Blue Jays takeaways: One-of-a-kind triple play was a running joke in loss to Yankees

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This article was published 17/06/2021 (1613 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 8-4 loss to the Yankees in Buffalo on Thursday night:

The Blue Jays have lost some games in excruciating fashion over the past few weeks, but for the most part the losses have been so tough to deal with because they’d played well, kept things close and often had the bullpen melt down late in the game.

Thursday night, though, the way the Jays started had observers recalling that old Casey Stengel line: “Can’t anybody here play this game?”

There was a poor throw from Santiago Espinal in the top of the first that took Rowdy Tellez right into the body of Aaron Judge as he raced up the first-base line, knocking the glove off Tellez’s hand, but thankfully there was no real damage done.

The bottom of the first was another story.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. came to the plate with runners at first and second and nobody out, with the opportunity to make something big happen. When Yankees starter Michael King wild-pitched the runners up to second and third, things looked even brighter. And of course, the wild pitch took the double play off the table.

But not the triple play, as it turned out.

Guerrero hit a grounder back to the mound and Marcus Semien took a couple of hard steps toward the plate, then stopped. Seeing Semien’s first move, Bo Bichette put his head down and started running toward third. King fielded the ball, saw the mess that was developing over at third base and threw to first to retire Guerrero for the first out.

First baseman D.J. LeMahieu threw to second, as Bichette had started to head back that way, so Semien took off for home, knowing he’d be meatcake but hopeful that Bichette would at least be able to get to third safely.

As Semien was being run down between third and home, he motioned for Bichette to keep going into third, but Bo hesitated and the Yankees were able to tag Semien out and then flip the ball to the waiting shortstop, who got Bichette as he slid into third.

It was the 10th triple play into which the Jays have hit over their nearly 44 1/2 seasons, and the first-ever 1-3-6-2-5-6 triple play in major-league history.

It’s next to impossible to hit into a triple play on a ground ball when there are no force plays available at any base but first, but the Jays managed to do it with some horrendous baserunning.

The comedy of errors continued in the top of the second when, with runners at first and second and nobody out, Miguel Andujar hit a comebacker to the mound. T.J. Zeuch fielded it cleanly, turned toward second, hesitated and then threw it into centre field, allowing the first run of the game to score.

It’s an encouraging sign that after starting the game so poorly, the Jays still managed to take the lead into the seventh inning, but …

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• That bullpen again: To be fair, it was the strong work of relievers Joel Payamps and Tayler Saucedo (in his major-league debut) that allowed the Jays to come back from their early 3-0 deficit and pull ahead 4-3 in the sixth. The two relievers combined to record eight outs without allowing a hit, but once they were done things went off the rails again.

Anthony Castro, who blew the save in Tuesday’s series opener, came in to get the final out of the sixth. He came back out for the seventh and faced four hitters, all of whom wound up scoring. The big blow was a go-ahead two-run home run by Giancarlo Stanton, one of the shortest of his career at just 352 feet.

Castro had a sparkling 1.80 ERA going into that Tuesday outing. He has since faced 10 batters and retired only two of them, with six coming around to score. That ERA has ballooned to 5.17, which is right in line with the rest of the relief corps — the Jays’ bullpen ERA is an ugly 5.28 for the month of June.

Hopefully the woeful Baltimore Orioles will provide a bit of a breather. The Jays play them for the first time this season on Friday night, and will play 20 per cent of their remaining schedule against the American League’s worst team.

Tune into Mike Wilner’s weekly Blue Jays podcast, Deep Left Field, wherever you get your podcasts.

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