Blue Jays drop ball in defeat to Orioles
Clumsy defence, quiet offence costly as O’s run roughshod
“Stay away.”
That was Blue Jays manager John Gibbons’ message to any other politicians hoping to make a campaign stop at the Rogers Centre this year following the club’s third straight loss with a party leader present on Friday night.
Since Prime Minister Stephen Harper dissolved Parliament on Aug. 2 to kick off the longest federal election campaign in modern Canadian history, the Jays have lost just six times in 29 games. They own the best record in baseball over that stretch and recently capped the winningest month in franchise history. If you showed up to a game in the last five or so weeks you had a nearly 80-percent chance of seeing them win.
And yet, the Jays are 0-3 in games attended by a federal party leader.
“Don’t worry, fellow #BlueJays fans,” NDP leader Thomas Mulcair tweeted after Friday’s game. “@JustinTrudeau, @pmharper and I have a busy September and October lined up.”
Mulcair was the first to visit on Aug. 14, watching as the Jays’ 11-game win streak was snapped by the New York Yankees. Then on Monday, Harper stopped by to see the Jays fall to Cleveland. On Friday night it was Liberal leader Justin Trudeau’s turn to mess with the team’s karma.
He was among the 46,201fans at the Rogers Centre — the team’s 16th sellout of the season — who watched the Jays lose 10-2 to the Orioles.
It was just the Jays’ third loss in their last 13 games and the first time they had been outscored by more than three runs since July 4.
“It’s a foreign feeling, definitely not used to it right now,” said catcher Russell Martin, who went 2-for-4 but grounded into two double plays on Friday. “They swung the bats well today, they played better than us, so they deserved to win.”
With the Yankees winning their game against Tampa, the Jays’ slim lead atop the American League East shrinks to just half a game.
Friday night wasn’t pretty for the home side. Their outfield defence was as clumsy as a gaffe-prone politician while they generated little in the way of offence and pitched poorly to boot.
Chris Davis, the red-hot Orioles’ slugger, went deep twice, while the Jays managed just four hits off of Baltimore starter Ubaldo Jimenez.
But even still, the game was tied at two in the sixth when Jays starting pitcher Drew Hutchison seemed to hit a wall. He allowed five straight hits to start the inning, including back-to-back homers by Davis and Matt Wieters — the latter’s long fly inadvertently helped over the wall by a leaping Ben Revere.
Revere made a valiant effort to get to the hard drive headed for the top of the wall but was left staring at his glove in disbelief after not only missing the catch but nudging it over. But Revere’s wasn’t the only foible. Ryan Goins made just his second error of the season at second base while Jose Bautista had a ball clank off his glove.
Hutchison, who has endured a maddeningly inconsistent season, he did little to aid his own effort, allowing six runs on nine hits, including three(ish) homers.
Down the road the 25-year-old right-hander could fall victim to Marcus Stroman’s pending return, either by losing his spot in the rotation or having it skipped on the club’s upcoming road trip.
Meanwhile, Jimenez mostly stymied the Jays, who went1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and scored their only runs on productive outs.
Baltimore took an early lead when Davis lasered a long drive into the second deck in right field in his first at-bat of the game to lead off the second. Three batters later, Jimmy Paredes notched a two-out single and scored on a drive by Ryan Flaherty that was misjudged and mishandled by Bautista.
While he has put together a typically sterling season at the plate, Bautista has struggled defensively. He started the game with a minus-8 defensive runs saved mark, tied for the eighth-worst among AL outfielders.