That six of those losses were by one run demonstrates how every little detail matters.įor example, Friday’s 5-2 loss in 11 innings, after a players-only meeting beforehand, was a matter of execution, as the Blue Jays went 2-for-20 with runners in scoring position. There are certainly ways to rationalize why that’s happened - losing Hyun Jin Ryu, Yusei Kikuchi’s struggles, a lack of depth in the bullpen – but notable is that it came against the Orioles, Yankees, White Sox, Brewers, Red Sox, Rays, Athletics and Mariners, mostly measuring-stick clubs. The Blue Jays have lost nine of 10 and are just 8-17 over their past 25 games. The game is unforgiving and relentless in that way, which means Tuesday the Blue Jays will open a two-game series at home against the Philadelphia Phillies facing questions that are all too familiar.Īt 45-42 through the first 87 games, the current group is in the same place as the one from a year ago, once again feeling like less than the sum of its parts, once again frustrated by wins left on the table. We just need to keep picking each other up, from all aspects of the game, just lifting each other up and pulling together 26 guys and really just going out there and start winning some baseball games.” Nothing's going to get us through it other than ourselves. At the end of the day, nobody's going to feel sorry for us. “We get that news and the next thing you know, we have a West Coast trip. There are a lot of us who, our hearts are still with Bud and his family,” veteran reliever David Phelps, on the mound when Guerrero’s glove burst, said in contextualizing what the team has gone through. “I’ve been through some tough stretches and some tragedies over the course of my career. By any measure, that’s a lot of torment to process in a concentrated period. On Monday, the team’s obvious priority was supporting Budzinski and his family, with a charter scheduled to take a sizable contingent of the team and staff to Julia’s funeral. The chef’s kiss was the relay on what should have been an inning-ending double play ripping through the webbing of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s glove, the first step in a 4-1 lead becoming a 6-5 loss in the team’s 31 st game in 30 days. An opener and a guy made the first game a lost cause and then baseball, “which can be cruel sometimes,” in the words of manager Charlie Montoyo, went acutely dark in three losses, each more heartbreaking than the last. The corresponding results followed.īuoyed by the presence of boisterous Western Canadian fans, a four-game series in Seattle against the surging Mariners offered a reset. As the team reeled amid the anguish and grief, the games kept coming when it seemed so pointless to keep playing them. Real-life tragedy struck early in the second when first baseman Mark Budzinski’s daughter, Julia, died in a boating accident. Then a line drive struck Kevin Gausman’s right ankle early in the first game of a doubleheader. They looked to be emerging from an irksome 5-8 stretch by taking two of three from the Boston Red Sox and grabbing two in a row from the Rays. Perspective is easily lost and negativity can snowball quickly in a sport where failure is inherent, particularly amid the type of jarring and traumatic stretch it’s been for the Toronto Blue Jays.Ī mere nine days ago, after a 9-2 Canada Day win over the Tampa Bay Rays pushed them 11 games over.
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