fifth after working his second walk of the afternoon off David Price, “I knew it wasn’t going to be a good idea for me to run hard so I was kind of protecting it a little bit.”
When Justin Smoak doubled, Donaldson ran carefully to third base, making the turn at second very cautiously, and he didn’t resist very much after trainer Nikki Huffman came on to the field to visit him.
“It’s tough,” said Donaldson, who already has a stint on the DL this season due to his shoulder troubles. “It’s definitely not fun to say the least. You’ve just got to take it day by day, not get too far ahead of myself and continue to go out there, prepare as best I can.”
The same goes for the Blue Jays if Donaldson has to go back on the DL.
As long as the front office remains committed to giving sizzling prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr., more development time at New Hampshire, that leaves the club with an array of underwhelming options at triple-A Buffalo that have already been cycled through this season – Richard Urena, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Gift Ngoepe – to choose from.
“We’d bring somebody in,” manager John Gibbons said of the possibility of being without Donaldson for long. “That’s the way the game goes. Whether you like it or not, you deal with it.”
Donaldson’s departure came the inning after Sanchez, largely effective through his first four frames, came undone in the fifth, right after the Blue Jays tied the game 1-1.
Consecutive singles by Rafael Devers and Eduardo Nunez opened the frame, and they advanced on a passed ball in which Sanchez and Luke Maile got crossed up. A Brock Holt sac fly made it a 2-1 game, Jackie Bradley Jr.’s RBI double made it 3-1 and Andrew Benintendi then sent a change-up over the wall for a three-run homer that broke things open.
“That changes everything,” Sanchez said of the passed ball. “You had the double play in order and in one pitch it just gets X’d. A soft fly ball, there’s a run, it changes the whole game. That happens.”
To that point, Sanchez had allowed only a run in the first, when Devon Travis couldn’t turn a double play on a J.D. Martinez grounder, resulting in a fielder’s choice instead.
The right-hander grinded through five innings but ended up allowing a career-high seven earned runs – Martinez added a monster solo shot in the fifth – on nine hits and a walk, with four strikeouts. He was coming off five shutout innings against the Los Angeles Angels, but has alternated good and bad starts over the past month as he searches for consistency following a lost season.
“I feel like the only thing that’s going to help this is reps and I’m trying to get them,” said Sanchez. “The more and more I get deeper the better off I’ll be; it’s just a matter of getting there and as of late I haven’t been. I don’t think there was anything wrong with how I pitched today, a couple of bloops and a blast and five runs later you’re down 6-1.”
The game can change just that fast, and improvising your way through it only makes it come faster.
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