Blame it on the current heat wave in Toronto if you wish, but the Blue Jays' defence looked completely out of sorts in Wednesday's outing.
The Blue Jays committed four errors, the most they've notched this season, with two of them being particularly costly in a 7-3 rout at the hands of the Boston Red Sox.
Manager John Schneider was asked about the mistakes after the game, calling them "uncharacteristic" and pointing towards Boston's aggressive base-running style as being part of the reason behind the errors.
"We take care of the baseball really, really well," Schneider added. "[Boston] is aggressive on the bases, it puts more pressure on you. When you got a team with a little bit of momentum, it doesn't really help."
It all started in the second inning when starter Kevin Gausman attempted a pickoff of Reese McGuire at first but missed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. entirely, with the ball bouncing off the ground and ending up in foul territory allowing McGuire to nab second.
Luckily, that errant pickoff didn't result in any scoring for the Red Sox as Gausman forced a flyout on the next pitch.
However, it took a turn for the worse in the third as Romy Gonzalez, the Red Sox's leadoff man, got on base after a fielding error from third baseman Addison Barger.
Gonzalez eventually came in to score on a David Hamilton single that saw yet another error for the Blue Jays. The usually dependable Kevin Kiermaier fielded the ball in centrefield and tried to use his strong arm to gun Gonzalez down at home, but instead hit the baserunner, allowing him to score and giving Hamilton time to get to third base.
Though the defence was solid for the next few innings, it came apart once again in the eighth.
With two outs on the board, Hamilton hit a single towards Guerrero, who was unable to field the liner, allowing Dominic Smith to score Boston's seventh run of the game. Jarren Duran also tried to score on the play but was chased down in a quick game of tag on the third-base line.
Though not the best fielding team in MLB, they're certainly not the worst either. The Blue Jays commit 0.51 errors per game, ranking as the 13th most careful defence in the league.
Wednesday's performance may be a blip on the radar over a long season, but it's a carelessness they'll surely want to avoid in the future.
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