Dreadful first inning sinks Blue Jays in homestand finale

TORONTO — Over the past few years Rogers Centre has been a prime spot during Summer weekends in Toronto. There was compelling, meaningful baseball full of excitement. But with this being a lost season for the club, the fan experience has inevitably been impacted.

Saturday’s game against the Oakland Athletics drew just over 34,000 people and another 38,797 showed up for Sunday’s series finale. Those are big crowds and while they were disappointed on Saturday with the home club being limited to just two hits in a shutout loss, Sunday’s game was even more painful to watch. 

Sure, the Blue Jays mustered a meaningless late rally, but the A’s essentially put the game away in the early innings of an 8-4 victory. Adding to the misery was that Blue Jays’ slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 0-for-4, ending his hit streak at 22 games.

The Athletics immediately jumped on Chris Bassitt in the first inning, hammering him with a quick-strike offence that led to an imposing lead. Lawrence Butler opened the game with a double, Brent Rooker singled and JJ Bleday drove them in with a home run to right-centre field. Bassitt then hit Seth Brown with a pitch and then, after striking out Abraham Toro, allowed a two-run shot to Zack Gelof. 

The A's continued the assault, sending a total of 11 batters to the plate and eliciting boos from the crowd. By the time the inning was mercifully over, Bassitt had allowed six runs and expended 41 pitches. Three of the hits he surrendered featured exit velocities over 100 m.p.h., with another registering at 99.1. 

“Weird first inning for Chris,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “His stuff wasn't really moving as it usually does. And pitches were up in the zone, obviously.”

Bassitt said his command was impacted by the Rogers Centre roof being closed. It rained in Toronto on Sunday morning and the afternoon forecast called for more wet weather. 

“Completely different than roof being open,” Bassitt said. “Wasn't really ready for it.”

He declined to elaborate much more than pointing to the horizontal movement of his sinker.

“My worst sinkers, with the roof open, are around 16 [inches]. Best sinkers around 22,” said the right-hander. “Today, worst sinkers were 13, best sinkers were 15. So, I had to completely change my mechanics to kind of get the movement I wanted.

“This is just a different one,” he added. “Obviously indoors is indoors, but this is just different.”

After the first, Bassitt had no choice but to turn his focus to salvaging innings in order to preserve as much of the bullpen as possible with the Blue Jays heading to California for a three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels beginning Monday. The right-hander covered three more frames, allowing one additional run on Bleday’s RBI single in the fourth. 

“Just lowered my arm slot,” said Bassitt. “Lowering my arm slot creates more movement, less command. But yeah, when you're expecting 18 horizontal movement and you're getting 13, it's not really that good.”

In total, Bassitt allowed seven runs on eight hits across four innings. He hit one batter, walked two and struck out five.

Meanwhile, A’s starter JP Sears stifled Blue Jays hitters for the first seven innings, with Daulton Varsho’s fourth-inning solo home run — his 14^th of the season — coming as the only real damage against the left-hander.

Sears was cruising until the eighth, when he walked Spencer Horowitz and Davis Schneider to open the frame. He was replaced by Oakland reliever Michel Otanez, who was tagged by Blue Jays rookie Luis De Los Santos for a two-run double down the right-field line. De Los Santos singled earlier in the game for his first major-league hit. 

“Thrilled for him,” said Schneider. “He's such a good kid. He's been with us for a long time, so that was pretty cool to see.”

George Springer also drove in two runs during the eighth-inning rally that awakened the crowd and offered them something to cheer about. However, the hill proved too steep for the Blue Jays’ offence to climb.  

Guerrero Jr., meanwhile, missed out on a chance to create personal history. Had he extended his hitting streak on Sunday, he would have set a new career high. 

After the game, Schneider reflected on the epic 22-gamer, during which Guerrero Jr. hit .494 (40-for-81) with 10 home runs, 11 doubles and 22 RBIs. 

“Pretty remarkable, honestly,” said the manager. “When you're in the midst of a 22-game hitting streak, usually you see days like [Saturday] kind of with a soft single to right and that's it. But he was doing damage and having multiple hits every single night it seemed. 

“I've seen Vlad do some cool things over the years,” added Schneider. “That stretch right there was pretty high up there.” 

Guerrero Jr. remains the main reason for Blue Jays fans to show up to the ballpark and cheer down the stretch. Nonetheless, as the season winds down and the team continues to offer reps to younger players auditioning for the future, there figure to be a few more games like there were this weekend.