Blue Jays takeaways: It was too little and too late but Toronto offence shows signs of life in loss to White Sox

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This article was published 26/08/2021 (1521 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 10-7 loss to the White Sox on Thursday at Rogers Centre:

With the Blue Jays facing an early six-run deficit, things looked bleak for a team that had scored only 14 runs in its last six games, but the bats finally woke up in a big sixth inning that got the home side back in the game.

Maybe it was the fifth-inning drenching that got things started — more on that below — but the Jays smacked around White Sox fireballer Michael Kopech for five runs in the most prolific inning they have had in more than a fortnight.

The frame featured RBI singles from Randal Grichuk and Bo Bichette and was capped by Marcus Semien’s two-run homer to left, his second of the game. That gave Semien 32 for the season, one shy of his career high set in 2019, with 36 games to go.

The big rally got the Jays back within two runs and though they couldn’t complete the comeback, managing only one hit the rest of the way, it was an encouraging sign that the offence managed to score more runs in one inning than they had in any of the previous games of the homestand.

Semien’s first homer came in the first inning, and it snapped a streak of 13 games in which the Jays had been held off the scoreboard in the opening frame.

• Vlad the Impaler: The Jays’ young slugger may be having a rough time at the plate, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put on a show with the glove.

It started in the third inning, when Guerrero came off the bag to snag a wild throw from Bo Bichette and still managed to tag Leury Garcia as he was running by. That inning ended with Guerrero doing the splits to stretch far enough to haul in Santiago Espinal’s one-bounce throw on an Eloy Jimenez grounder.

In the seventh, the 22-year-old smothered a 104-mph rocket off the bat of Jimenez, got up and beat Chicago’s left fielder to first base.

Guerrero saved the best for last, though, making a full-out dive to his left to snatch a Cesar Hernandez line drive out of the air for the first out of the eighth inning. The missile, destined for the right-field corner, was hit harder than Hernandez’s second-inning homer off Hyun-Jin Ryu.

While Guerrero hasn’t been his first-half self at the plate by any means — he’s hitting just .242 in August with only three home runs — he has reached base safely in seven straight games and 14 of his last 15.

He’s definitely showing signs of fatigue in the dog days, as he’s no longer running out ground balls that are clearly outs in order to conserve energy, but he’s playing all-out on defence and on the bases.

• Dome delay: With some ugly-looking weather on the radar, the Rogers Centre roof began to close in the fifth inning. The technology of the one-time Eighth Wonder of the World has improved to the point where the entire roof can be closed in less than 20 minutes, but this time, they didn’t have that long.

About six minutes after the roof began to close, fans in the 100-level started streaming up the stairs, trying to get to the concourse to avoid getting drenched.

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It was pouring as the Jays put together a three-hit rally in the bottom of the fifth and, after Guerrero’s RBI single, White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodon called out the grounds crew to resurface the mound.

By the time they were done, the roof had closed, but for 11 minutes most of the 14,958 in the house got soaked, bringing back memories of the third game played at what was known as SkyDome in 1989.

Home plate umpire Rich Garcia, noticing that only he, the catcher and the batter were getting doused, halted play for six minutes while the final panel of the roof slid shut in the sixth inning.

There was no official rain delay Thursday. Had they counted it, it would have been only the fifth in the history of the ballpark.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star and host of the baseball podcast “Deep Left Field.” Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness