Blue Jays Lose Texas Series Despite Sunday Burst
A four-run seventh made Sunday feel better. It did not make the Texas series good.
The line score from Sunday is pleasant if you keep it away from the rest of the weekend.
Blue Jays 7, Rangers 2.
Toronto with 11 hits and 0 errors.
Texas with 8 hits and 0 errors.
A four-run seventh inning that finally put the game somewhere safer than a coin flip.
It is all perfectly acceptable until you remember the series did not begin on Sunday.
It began with the Blue Jays losing 7-1 on Saturday.
Then losing 6-2 on Saturday.
Then winning 7-2 on Sunday.
That is not a turnaround.
That is a consolation prize with decent penmanship.
The official summary is simple enough: lost 2 of 3 vs. the Texas Rangers.
The emotional summary is worse, because it has to be carried around.
The series was gone before the relief arrived
There are weekends where the final game changes the entire shape of the story.
This was not one of them.
Sunday changed the taste, not the math.
The Blue Jays got to leave Texas with one clean win, and yes, that matters. Nobody should pretend a 7-2 road win is nothing.
But when the first two games are losses by scores of 7-1 and 6-2, the final game becomes less of a triumph and more of a note from the furnace company saying the heat is temporarily working.
Good.
Still concerning.
At 77-79 with a .494 winning percentage, 4th in the division, and 4-6 over the last ten, Toronto does not have much space left for moral victories.
A W1 streak looks tidy on the standings page.
It does not explain why the weekend still feels like a door closing softly in another room.
Sunday did its job
To be fair to the game itself, Sunday gave the Blue Jays plenty of what they needed.
In the top of the first, Nathan Lukes hit a sacrifice fly off Jacob deGrom to left fielder Wyatt Langford, scoring Brett Bateman.
That is how you start a road game without making everyone immediately reach for the remote.
In the top of the third, Sean Keys doubled off deGrom on a line drive to right fielder Alejandro Osuna. Lukes scored.
The lead was 2-0.
For a while, things were orderly.
Then Jake Burger homered in the bottom of the fourth off Spencer Arrighetti on a fly ball to left center field, scoring Ezequiel Duran.
Tie game.
Of course.
There is always a toll booth.
But the Blue Jays answered in the top of the fifth, when Kazuma Okamoto singled off deGrom on a line drive to center fielder Evan Carter. Bateman scored. Myles Straw moved to third.
That was the important part.
Not the run itself, though the run mattered.
The response.
Too often this season, the response has felt like someone coughing politely from the back of an empty hall.
On Sunday, it was at least audible.
The seventh inning was the burst
The top of the seventh was the inning that made the final score comfortable.
Lukes singled off Tyler Alexander on a ground ball to right fielder Alejandro Osuna. Bateman scored. Straw moved to second.
Charles McAdoo doubled off Chase Silseth on a line drive to left fielder Wyatt Langford. Straw scored. Lukes scored.
Andrés Giménez singled off Adam Macko on a sharp line drive to right fielder Alejandro Osuna. McAdoo scored.
Four runs.
Actual separation.
A ballgame no longer being held together with dental floss.
Lukes went 2-for-3 with 2 RBI. McAdoo went 1-for-3 with 2 RBI. Keys, Giménez, and Okamoto each had a hit and an RBI.
The Blue Jays got something from different places in the lineup, which is a nice thing to write and a slightly painful thing to consider after the weekend had already been bent out of shape.
Toronto left 9 on base.
Texas left 9 on base too.
Nobody made an error.
For once, the difference was not a self-inflicted mess.
It was just a better Blue Jays game.
A better Blue Jays game that arrived third.
The pitching line belongs in the win column
Spencer Miles gave the Blue Jays 3.0 innings, 0 earned runs, and 4 strikeouts.
That is not something to bury.
Louis Varland had 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs. Paul Sewald had 0.1 with 0 earned runs. Mason Fluharty had 0.1 with 0 earned runs. José Rodríguez had 1.0 inning, 0 earned runs, and 1 strikeout. Tyler Rogers had 1.0 inning with 0 earned runs.
Arrighetti’s line was 2.1 innings, 2 earned runs, and 2 strikeouts.
The staff total was 7 strikeouts and 2 earned runs.
This is how Sunday became safe.
Not dramatic. Not spotless. Safe.
And safe is a beautiful word when a team has spent so much of September walking across wet cardboard.
The larger issue is that safe on Sunday does not refund Saturday.
The season numbers sit there in their familiar tired row: 156 games played, 629 runs, 4.03 runs per game, a .248 batting average, a .694 OPS, 149 home runs.
The Blue Jays have not been incapable.
They have been inconsistent in the most draining way possible.
Enough good to keep the lamp on.
Enough bad to make the room feel cold.
Today brings Baltimore, with Trey Yesavage listed for Toronto and Shane Baz listed for the Orioles.
The schedule does not care that Sunday was better.
The standings do not care that the seventh inning finally bloomed.
The Rangers took the series.
The Blue Jays took the finale.
One of those facts is pleasant.
The other is the one that matters more.
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