Blue Jays endure painful loss to Dodgers as playoff race tightens

On a night where a whole lot went wrong for the Blue Jays, their late-inning relief will end up taking the biggest share of blame.

Handing Erik Swanson the ball with a four-run lead in the ninth seemed like a safe move on a night closer Jordan Romano wasn’t available. But the Dodgers got to Swanson right away, collecting five hits and a bases-loaded walk on their way to a tie game and more chances to test their talented lineup against Toronto’s fading bullpen.

It didn’t help that second baseman Santiago Espinal stood with the ball in his hand for a moment of hesitation in the pivotal ninth inning, allowing catcher Will Smith to score the tying run. Later, with the score tied, Mitch White entered to face his former team only to allow a walk-off double to James Outman, the second hitter he faced in the 10th.

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With that, the Blue Jays endured a painful 8-7 loss in front of 47,069 at Dodger Stadium late Tuesday night. As a result, their lead over the Red Sox for the final American League Wild Card spot shrinks to 1.5 games.

“It sucks right now,” said manager John Schneider. “You’ve got a four-run lead in the ninth inning, you want to put that one in the bag, but you’ve got to move on … Baseball’s weird sometimes. You can’t dwell on it.”

Credit Smith for reading the situation correctly and scoring from second on a ground ball that deflected off of Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s glove to Espinal at second base. At the same time, Espinal took too much time to realize what Smith was doing and his late throw home was also wide of the plate.

Considering Espinal is on this roster because of his defensive value, that’s a costly mistake.

“I’ve got to look at it,” Schneider said. “I’ll look at it and talk to him. A lot of moving parts there, for sure.”

Clearly, it’s a game the Blue Jays should have won — and in a closely contested playoff race these losses all matter. But while players might savour certain victories, they typically try to move on from painful losses as quickly as possible.

“You’ve got to have short-term memory,” said starter Chris Bassitt. “As crazy as it is, even if we’d won this game you can’t let up just because you won one game. It would have been great to win the series today, but it didn’t happen. Forget about it. Move on. Go win tomorrow.”

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Granted, there were some positives for the Blue Jays, led by a four-hit game from Bo Bichette, who hit a two-run homer in the third. After a partial day off Monday, he was driving the Blue Jays’ offence once again.

Before the bullpen imploded, Bassitt covered five-plus innings while allowing just two runs. He’d then give way to the recently acquired Genesis Cabrera, who covered two scoreless innings punctuated with back-to-back strikeouts of Freddie Freeman and Smith.

“Really, really impressive outing from him,” Schneider said of his new left-hander.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays’ go-to left-hander allowed a home run for the first time this season. With one out in the eighth inning, J.D. Martinez took Tim Mayza deep for his 25th homer.

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The Blue Jays countered in the top of the ninth when Danny Jansen pulled a bases-loaded double to left field to give his pitching staff some welcome breathing room. Remarkably, Jansen’s now third on the team with 44 RBIs despite ranking 10th in plate appearances.

While Alejandro Kirk started the game and contributed an RBI double of his own, Jansen entered late for the second consecutive day, this time as a pinch runner. But of all the position players to contribute in this one, Bichette stood out most.

Even beyond his bat there’s the consistency he offers having played in 101 of the team’s 102 games to date. Plus, there’s the defensive side of the game. Of the 910.1 defensive innings the Blue Jays have played this year, Bichette has handled 868.1 of them. On that side of the ball he’s been more consistent with just eight errors compared to 23 a year ago and 24 the year before that.

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All told, Bichette’s contributed 3.5 wins above replacement as measured by Baseball-Reference. It’s the kind of season that will land him on MVP ballots for the third year in a row.

“He was impressive,” Schneider said. “He was on everything … he’s one of the best hitters in the league for sure, and that’s what we’ve come to expect from Bo.”

Ultimately, though, it didn’t amount to a win on Tuesday. But with an afternoon game awaiting Wednesday, there’s not much time to dwell on this particular defeat. Given how ugly the ending was, that may be for the best.

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