TORONTO – Brandon Belt’s placement on the 10-day injured list with lumbar spine muscle spasms sent the Toronto Blue Jays back to the batting order blender, with Spencer Horwitz in the cleanup spot followed by Davis Schneider and Cavan Biggio pouring out in the mix.
“Not exactly how we drew it up (during spring training),” manager John Schneider conceded before a 6-3 loss to the Texas Rangers dropped his team a half-game back of the American League West rivals in the wild-card race. “But the guys that are here are playing well and having really good at-bats. You make do with what you've got during that time. Not exactly Plan A but here we go.”
Since Horwitz is one of 10 players to bat cleanup for the Blue Jays this season, technically it’s Plan J for these high-stakes games in whatever-it-takes days. The 25-year-old began the day with just 30 career big-league plate appearances under his belt, speaking to where the club is in its search for offence right now, and triggered a two-run rally with a leadoff double in the seventh when his team did most of its damage at the plate.
Biggio, who doubled and was stranded in the second, drove him in with a single and after a Santiago Espinal double, scored on pinch-hitter Ernie Clement’s RBI groundout. Schneider, who doubled in the fourth, sent a 366-foot drive out to right-centre during that seventh but it was chased down by Robbie Grossman. He added a solo shot off closer Aroldis Chapman in the ninth.
It wasn’t enough and the Blue Jays (80-65) now not only trail the Rangers (80-64), but also lost the season-series and hence the tiebreaker to them, while also dropping into a tie for the third wild-card spot with the Seattle Mariners (80-65), who crushed the Los Angeles Angels 8-0 on Tuesday
Two games remain in this series for the Blue Jays to regain the lost ground.
“We don’t really have too many games after the season and I understand that we lost two games in a row, but that’s just part of the game,” said Hyun Jin Ryu, who allowed three runs while throwing six innings for the first time since returning from Tommy John surgery. “Tomorrow's another day, so we just have to focus and do a little more.”
Productive as the makeshift middle of the order was in this game, especially relative to the rest of the order, instability out of the cleanup spot all season long is without a doubt a factor in the Blue Jays’ inconsistencies at the plate.
Consider that entering play Tuesday, their No. 4 spot batted a collective .249/.335/.424, ranking 15th in the majors with a .759 OPS, 20th in home runs with 19 and last with just 66 RBIs.
It’s hard to steadily put up runs with so little production out of a pivotal spot in the lineup.
This isn’t a byproduct of injuries or the mixing and matching inherent to today’s game. The Blue Jays have been searching for someone to lock in there all season, using 10 different players in that spot.
Daulton Varsho opened the season at cleanup with Matt Champan mixed in and by May, once he’d shaken off a slow start, Belt was moved into the role. By mid-June, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., was taking a turn there, in August, George Springer was moved down to the spot and others with reps there include Davis Schneider (five), Whit Merrifield (four), Danny Jansen (two) and Biggio (one).
Horwitz was doing it for the second time Tuesday – he also hit fourth last week in Oakland when Belt was hit by a stomach bug – a show of faith in his abilities and in his work down at triple-A Buffalo, where he was until rosters expanded in September.
“It's definitely a confidence-booster to see them put me in the middle of the lineup in such a tight playoff race right now,” said Horwitz. “I've just got to go out there and give quality at-bats.”
Easier said than done, of course, and it would be easy for the rookie, who’s hit safely in his past three games and seven of his 11 big-league outings, to try and do more to meet the moment. But his control of the strike zone, ability to barrel balls and left-handed bat give him a comparable profile, if not track record, to that of Belt, a skill-set the Blue Jays want behind Springer, Bichette and Guerrero right now.
“It's hard,” Springer said of jumping into the cleanup role so early in a career. “Obviously he doesn't have a lot of at-bats under his belt, but I don't really think he cares. I don't think anybody in here cares. This is a time where you just need to do what you need to do for the team. Hitting fourth, yeah there's that you expectation to drive guys in and all that stuff. At the same time, he just needs to just be who he is and do what he needs to do. He's been thrust into action and I feel like he's handled it well.”
Still, the lack of a proven run-producer for the role has underlined how much the Blue Jays miss Teoscar Hernandez, who was traded for Erik Swanson and prospect Adam Macko during the off-season in a deal that was understandable and still justifiable.
At issue is that the Blue Jays didn’t adequately replace the loss of Hernandez’s thump and production, which GM Ross Atkins at the time predicted wouldn’t be an issue.
“I think we will be able to replace it with some of the players that were either not playing as much last year or from within and from the player-development system,” Atkins said back on Nov. 16. “But there will also be other opportunities via trade and free agency and we will exhaust those.”
The Blue Jays did later add Varsho and Kevin Kiermaier and while valuable contributors, neither is providing Hernandez’s presence and impact. And as a result, the lineup has felt one bat light all season.
In contrast, the Rangers, even with Adolis Garcia and Josh Jung out, are a deep nine and did their damage against the Blue Jays before a Rogers Centre crowd of 30,479.
After Hyun Jin Ryu cruised through the first three innings, Kyle Seager singled to open the fourth before Grossman homered to left, each pouncing on a first-pitch cutter. Jonah Heim added a sacrifice fly in the sixth off the lefty, while RBI doubles by Jonathan Ornelas and Seager off the bullpen in the seventh made it 5-0. A Travis Jankowski RBI single in the ninth made it 6-2 Texas.
That made it tough sledding as Max Scherzer, who left the game with one out in the sixth inning with a right triceps spasm, and the Rangers bullpen held Springer, Bichette and Guerrero to a combined 1-for-12.
With Belt out until at least Sept. 22 and Chapman, who underwent a full day of work Tuesday, due back later this week, at the earliest, the Blue Jays will need to keep getting creative out of the four-hole. Davis Schneider may end up back in the cleanup spot Wednesday against lefty Jordan Montgomery with Horwitz perhaps returning for Thursday’s finale versus Nate Eovaldi.
Horwitz has been a quick study and the Blue Jays need him to remain ahead of the curve.
“I'd say the best word is adapt,” he said of how he’s seen his skills transition to the big-leagues. “You've got to adapt to pitch to pitch, pitcher to pitcher, day to day and continue to work. You're going to have some misses and you're going to have some faults and you've got to work to understand why you're going wrong or why you did well.”
On a team that’s doing a lot of adapting, too, that’s going to have to play.
COMMENTS
When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.