Blue Jays takeaways: The best of Vlad Guerrero and Ross Stripling wasn’t enough in Dunedin farewell against the Rays

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This article was published 24/05/2021 (1635 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 14-8 Victoria Day loss to Tampa Bay in Dunedin, Fla.:

The Blue Jays bullpen has been both overworked and hammered by injuries this season, and the cracks having been showing quite a bit over the course of the current losing streak, which hit six games with Monday’s loss.

Officially, the bullpen allowed nine runs over 11 innings, but in truth, since reliever Trent Thornton was used as a one-inning opener, it gave up 14 runs (11 earned) in just three innings of work.

With high-leverage options Julian Merryweather, David Phelps and Ryan Borucki on the injured list — never mind closer Kirby Yates, who won’t throw a pitch all season — the Jays have had to deftly handle their three tested and reliable arms in Jordan Romano, Rafael Dolis and Tyler Chatwood.

Pitchers such as Travis Bergen, Anthony Castro and Joel Payamps have been thrown into the breach and had done a wonderful job early in the season, but there are reasons why they, along with the recently demoted Jeremy Beasley, were all available to the Jays for basically nothing. If any one of them works out, you’ve hit the jackpot, but meltdowns are inevitable.

You don’t expect this many of them in one week, but that’s often how long losing streaks are built. Over the course of the last six games, Castro has posted an ERA of 16.20, with Bergen and Payamps at 13.50 each (and Bergen wasn’t charged with any runs Sunday, when he issued three straight bases-loaded walks). Beasley, now back in Triple-A, had an ERA of 18.00 over that span.

The good news is that the Jays have managed to keep their heads above water. After their final Dunedin home date, they’re still a .500 team despite the current crisis.

• Long-ball weekend: Montreal native Vladimir Guerrero Jr. came up huge for the Jays in his first career start on Victoria Day.

Tampa Bay took a 5-0 lead in the top of the first inning, and it had been whittled to 5-1 thanks to a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. home run in the second when Guerrero came to bat in the fourth.

Long-time Blue Jay killer Ryan Yarbrough, who had retired every batter he’d faced save for Gurriel, threw Guerrero a first-pitch change-up and young Vladdy took great offence.

The pitch came in at 78.4 miles per hour and went out at an astonishing 117.4. The ball landed 461 feet away, after clearing the batter’s eye, the second-farthest the young phenom has hit a baseball in his major-league career. It also tied him with the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani for the American League home run lead.

Guerrero came up again in the eighth, when it appeared as though the Jays were about to miss an opportunity to cut into what was now a two-run Rays lead.

Rowdy Tellez led off the inning with a “triple” — a fly ball to deep right-centre on which multiple Gold Glove winner Kevin Kiermaier mistimed a jump at the wall — but both Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette failed to advance him that final 90 feet, each striking out.

The Rays went to sidearmer Ryan Thompson to face Guerrero with two out and Tellez still at third. He got ahead of the slugger 1-and-2, then missed with a frisbee slider. With the count even, Thompson came back with another slider and Guerrero mashed it to deep left to tie the game.

Guerrero’s second home run of the game was his 15th of the season, tying his 2019 career high and moving him into a tie with Atlanta’s Ronald Acuna Jr. for the major-league lead.

Markham native Jordan Romano got in on the holiday fun, too. The big righty came in to work the ninth inning and kept the game tied by striking out the side in order on just 12 pitches.

The three relievers who followed Romano, though, gave up nine runs in two innings.

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• Hot knife, meet butter: Five days after a brutal outing against the Red Sox left him suggesting he needed to go “back to the drawing board,” Ross Stripling was back on the mound and delivered the best pitching performance by any Blue Jay this season.

Stripling had been scheduled to start, but a couple of hours before first pitch the Jays announced that Thornton would serve as the opener and Stripling would likely follow as the “bulk guy.”

Thornton gave up five unearned runs in the first inning, thanks to a Santiago Espinal error and Thornton’s own inability to put away a couple of hitters before not getting close calls on 3-and-2 pitches and Joey Wendle’s two-out grand slam. So Stripling came into the game to start the second with his team in a big hole.

He was brilliant.

The righty retired the side in order in his first inning of work, after coming into the game with a first-inning ERA of 12.00, and went on to throw seven masterful frames, allowing just two hits, walking two and striking out seven. It was by far his best performance since being acquired by the Jays at last year’s trade deadline, and — despite the way the game finished — it allowed his team to come back and force extra innings. He’ll be out there again in five days, when the Jays are in Cleveland.

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