Blue Jays swept out of Wrigley
‘You’re just in awe,’ Estrada says of 10th-inning fiasco
For the thousands of Toronto Blue Jays fans who made the journey to see their team in a rare visit to an iconic baseball shrine, the memories will be many.
For the struggling team they came to support, the Sunday afternoon disaster at Wrigley Field will be difficult to forget.
Where to start with the spectacular collapse in the bottom of the 10th that allowed the reigning World Series champion Chicago Cubs to score three runs off allstar Jays stopper Roberto Osuna and walk away with a 6-5 win and a three-game series sweep?
How about with the words of Toronto manager John Gibbons, who has seen plenty of bad baseball from his 59-65 club this season, but was left almost speechless in the carnage of the latest defeat.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it,” Gibbons said outside the cramped quarters of the visitor’s clubhouse.
“We played hard to get to that point and I don’t even know how to react, to be honest with you.”
There are plenty of reactions, of course: anger, frustration — and a sense of futility as Osuna and struggling catcher Raffy Lopez let this one get away.
After the final bullet — a basesloaded single by Cubs catcher Alex Avila — the Blue Jays sit five games out of the second American League wild card spot.
They were swept in a series of three games or more for the third time this season and it may soon be time to stop looking at the standings.
The fatal 10th was a disaster from the start for Osuna, who recorded his eighth blown save, tied for the most in the majors.
When it was all said and done, Osuna was charged with a pair of wild pitches that Lopez couldn’t corral, allowing runners to advance. There were also two hits and a hit batsman, resulting in a head-shaking three earned runs to send the Jays to what may be their most gut-wrenching defeat in a season that has seen more than a few.
“You’re just in awe. You can’t believe these things are happening,” said Jays starting pitcher Marco Estrada, who went six solid innings, allowing three earned runs. “The game was over, you know? We played our butts off today and we had it. Unfortunately, it all fell apart.”
Gibbons was in awe as well, though he’d likely use another term for it in private. When Osuna was bumbling his way through the terrible 10th, he visited his normally clutch closer for what he said was the first time.
“I had some things (to say) for him,” Gibbons said without further elaboration.
Though the Jays have a day off Monday in Florida before facing the Tampa Bay Rays in a threegame series beginning on Tuesday, this one will be tough to shake.
“We need to go on a run,” Estrada said. “It’s getting close to the end and we have to make up some ground. It’s unfortunate this happened today. We really needed this. Every game (in the series) was close. We were in each game and none of them went our way.
“It’s tough to take with that loss, the way things happened.”