Things go from bad to worse for Blue Jays in demoralizing loss to Nationals

WASHINGTON — For a minute there, it looked like it was going to be different. It looked like this was going to be the night. It looked like the Washington Nationals, a franchise that hasn’t mustered a winning record since it raised a World Series banner in 2019, were the schedule soft spot the Toronto Blue Jays needed.

Facing Patrick Corbin, statistically MLB’s worst qualified starter since 2021, four straight Blue Jays reached to open the second inning — and three of them scored, as Toronto pieced together its biggest lead in nearly a week. Then two more reached in the third for Daulton Varsho, who’d already doubled home a pair an inning prior. The Blue Jays were mounting real, honest-to-goodness offensive momentum.

But Varsho popped up a full-count slider down-and-away to end that threat. And an inning later, after Ernie Clement laced a one-out triple to the wall in right-centre, the Blue Jays failed to convert another opportunity. George Springer shot a hard grounder towards a drawn-in CJ Abrams, who nailed Clement darting for home on a contact play.

Then seven consecutive outs followed, and it all felt so familiar. On the mound, Toronto’s pitchers needed to be near-perfect. In the field, its defence needed to be, too. Neither was. And as the Blue Jays were held scoreless for the game’s final seven innings, the Nationals gladly took the opportunity they were presented to get back into the game. They ran away with it, 9-3.

“I thought at-bats were good early,” said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “I thought at-bats weren’t as good as they were early as the game went on.”

That’s putting it mildly for a team that had only one hit over its final five innings against a Nationals staff with a bottom-10 ERA and bottom-five WHIP. Starting in the fifth inning, nine of Toronto’s final 17 plate appearances lasted three pitches or less. The top four hitters in the lineup finished the night a combined 2-for-16 with no walks and three strikeouts.

Asked after the game if he’d consider shuffling his batting order going forward, Schneider didn’t rule it out as he has in the past.

“We’ll see — we’ll see tomorrow,” he said. “Guys know that we’re grinding right now. We’re pressing a little bit. And whether it’s the lineup or just performance, they’ve got to get it done.”

Say this: pitching with little margin for error, Yusei Kikuchi delivered yet again. He gave up plenty of hard contact early as the Nationals successfully hunted his fastball, but kept finding the big pitch he needed to wiggle out of jams.

Clement made a phenomenal, bare-handed play to help Kikuchi MacGyver his way out of a runners-on-second-and-third-with-one-out spot in the second. Three hits in the third earned the Nationals a run, but Kikuchi again used his defence to sidestep danger, getting Keibert Ruiz to ground into a double play with runners on the corners and one out.

After finding an adjustment in the fourth to lean heavier on his breaking weapons, Kikuchi struck out six of his next eight. But after he stranded a runner with his 100th pitch of the night in the sixth, he stepped off the two-run tight rope to allow Toronto’s bullpen to test its balance in the seventh. And that’s when the rope started to sway.

With Yimi Garcia unavailable due to a lower back issue, Erik Swanson took the ball for the seventh, walked the leadoff hitter on five pitches, surrendered a hard single to right, and left an 85-m.p.h., first-pitch splitter hanging right there in Luis Garcia Jr.’s left-handed hitting happy zone. The ball landed beyond the wall 389 feet away in right-centre. And the Blue Jays paid a price for going back to the well yet again.

Swanson, a reliable and oft-used late-game leverage arm throughout 2023, hasn’t looked right all season. He’s now given up 10 runs on 12 hits over seven appearances, striking out only three. Swanson’s splitter — his best pitch — has now been tattooed for six extra-base hits, including three homers.

“He's just leaving pitches up in the zone,” Schneider said. “I don't know if he's tipping pitches, honestly. I'm not afraid to say that publicly. He's better than what he's showing right now.”

Later on, the defence gave way, too, as the Blue Jays committed a couple of two-out errors in the eighth and allowed the Nationals to stretch their advantage with four unearned runs. Of course, by that point the Nationals had already accumulated all the runs they’d need.

Until the Blue Jays stop scoring three runs or fewer more often than not — now in 19 of 33 games — they’ll keep losing as they did Friday more often than not. They simply can’t keep living like this. Seven runners left on base; two-for-10 with runners in scoring position; asking a talented-yet-human pitching staff and defence to perpetually operate in heightened leverage and haul slim leads to the finish line.

The Blue Jays have pitched so well and defended so well that they’ve been able to do that on more occasions than a predictive, runs-based formula would project. Toronto’s Pythagorean record is now 12-21 vs. its actual record of 15-18. That three-win discrepancy is tied with the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bays for the largest in MLB. In other words, the Blue Jays have outperformed their -37 run differential and are fortunate to not be in a worse position than they currently reside.

But you can't always count on luck. Nights like Friday are bound to happen. Forget the models and formulas — you need only common sense to know that Toronto isn’t going anywhere until its offence starts producing more than 3.45 runs per game. And its latest failure to do so was as dispiriting as any.

It’s one thing to tip your cap to Cole Ragans. It’s another to get contained by Corbin, whose 5.81 ERA since the beginning of 2021 is the highest of 108 qualified starters over that span. His 1.56 WHIP is second-highest. His hard-hit rate, line-drive rate, and home-run rate are all top-five. Statistically, he’s been MLB’s worst regular starter for going on four years.

And Friday, he left plenty of pitches up over the plate. He earned only five whiffs on 41 swings. Velocities on his sinker and slider were down from their season averages. The Miami Marlins — 9-25 on the season with an offence producing only 3.56 runs per game — scored seven off Corbin his last time out.

“I think we let Corbin off the hook,” Schneider said. “You can't let guys off the hook. Whether it's Corbin or (expletive) Babe Ruth. It doesn't matter. Cy Young. It doesn't matter. You've got to keep grinding.”

Again, familiar. A gettable pitcher that the Blue Jays create plenty of traffic around but continually allow to skate away unscathed. A desperately needed big swing that never arrives. An absolute grind of a night for players, coaches, and fans alike. Another lost opportunity to reverse the course of this so-far toilsome season.

Yes, it’s only May 3. Yes, there are still 129 games to be played over the next five months. It might not continue on like this. But no one could fault those who have seen this script over and over again for feeling like it may. Before the game, Schneider said something that feels like as good a place to end as any.

“It's not that early, you know what I mean? The runway gets shorter and shorter,” Schneider said. “I think not waiting around for it to happen is very, very important. I think we fell into that last year a little bit with the guys that are still on this team or guys that were there last year that aren't here this year. Just, 'hey, it's going to happen. It's going to happen.'

“It needs to happen. And us as a staff, there are things we're doing differently. We'd be not doing our job if we just said, 'OK, it's going to happen, it's going to happen.' You have to look at what's going on. And, at the same time, if they're going up there trying to do too much, it's counterproductive, too. So, I think it's just reinforcing that. That the time is now. The time is not, 'it's going to happen.' The time is now. And what are we going to do to do it?”