To sweep, perchance to dream
Jays win series, but fail to go three-for-three in San Diego, following familiar pattern
Sometimes you get beat. Sometimes you just lose.
The Blue Jays just plain lost Sunday’s series finale in San Diego, 6-3, and got on a plane to Kansas City with a bad taste in their mouths after what had otherwise been a wonderful weekend on the west coast.
The Jays picked up their first road series win of the year with latenight victories on Friday and Saturday that were keyed by great starting pitching, outstanding defence and timely hitting. Sunday, with a chance to sweep, they got none of those things.
The tone was set in the very first inning. With two out and Jake Cronenworth on first, Padres cleanup hitter Manny Machado sliced a line-drive single to right field. George Springer went to play it on a hop but whiffed and the ball skipped past him, allowing Cronenworth to score the game’s first run. Machado wound up at third.
The Jays got that run back the very next inning on a solo home run by Davis Schneider. An inning later, Schneider’s bosom buddy Ernie Clement put the Jays on top with a mammoth home run of his own down the line in left field. Clement’s blast was reminiscent of Kevin Pillar’s playoff homer in Texas back in 2016, in that the ball was at his eyes and he still got up and put a great swing on it to drive it out of the park.
The lead didn’t last — Xander Bogaerts took Bassitt deep in the bottom of the third to tie it. And the righty got in trouble in the fifth, loading the bases with one out for the dangerous Fernando Tatis Jr., who had homered Friday.
Bassitt’s first pitch to Tatis was a 95-m.p.h. fastball, the hardest he’d thrown all day, and the 25-year-old Padre hit a hard line drive that appeared to be headed toward rightcentre. But Schneider leapt and hauled it in, then stepped on second base for an unassisted double-play that kept the game tied.
That fancy leather work might well have cancelled out Springer’s miscue, but the Jays weren’t done being generous guests.
Bassitt gave way to Trevor Richards with two on and one out in the sixth and the Silver Fox promptly walked the first batter he faced to load the bases. An infield dribbler erased a runner coming home for the second out but left the bases loaded, and another walk from Richards forced in the go-ahead run.
Up next was ninth-place hitter Tyler Wade, who hit a ground ball to first that appeared to end the inning, but his bat nicked Danny Jansen’s glove as he swung. Catcher interference was awarded, forcing home another run.
The Padres got two more in the eighth as Nate Pearson made his return from Triple-A and began that inning by walking three and hitting another of the first five batters he faced.
The story of this current hot streak for the Jays — they’ve won six of eight even with Sunday’s loss — has been brilliant starting pitching and great defence.
They haven’t scored more than five runs in over two weeks, so they’ve left themselves very little room for a hiccup on either of those fronts.
The offence isn’t there (not yet, anyway) to overcome games when they’re consistently shooting themselves in the foot, and it wasn’t there again Sunday. In fact, the Jays only had two at-bats with runners in scoring position, both in the seventh inning and the first resulting in a Schneider ground out that drove in one of the runners. It got them to within a run, but Pearson’s eighth-inning issues let the game get away again.
It was the third time this season that the Jays went into a series finale with a chance to sweep:
■ Against Seattle on April 10, they had chances to go ahead in the eighth and ninth, but stranded a total of five runners over those two innings, then gave up a five-spot in the 10th.
■ Against the Yankees a week later, Erik Swanson and Tim Mayza combined to give up four runs in the ninth, causing many to clamour for the return of Pearson, who did them no favours Sunday.
It feels like a familiar pattern hearkening back to last season, but that may just be because of a poor first impression. The 2023 Jays did fail to sweep a three-game series the first three times they had the chance, but swept the next four and nine of 12.
It would stand this team in good stead to follow that team’s lead the next time they get the chance.