Archer targets Jays as Tampa gets the sweep
Toronto heads to Fenway as loss to Rays exposes some holes in their lineup
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.— It doesn’t take long for good feelings to go bad in baseball, particularly early in the season. Streaks become slumps in just a few days and what seemed to work so well one day requires urgent change the next.
Take your Toronto Blue Jays, who arrived here early Friday morning riding a three-game sweep of a division rival only to be swept themselves by another. After falling 5-1 to Chris Archer and the Tampa Bay Rays on Sunday, the Jays are back below .500. By next week they could be in first place.
But while a 162-game season will naturally ebb and flow, the weekend’s losses exposed a number of disconcerting flaws that could trouble the Jays beyond a few lousy boxscores: Their inexperienced bullpen failed to hold another lead Saturday night, their offence looked patchy without Jose Bautista in the middle of it and their outfield defence — so flashy and fierce earlier this month — turned unnerving and hesitant.
The most glaring deficiency, however, is what the Jays didn’t have this weekend: a dominant ace to match the likes of Archer. The 26-year-old right-hander was merciless as he carved up the Jays’ lineup Sunday, just as he did 10 days ago in Toronto
“Kid’s good,” Jays manager John Gibbons summed up, economically. “We’ve seen him the last couple years and he just gets better and better and better.”
Alternating mostly between a mid-90s fastball and a hard, latebreaking slider — “It’s like a fastball,” Dalton Pompey said afterward, shaking his head — Archer allowed just three base-runners over seven scoreless innings. It was his fourth consecutive start without allowing an earned run, shrinking his ERA to a minuscule 0.84.
“I don’t think we could’ve asked for a better month out of a starting pitcher,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
The scary thing is Archer was apparently “sick as a dog” on Sunday, according to Cash, who said after the game his starter was actually throwing up between innings.
“I feel like if I’m 75, 80 per cent . . . I have an obligation to the team,” Archer himself said after the game, adding: “There’s some kale and some quinoa in the sewer down there.”
Even when he’s losing his lunch, it’s tough to beat a pitcher like Archer when he’s as locked in as he has been. Most offences would struggle against him, which is why his performance on Sunday only reinforced the disappointment of the Jays’ inability to secure a win on Saturday in a game they led after seven innings.
Jays starter Mark Buehrle was charged with 13 hits and five runs on Sunday, but he wasn’t as bad as his line suggests. Aside from a leadoff homer to Brandon Guyer, he gave up just one extra-base hit — on a fly ball to right field that should have been caught by Michael Saunders — and was nickel-and-dimed a bit on bloops and bleeders. He was let down by his defence on a number of occasions as well.
Bautista missed his fifth straight game with shoulder soreness, an injury aggravated by an ill-advised throw to first base from right field in an emotionally charged game against the Orioles. He said he feels much better and could serve as designated hitter this week in Boston, but he remains day-to-day.
Without Bautista, the Jays, who lead the majors in runs scored, managed to score just six times against the Rays. By comparison, they scored 24 times in their three-game sweep of the Orioles.
That speaks to the club’s inconsistency, which has been a recurring problem in recent years. For every step forward, it seems, there is also a step back.
“When we’re scoring 10 runs a game, that’s good, but we need to be consistent all around, in all aspects of the game and it just seems like we’re not doing that,” said Buehrle, the 15year veteran. “We play a few games good and a few games bad.”
The Jays have now lost six of seven games against the Rays, who were not expected to be a major threat in the American League East this season but currently sit atop the division. Conversely, the Jays have taken five of six from the Orioles, the division’s reigning champs and prohibitive favourites.