The Blue Jays have lost the handle. Marcus Semien’s costly error wasn’t the only problem against the Tigers

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This article was published 22/08/2021 (1803 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

E-Everybody, the whole lot of them.

Because it wasn’t just Marcus Semien’s low-throw error to first in the top of the ninth that led inexorably to another Toronto loss in extras on Sunday — a routine ground ball rolling toward the usually surehanded second baseman, which should have been the final out of a taut game the Blue Jays were leading 2-1 over lowly Detroit.

Willi Castro would come around to score, sending the game into extra frames and — you could have predicted this — the Tigers ultimately biting the home side 5-3 in 11 innings.

The Jays had chance after chance to orchestrate a different outcome, even as manager Charlie Montoyo had to draw deep from a depleted bullpen cadre, shaking out his sack of peripheral arms. Can’t really lay the blame on a couple of mook relievers — the rookie who erased his Twitter postings when he was called up by the parent club, presumably because the content might have raised eyebrows in a cancel culture world, and the journeyman who advertised his bona fides on Pitching Ninja whilst sniffing around for a job.

No, this defeat — Toronto dropping two out of three in the weekend series — was merely the latest in the continuing episodic collapse and convulsion of a team that has lost its way, its hitting mojo and surely its youthful positivity, no matter the claims otherwise of their eternally sunshine-y manager.

How many more tough losses can the Jays absorb in a season that has gone abruptly pear-shaped, with the club running out of time to get over their skis again? That wild-card beacon grows increasingly dim. Another few of these clanging misfires and shut off the lights.

Maybe that too, the wilt, should have been expected in a full 162-game campaign, when several lineup studs have never before experienced such a relentless grind. A cooled-off Vlad Guerrero Jr. is clearly fatigued, for one, and moundsmen are pitching him differently, belatedly wising up to his tendencies and offering him very little to crank out of the ballpark.

Buoyant youth was the hallmark of this team, binning the bad games, optimistically onward with admirable poise and aplomb. But baseball has a way of making callow youth pay for their sins, rub the cockiness right off and, well, some of that jejuneness is showing now.

When Alejandro Kirk came to the plate in the 10th, Detroit having nudged ahead 3-2 on a sacrifice fly in the top of the inning (that damnable pandemic-triggered gimmick of placing a runner on second for extra frames), the Jays were in the mire of 1-for-26 with runners in scoring position. Kirk’s sac fly to left scored Guerrero, level again, but despite a walk drawn by Randal Grichuk to load the bases Toronto could put no more runs on the board.

With Kirby Snead on the bump for Toronto, Detroit smacked back-to-back doubles in the 11th, the 5-3 result looking all too easy, though Connor Overton, summoned from the ’pen, held the line. Except the Jays were set down 1-2-3, bringing the brutal 3:59 encounter to a close.

By which time Jays starter Steven Matz felt like a distant memory, though he’d tossed six innings of one-run ball, the only damage — historically — Miguel Cabrera’s career 500th home run, a solo shot to oppo right-centre in the sixth, tying the game 1-1 and elevating Cabrera to an exclusive club of just 28 members. Finally able to exhale after chasing No. 500 for nine games. The restricted crowd of 14,685 at the Rogers Centre rose for a standing ovation and demanded a curtain call. So Cabrera came back out of the dugout, doffed his cap and took a bow.

It was the first homer Matz had surrendered in his last four starts. He gets a starring role in the highlight reel.

Pretended later he hadn’t realized the memorable significance of Cabrera’s blast. Just kidding, ha-ha. “I did know he was at 499. It was a 1-0 game and just trying to keep runs off the board. I threw a changeup there. It was pretty far outside. He’s a pretty good hitter.”

Footnote he may have become, but Matz sized up the situation accurately, that taste of ashes in Toronto’s craw. “That’s a tough loss. We played those guys hard today. The defence was making plays all day. It was a tough loss, to walk out of here losing a series.”

In fact, the Jays have dropped three straight series — including the last two to standings subterranean opponents — slipping to 17-16-7 in series play, 5-8 in rubber matches and 2-9 in extra-inning games.

The little grace notes — two singles and a double for Bo Bichette, his ninth three-hit game of the season, and Lourdes Gurriel going 3-for-5 — don’t amount to a hill of beans with Toronto 4 1/2 games back of a wild-card spot. Inexplicably, the Jays have turned into team that can’t score runs when it matters, can scarcely get someone across the plate with runners in scoring position and haven’t been able to exploit the steadfastness of a formidable starting rotation. Over the weekend series with Detroit, Toronto starters combined to allow a mere two runs — 0.86 ERA — with one walk and 17 strikeouts.

Across the weekend series, the Jays went 1-for-31 with runners in scoring position and grounded into seven double plays. Yeah, they took Saturday’s game off the Tigers, but that W did not reverse what has become a motif of scoring ineptitude, unfathomable given the Jays’ lineup dazzle.

Their only run through nine innings Sunday came off a Detroit fielding error. When Gurriel singled home the second run, he broke an 0-for-11 glut with runners in scoring position in the game.

“It was the same thing for the three games,” observed Montoyo later. “We were 0-for-25 with runners in scoring position until Gurriel’s hit. Our offence is struggling now.”

So sure, Semien’s error was glaring, but it wasn’t the cause-all as Toronto had multiple opportunities to scrub that mistake from significance.

“That was the play, and Marcus would tell you the same thing,” said Montoyo. (Although he didn’t, because the Jays routinely only make the starting pitcher and manager available for Zoom scrums post-game after losses.) “He’s played Gold Glove-calibre second base. He just made an error on that one.

“We made all the right moves, we were in the game, but it’s obvious we’re not swinging the bats when our pitching is giving us a chance.”

Back to six games above .500, Toronto, and 11 1/2 back in the American League East. When they crane their necks upwards, they see the Yankees, Mariners and Red Sox ahead of them and the Rays up top.

The skipper puts the team’s RISP woes down to mental pitfalls — hitters tensing up in the batter’s box — rather than swing waywardness. The latter, however, might be easier to correct.

“Everybody in baseball right now, everybody’s tired. That’s just what it is. As you get (close to) September, it’s a grind.” Admitting, though: “We didn’t expect this from a good offence, a lineup like we have.

“Again, it’s contagious. When someone gets going, it’ll spread out throughout the lineup.”

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On Monday, with the Chicago White Sox in town, Montoyo said he might try sending his players to the batting cage pre-game instead — “get them off their feet.”

It’s obvious Montoyo doesn’t have answers to the “What gives?” question. He can only put faith in the everlasting currents of baseball — that hitting, especially timely hitting, will float the Jays anew.

“You have to fight.”

Shadow boxing with themselves now, though. As the wild-card raft slips downstream.

Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno