Blue Jays takeaways: Rays’ winning slam snaps long hitless string. Marcus Semien lets cycle get away

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This article was published 21/05/2021 (1638 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Friday night’s 9-7 Blue Jays loss to the Rays in Dunedin, Fla.:

The Blue Jays’ bullpen was at its rock-solid best in the late innings, holding the Rays at bay until they ran out of rocks in the 12th.

After Ji-Man Choi came off the bench to tie the game with a two-run homer in the sixth, five different relievers combined to not allow a hit to Tampa Bay through the 11th inning.

A.J. Cole, who gave up the home run, retired the next two hitters on fly balls to end the sixth, then handed off to Jordan Romano, Tim Mayza, Tyler Chatwood and Joel Payamps, who threw a perfect inning each.

Mayza worked the eighth inning and snapped a streak of four consecutive outings in which he had allowed multiple runs.

Payamps came back out for the 11th after getting through the 10th on just six pitches, and the rookie righty bent but didn’t break. He walked the first batter he faced, to put runners on first and second, and later issued an intentional walk. With two out, he fell behind Brett Phillips 3-and-0 with the bases loaded but rallied to strike him out, freezing Phillips with a gorgeous 3-and-2 slider.

The great relief work gave the Jays three chances to walk it off, but after they left the bases loaded themselves in the bottom of the 11th, the call went to Jeremy Beasley, who was making just his fifth appearance in the major leagues.

The righty recorded a couple of outs around a pair of intentional walks, but with two out Francisco Mejia ambushed him, belting a first-pitch grand slam to put the Rays ahead to stay — Tampa Bay’s first hit in a string of 26 batters.

• Cycle watch: Only three times in franchise history has a Blue Jay hit for the cycle, and Marcus Semien came within a single of joining them.

Semien doubled to lead off the first inning, tripled high off the wall in right-centre in the second and belted his 11th homer of the season (second on the club to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.) in the fifth.

With what wound up being more than half the game still in front of him, Semien was just a single away from his piece of baseball history.

Of the previous three times a Blue Jay has hit for a cycle, two of them were finished off with a single, but both were tainted.

Kelly Gruber was the first to do it, at Exhibition Stadium in 1989. His single was a blooper to left-centre that bounced high off the springy turf, up and over the head of the leaping centre-fielder. Gruber could have easily cruised into second with a double, as so many others had before him in that same situation, but chose to stop at first.

When Jeff Frye hit for the cycle in 2001, with Gruber in attendance, his single was even more egregious. He split the outfielders with a line drive to right-centre that went all the way to the wall, but pulled up at first base.

After all, history doesn’t remember games in which players hit two doubles, a triple and a home run.

Semien had three chances to finish off the rare achievement. He struck out in the sixth inning and grounded out to third on the first pitch of his at-bat with two out in the bottom of the ninth. He came to the plate with a chance to win the game in the 12th, with the bases loaded and two out, but Diego Castillo struck him out on a sixth straight slider.

Cavan Biggio is the only other Blue Jay to hit for the cycle. He did it in 2019 in Baltimore, finishing the job with a ninth-inning triple.

• Got your number: For the last three years, Tyler Glasnow has been one of the best pitchers in the big leagues. The six-foot-eight Rays righty came into Friday night’s game with a 2.72 ERA, 0.96 WHIP and an eye-popping 12.9 strikeouts per nine innings since the beginning of the 2019 season.

So, naturally, the Jays lit him up for the second time this year, scoring five runs on 10 hits and knocking him out in the fifth inning.

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The five runs allowed match the season-worst for Glasnow. The other time he gave up that many was also against the Jays, and the 10 hits doubled his season-worst total.

Friday night, the Jays got to Glasnow right away. Semien led off the first with a double into the left-field corner. A walk to Bo Bichette followed, then back-to-back RBI singles by Guerrero and Teoscar Hernandez.

Semien added an RBI triple and solo homer before Glasnow left, and Vladdy Jr. also took him deep. The big-time strikeout artist didn’t record his first K until he struck out Rowdy Tellez in the third — the 15th batter he faced. He wound up with just two over his 4 2/3 innings.

Glasnow has posted a 9.31 ERA against the Jays this season and a 1.72 mark against everybody else.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness