Blue Jays swept after playing clumsy, untidy baseball vs. Red Sox

BOSTON — For the Toronto Blue Jays, the best part of this week’s series at Fenway Park was it ending.

Out-hit, 58-32. Outscored, 32-19. Swept in four games by a division rival that began the week 3.5 games behind and finished it a half-game up. Five consecutive losses for the first time in 10 months. Innings that spiralled. Games given away. Clumsy, untidy baseball played by a team that preached attention to detail and nailing the little things all spring training long.

“This series was not our best,” said Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman. “We came in here and obviously they played better all four games than we did. Especially on the pitching side. They pitched better than us. That's really all you can say.”

At the crux of this skid — the latest loss an 11-5 drubbing by the Boston Red Sox Thursday night — is pitching and defence. A lacklustre turn through the rotation. A spent bullpen that’s hit a sudden ebb after flowing through the end of April. Six errors in the series and nine stolen bases allowed on nine attempts.

The Red Sox aren’t as uncompetitive as many predicted they’d be and came to play after being routinely embarrassed by the Blue Jays last season, dropping 16 of the 19 games the teams played and getting outscored by 70 in the process. They executed diligent, well-crafted plans against Blue Jays starters all series long, eliminating Jose Berrios’ changeups Monday, hunting Yusei Kikuchi’s fastballs Tuesday, and laying off Alek Manoah’s sliders Wednesday.

Thursday was supposed to be the end of all that. Gausman was starting and, outside of a disastrous first inning against the Houston Astros two-and-a-half weeks ago, had been pitching at a Cy Young calibre. His last time out, he earned an absurd 27 swinging strikes, 20 of them with his splitter — the most by any single pitch in a game this season.

But the Red Sox had a plan for that, too. They swung at only 14 of the 34 splitters Gausman threw Thursday, whiffing a half-dozen times. And they didn’t swing at too many fastballs, either. Only 25 of the 49 Gausman threw, and 40 of his 88 pitches in total.

“I was kind of all over the place with my fastball and I think they sensed that,” Gausman said. “And so, I got in bad counts and threw some pretty bad splits in bad counts. And those were a lot of the hits that I gave up. But even when I got in good counts, just not good enough pitches. Just couldn't really put anybody away today. But I've got to give credit to them. They did a good job of battling.”

For one reason or another, the Red Sox were seeing Gausman extremely well and stubbornly refused to give him the chase swing-and-miss he lives on. They ultimately drove him from the game after only 3.1 innings, plating eight runs on 10 hits and a walk in the process. It was the most runs Gausman has allowed in an outing since May 29, 2019 — the year he ended up on waivers mid-season before being non-tendered.

“On my part, just unacceptable,” Gausman said. “Ten hits for me in three-and-a-third is too many. You've got to give credit where credit's due. They came out swinging and in that second inning I just couldn't make an adjustment.”

Gausman wasn’t exactly himself during a 25-pitch first inning, averaging 92 mph with his fastball and working behind four of the five Red Sox he faced. The only batter who didn’t get a first-pitch ball was Masataka Yoshida, who instead ambushed a 91.5-mph heater and drove a solo shot 400 feet over the right-centre-field wall.

His second inning began inauspiciously, as well, with Triston Casas rifling Gausman’s first pitch of the frame — a 90-mph fastball — into right before Enmanuel Valdez drew a six-pitch walk. Gausman finally earned an out at the end of a battle with Enrique Hernandez but then got bit by the BABIP monster as Reese McGuire flared a first-pitch splitter off the plate into shallow centre — exit velocity: 69.7 mph — to plate another run.

And things unraveled from there. As the Red Sox ran at will behind him — Boston stole a pair of bases in the inning and five on the night — Gausman surrendered four consecutive hits, two of them rockets over 108 mph, two of them choppers at below 76 mph.

As Gausman’s pitch count neared 60, and Casas stepped back into the batter’s box for his second plate appearance of the inning, Anthony Bass — who allowed three hits and a run on seven pitches the night prior — began to warm. Gausman fell behind Casas, 3-0, before rallying to strike him out. From that point on, it was Gausman’s turn to try to compete his way through a rough outing and give his team some much-needed innings.

Berrios did the same thing Monday, as Blue Jays manager John Schneider asked him to complete a third trip through a lefty-laden order on a night he wasn’t commanding his changeup or keeping his fastball off the heart of the plate. Berrios allowed four of the final five batters he faced to reach — including a pair of homers on mislocated pitches — before he was pulled with one out in the sixth.

And Manoah had his turn Wednesday, remaining in a start after taking a 112-mph Rafael Devers rocket off the inside of his left knee during his fourth inning. Manoah’s effectiveness was clearly compromised from that point on. He allowed eight of his next 13 batters to reach base, bounced several sliders and was charged with a throwing error on a botched pick-off attempt at second. But he grinded through it to at least give him team five innings.

With a thin bullpen that’s logged a heavy workload throughout this losing streak, these are the tough situations Toronto’s coaching staff has been put in. When things are going well, you’re deploying relievers in optimal matchups and using them to put the opposition at a disadvantage. When things aren’t, you’re asking relievers to extend themselves beyond three outs and get you to the end of ballgames, which has knock-on effects in ensuing games and series.

“Whenever you’re in the pen in the fifth, it’s tough,” Schneider said Wednesday afternoon, before Manoah wore that comebacker and Gausman couldn’t get through four. “You feel like you’re a dude short sometimes. You’re trying to find the right spots for guys. You’re sometimes putting guys in spots you really don’t want to.

“It starts with the starters. It’s getting a good start. It’s getting at least into the sixth and going form there. When you’re playing every day, it does feel like, ‘Yeah, these guys are available. But what version are you going to get? And where do you exactly put them in?’”

A silver lining is that Toronto’s offence continued to show some fight, as it did throughout the series. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. crushed a solo shot over the Green Monster in the fourth and doubled in another run in the sixth as the top of the Blue Jays order strung together hits in a three-run inning. George Springer drove in another in the ninth. But it’s tough to overcome six-run deficits every night, which is what Toronto’s needed in each of these five consecutive losses.

“I think that it's tough when, especially in this weather, it seems like you're out there in the field for about 20 minutes an inning. It makes it tough to come back and hit,” Schneider said. “So, you give credit to (the Red Sox.) They're kind of firing on all cylinders offensively. And a couple of guys are having some really big years that haven't had big years in the past. You just tip your hat to them.”

And the Blue Jays weren’t only suffering theoretical blows Thursday. That afternoon, top pitching prospect Ricky Tidemann left his fourth double-A start of the season after 60 pitches due to left biceps discomfort. And hours later, Zach Pop limped off the mound with an injured right hamstring in the eighth inning at Fenway Park. Expect bullpen reinforcements to meet the Blue Jays in Pittsburgh, where they begin a series with the 20-12 Pirates Friday night.

Tough day. Tough stretch. Tough way to start the month. The best part about Thursday for the Blue Jays? Leaving Boston.