Blue Jays swept by Red Sox with clock ticking on decision to buy or sell at trade deadline

Source: The New York Times
Author: Kaitlyn McGrath

TORONTO -- After a soft schedule in May, June's schedule was going to test the Toronto Blue Jays.

It began with a road series against the Milwaukee Brewers, which they lost. The Blue Jays then showed some life at home by beating the American League Central-leading Cleveland Guardians two games to one.

But any momentum built during that series evaporated into Toronto's sticky, humid air this week after the Boston Red Sox swept the Blue Jays with a 7-3 win Wednesday at the Rogers Centre.

It was a game that had familiar notes to how the season has unfolded.

The lineup couldn't take advantage of scoring opportunities early and finished the game 1-for-15 with runners in scoring position.

That meant every mistake starter Kevin Gausman made -- including a pair of home runs he surrendered -- was magnified. Gausman kept it close enough, but the Blue Jays bullpen, a unit leaking water at the seams for some time now, couldn't keep it within reach once it took over during the sixth.

The Blue Jays committed four errors, uncharacteristic but perhaps not unexpected once the defence took a backseat to trying to squeeze offence out of the lineup lately.

"We didn't play well today, I think all-around," Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. "The other games, you're right in there and I think the theme was we just didn't do much with guys on base."

The series had been circled on the calendar because of its importance. Monday when it began, the Blue Jays were only 1 1/2 games back of the third-place Red Sox in the AL East. Things could have flipped had the Blue Jays come out on top. Instead, their record is 35-39 and they are 4 1/2 games back of the Red Sox, six games back of a wild-card spot.

It's the first time the Blue Jays have been swept in a series this season. Though it was the initial meeting between the teams, the result continues a trend of sweeps between them dating to last season. The Red Sox swept the first two series in 2023 against the Blue Jays (7-0) only for the Blue Jays to respond by sweeping the last two series (6-0).

Wednesday, Gausman was on the mound to try to salvage a win, but he wasn't at his sharpest and his signature splitter wasn't fooling batters like it can. The right-hander was tagged for costly hard contact from Boston's lineup, allowing solo home runs to second baseman Enmanuel Valdez and centre fielder Jarren Duran, which broke a 2-2 tie in the fifth inning. Gausman finished with five runs allowed, four earned, on six hits with three walks and four strikeouts over 5 2/3 innings.

"The biggest thing today was the split wasn't really its normal self. It wasn't really carrying the zone to play off of his fastball," Schneider said. "The first-pitch slider to Duran for the homer, that happens, but I think the split wasn't really as much of a factor as he or we would have hoped it would have been and the defence didn't really help us behind him."

Added Gausman: "I thought they had a really good game plan against (the splitter) and it wasn't how it has been necessarily. It was a little inconsistent. And so, that played into what they were trying to do. I had to throw a lot more fastballs than maybe I would have wanted, but they're a good lineup."

The bullpen took over in the sixth with Toronto trailing 4-2. Tim Mayza gave up an RBI single to Duran and then Ryan Burr gave up two runs (one earned) on three hits in the eighth.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays had two runners on base with less than two outs in each of the first four innings but drove in only two runs in that span. After Addison Barger and Isiah Kiner-Falefa led off the fourth inning with back-to-back singles, Kevin Kiermaier followed with an RBI single up the middle.

After Spencer Horwitz walked to load the bases with no one out, Justin Turner hit into a double play that scored a run and tied the score briefly at 2-2, but it sapped the momentum in the inning. The Blue Jays scored only once more, on a wild pitch in the seventh.

"I think they executed pitches and at the same time, it's up to us to adjust to that and especially in those spots," Schneider said. "No one else that you'd want up with the bases loaded and no one out than JT. (Brayan) Bello made a good pitch and that was probably our biggest chance."

The Blue Jays schedule doesn't let up from here. They travel to Cleveland and play the Guardians for three games beginning Friday before they face the Red Sox again in a three-game series at Fenway Park, starting Monday. Then they return home for four against the first-place New York Yankees to wrap up the month.

July will be here soon, and with that will come a looming decision of what the Blue Jays front office will do at the trade deadline. At this point, the Blue Jays' margin for error is incredibly slim if they want to stay within realistic striking distance of the postseason race.

Their playoff odds are down to 10.6 percent. Getting close to 84 wins -- which is what FanGraphs is projecting will be enough for the third wild-card spot -- would require them to go 49-39 -- a 90-win pace, from here on out. That would be a winning quality vastly superior to anything they've shown this season, so it's fair to be skeptical that it's even possible unless much of the roster has a turnaround.

If the Blue Jays want to avoid a deadline sale -- if not a full fire sale -- on July 30, they need to show they're a team worth investing in. But since late April, all they've been is a below-.500 club that has failed to climb above the even mark the four times they had the chance. More often this season, they've looked like the team that Boston swept, not the one that beat Cleveland. And the time is nearly up for this Blue Jays team to convince otherwise.

"What we're really focusing on is one game at a time," Schneider said. "You come off a good weekend series against a really good team and you run into a team that is playing pretty well, that is talented and they can pitch really well. You got to reset after the off day and you get back after it. Really, it's one day at a time."