A little good news on an otherwise bad day for the Blue Jays in Buffalo

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This article was published 06/06/2021 (1940 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BUFFALO—This might be an apropos time to mention that George Springer is running the bases with ease, throwing comfortably and otherwise looking like he’s ready for restoration to the lineup.

That progression thing Blue Jays management is all the time yammering about should see their $150-million (U.S.) superstar make an imminent rehab start in Trenton with the Triple-A squad, kicked out of Sahlen Field for the parent club’s residency.

Ditto positive bulletins for Cavan Biggio (neck), who homered Sunday afternoon for the Bisons; Thomas Hatch (right elbow impingement), who threw two shutout innings down the road in New Jersey; Ryan Borucki (left forearm flexor), who was on the field here pre-game; even Julian Merryweather (oblique), well into his throwing routine but likely to not be activated by the end of his 60-day IL spell.

“It will probably be a little bit past that date,” GM Ross Akins indicated in a Sunday state-of-the-union confab with media. “We want to make sure when he comes back into the fold he can go back-to-back days and that he’s not someone we need to protect.”

So, that’s the good news. The bad news is that the bad Jays were everywhere evident on a sun-soaked Sunday, dropping the rubber to Houston 6-3, losing their seventh straight series with the Astros dating back to 2017, and 12 of their last 17 meetings.

The flim-flam schmuck Astros — no, we’re not going to put this behind us — are a terrific team and all, leading the American League in runs scored. But the Jays made it ridiculously easy for them, if not so humiliatingly as that 13-1 clobbering on Friday: sloppy in the field — a complete reversal of their defensive excellence 24 hours earlier — wayward on the mound and utterly confounded in the batter’s box by a 24-year-old rookie, Luis Garcia.

A right-hander from Venezuela with multiple moving pieces to his delivery — double swaying motion — and it was rock-a-bye-bye Jays through the six innings that Garcia held Toronto to one run on three hits, two walks and eight strikeouts, matching a career high.

This is the young man who began the season with three losses in a row and three no-decisions but has since racked up five straight Ws, spinning a studly 1.86 ERA in that span. The Jays had never seen him before, which made Garcia an enigma they were never able to solve.

“Because you don’t know what’s coming,” an impressed manager Charlie Montoyo observed. “He’s got three different sliders. He’s got the cutter and a sneaky fastball. The guy knows how to pitch.”

So does Steven Matz, of course. Except this wasn’t the Matz who won his first four starts as a Jay and owned a 6-2 record, tied for fifth in wins in the AL, including a slick dispatch of the Astros on May 8 at Minute Maid Park. Rather, this was more the Matz with three no-decisions in his previous four starts.

Got off to a deflating start by surrendering an instant home run to Jose Altuve, the purported cheater-in-chief from 2017 turning a deaf ear to the hoots and catcalls from the crowd every time he came to the plate over the weekend. Pretty much a dead puller hitter, Altuve took a Matz sinker that leaked over the inside part of the plate over the left-field wall.

Matz defended that pitch: “Honestly, I made my pitch. It was in off the plate and inside and that’s what I wanted to do. He’s a really good hitter and he beat me to that spot. You’ve got to tip your cap at that point. I made the pitch I wanted to make.”

Matz, however, had an uphill grind with every leadoff hitter getting on base for the five innings he threw and another after he gave way to Anthony Castro.

“That was a frustrating thing,” Matz allowed. “You want to get that first guy out and keep it going. I just couldn’t do that today. That was definitely frustrating, kind of with my back against the wall in every inning. Definitely not ideal.”

His fastball was fine, but the off-speed pitches, well, the Astros feasted on those. “It’s unfortunate because when your fastball is going, it just makes all the other stuff better,” he said. “The other stuff wasn’t crisp, that’s what it boiled down to.”

The 30-year-old, who seemed to have found a new life or at the very least a second act after he was traded to Toronto in January, was asked how he might rediscover his groove, the command and assurance he’d demonstrated through the first month of the ’21 season.

“I think just staying after it is the biggest thing, not panicking too much. Honestly, looking at this, a couple of things here and there, could have gone differently today. The balls just weren’t hit at guys today. Sometimes they’re hit right at guys. So … maybe working on my off-speed a little bit between starts, just keep it going.”

Consult with pitching coach Pete Walker and “get back where I need to be.”

Of course, Montoyo being Montoyo, the skipper accentuated the positives he believed he saw in Matz: “When you’re not sharp against that lineup, they’re going to make you pay, because that’s one of the best lineups in baseball, that’s a fact. And to give him credit, even though he gave up four runs, it could have been worse. He made a little adjustment and kept us in the game.”

Not exactly words to live by: It could have been worse …

The bullpen revolving door spun fiercely after Matz hit the shower: Castro, who snapped off a 99-m.p.h. heater in his no-hit inning and two-thirds; Tim Mayza, Carl Edwards Jr., Joel Payamps and Tyler Chatwood. Both Mayza and Payamps gave up runs but, truly, no pitcher on Sunday from either team found greater pleasure than Chatwood in his one-batter cameo: striking out Altuve with a cutter.

After his recent horrors, that was solace for Chatwood and his manager.

“He looked sharp and like the Chatwood that we know,” said Montoyo. “And we’re going to need him.”

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Toronto lost Danny Jansen after the third inning. He’d doubled to lead off, but was out sliding into third on a fielder’s choice. Initial word: mild strained hamstring, with more tests Monday. If Jansen has to go on the IL, with Alejandro Kirk already there, the Jays might call up Riley Adams, who’s been on a hot streak with the Bisons.

The listless afternoon and stupidly long game — 3:32 — was briefly animated, for Toronto anyway, when they mustered runs in the seventh and eighth, for the tennis-set score. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 0-for-3 with a walk, struck out twice chasing some bad pitches.

The Jays left after the game for Chicago, for a three-game series against the White Sox, but Monday is a day off.

Hey, wouldn’t you rather spend your day off in Chicago instead of Buffalo?

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