Friday night's Toronto Blue Jays game played out like so many have this season.
The starting pitcher, on this night Kevin Gausman, allowed three runs over 5.1 innings while striking out six Cleveland Guardians batters.
But the team's offence struggled to get anything going against left-hander Logan Allen, who held the Blue Jays to just three hits and one run over five innings despite entering the game with an ERA over five. Toronto then failed to add a hit against five Cleveland relievers in a 3-1 loss.
After the game, Gausman admitted the starting staff of the Blue Jays is facing a lot of pressure to keep the team in games while the offence struggles to score.
“As much as you try to block it out, it's really hard to — the reality is, yeah, if we don't pitch well, we probably lose,” Gausman said. “We've got to be really good. That's not to say that we have lack of effort, but right now offensively, we're struggling. So defensively as pitchers, we need to be better. We almost have to be perfect. It's tough. It adds some pressure. But we're in the big leagues, you get pressure every single day. Every game is pressure. And so it doesn't add any more to it, but that's just the reality of the situation we're in.”
The Blue Jays are 26th in the majors in both runs scored (266) and home runs (56) through 69 games.
Toronto will have another chance to turn the offence when it hosts the Guardians again on Saturday afternoon.
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