It was already a rough day in store for the Toronto Blue Jays when they woke up needing to navigate 12-and-a-half innings — at least — of baseball Sunday against the pesky Tampa Bay Rays before catching a flight for Baltimore and continuing an absurd week that will see them play parts of nine games in seven days.
Then Bo Bichette went off for an MRI on a sprained right knee and landed on the injured list, leaving the club without its best hitter. And the team’s best reliever — perhaps its best story of the young season — allowed his first run of the year at an extremely inopportune time.
That it was Jordan Romano giving up a ninth-inning bomb over the left-centre field wall to Brandon Lowe, as the Rays won the first of two games between these teams Sunday, 3-2, hit a little too on the nose for what an unfortunate Sunday this has been for the Blue Jays. Romano came into the game having allowed only one hit in nine scoreless appearances, striking out 13 of the 31 batters he’d faced, and getting 10 of the 18 others to hit groundballs.
But you could see it in his reaction when he left that 2-2 slider on the outer half of the plate Sunday, his neck immediately craning behind him as Lowe sent it sailing 401-feet beyond the fence. Like, yep, that’s exactly how it would go.
Romano’s been exceptional this season, but Lowe’s been on a tear himself, coming into the game with a 1.096 OPS and home runs in three straight. Now you can make it four and you can point to the nine runners Toronto left on base in this game — and the 1-for-7 line with them in scoring position — as much more inducive to this Blue Jays loss. You don’t win too often scoring only two runs on 10 hits with a couple errors.
This game was, of course, the resumption of one that began Saturday night but was postponed due to rain. The two teams picked up Sunday in the bottom of the fourth inning with Tampa ahead by one. Rays manager Kevin Cash turned to left-hander Jalen Beeks while his Blue Jays counterpart, Charlie Montoyo, wisely held back Thomas Hatch from pitching Saturday with rain looming, saving him for an extended outing when festivities resumed the next day.
The Blue Jays started well, tying the game shortly after it resumed as Randal Grichuk lofted a Beeks changeup into right-field no man’s land for a one-out double before coming around to score on Rowdy Tellez’s groundball single four pitches later.
Toronto gave the lead back to the Rays in the fifth, botching a relay on a Ji-Man Choi double to right, kicking the ball into Tampa’s dugout, and allowing Yandy Diaz to cross the plate. And yet, they tied it in the bottom half, as Joe Panik served a single into left and scored moments later on Teoscar Hernandez’s two-out, two-strike double.
Outside the unearned run that crossed on the relay bobble, Hatch held the Rays in check, striking out four of the 9 hitters he faced. That kept things tied as an opportunity to go ahead arose in the sixth when Grichuk and Tellez led off with back-to-back singles and moved into scoring position on a Reese McGuire sacrifice bunt.
With Brandon Drury due up, Cash brought in right-handed reliever Pete Fairbanks. Montoyo had left-handed hitting Travis Shaw on his bench, but opted to leave Drury in. He hit a soft grounder up the third baseline, where the Rays were able to catch Grichuk in a rundown. Cavan Biggio then struck out swinging to end the threat.
In the seventh, the Rays loaded the bases with a ground-rule double and a couple walks — one intentional — off Ryan Borucki, who came into the game pitching just as well as Romano had before encountering similar difficulties. Rafael Dolis inherited that unfortunate situation with only one out, but struck out Joey Wendle with a nasty, 97-mph sinker and got Willy Adames to fly out to left to leave the runners where they were.
Dolis returned for the eighth and issued a lead-off walk to Kevin Kiermaier, who promptly stole second base. But he struck out Manuel Margot and Mike Zunino swinging, before giving way to Romano, who generated an Austin Meadows pop up to leave Kiermaier at second.
Rafael Dolis, Filthy 97mph Two Seamer. pic.twitter.com/rTDUjnHtfi
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 16, 2020
But back on for the ninth, Romano ran into one of the game’s hottest hitters and made his first misstep of the season. The inning grew long after Lowe’s bomb, as Romano allowed a Jose Martinez single, walked Willy Adames, and had to leave with two out having thrown 26 pitches.
That it was him of all Blue Jays pitchers giving up the lead, and Bichette of all Blue Jays hitters heading to the injured list, puts a pretty fine point on how unfortunate this Sunday has been for the club. And, at that point, it wasn’t over yet. Just half an hour until another game against those Rays. A chance for retribution. Or for things to get even worse.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9iYXNlYmFsbC9tbGIvYmx1ZS1qYXlzLXVuYWJsZS1yZWNvdmVyLXVuZm9ydHVuYXRlLW1vbWVudHMtbG9zcy1yYXlzL9IBZGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9iYXNlYmFsbC9tbGIvYmx1ZS1qYXlzLXVuYWJsZS1yZWNvdmVyLXVuZm9ydHVuYXRlLW1vbWVudHMtbG9zcy1yYXlzL3NuLWFtcC8?oc=5
2020-08-16 20:36:00Z
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