A run or two would be a start

What has to happen if the Blue Jays are going beat Seattle on Saturday to force a third game in their wild-card playoff series.

Score some runs

Not to put too fine a point on it, but you can’t win if you don’t score, and not a single Jay managed to cross the plate in the series opener. The offence is too good to be shut down for too long, but they no longer have the luxury of time.

In Friday’s series-opening loss, the Jays managed just one extrabase hit, and it came with two out and nobody on in the ninth inning. Their other six hits were singles, five of which came with two out.

It’s hard enough to score runs off good pitching, but even harder when you constantly need two-out hits to do it.

Don’t be a hero

On occasion this season, when the Jays have struggled offensively, some of their young sluggers have hurt the cause by trying to do too much.

When a player feels as though he’s the one who needs to get the big hit, that often leads to poor results. The best thing to do is keep the line moving. Take what the pitcher gives you, and if you don’t get what you want, pass the baton to the next batter in the order.

It’s a formula that worked extremely well in September and early October, when the Jays went 2110 to sew up the home-field advantage that they’re going to need to move on to the next round. They scored 5.4 runs per game over that stretch, an average that would have led the league over the full season, and they did it with contributions up and down the order.

Bo Bichette might have been the brightest star down the stretch, but players like Danny Jansen, Teoscar Hernandez and Whit Merrifield threw their bats in the ring pretty hard, too.

Hit a left-hander

Astonishingly, with a roster full of high-quality right-handed hitters, the Jays went 12-20 this season when facing a left-handed starter.

They draw a pretty good one in former teammate Robbie Ray.

The Jays actually hit southpaws about as well as they did right-handers this season, posting a .753 onbase-plus-slugging percentage against them as opposed to .762 against righties.

The lineup should be bolstered by the return of Santiago Espinal, who hit .301 against lefties this season with an .826 OPS. He’s been out since Sept. 22 with an oblique strain.