Blue Jays seek stability as slide continues with loss to Dodgers

TORONTO — The disruptive nature of the injuries, roster churn and struggle the Toronto Blue Jays have endured over the past week means that as much as they need wins, what they really need is some stability to help make that happen. 

To that end, their latest moves are aimed at restoring some equilibrium, with Patrick Corbin recalled to tentatively start Friday against the Minnesota Twins, filling the rotation spot of Cody Ponce, who will be sidelined six months after right knee surgery next week. Addison Barger, meanwhile, hit the injured list with a left ankle sprain and Tyler Fitzgerald was recalled to cover the absence, giving manager John Schneider another piece to mix and match with as he tries to get his team “just being in sync.”

“Not having games where guys are getting stretched out, you’re making moves, you’re churning through guys, you’re optioning, you’re rotating – you don’t really want that,” he continued. “There have been a lot of pitchers used so far. You never know who it’s going to be. … Last year, Eric (Lauer) was a great story, kind of a shot in the arm when Max (Scherzer) was down. We’ll see who it is. Signing a veteran guy (like Corbin), you know what you’re going to get. You trust the fact that he’s going to be prepared and by no means are we asking him to step in and be our No. 1. You’ve got to get through the rotation a couple times with guys doing what they should, getting the innings they should, putting the guys in the bullpen in the right place and just slowing down the transactional log, if you will.”

The Blue Jays took a step in that direction Tuesday night in a 4-1 setback to the Los Angeles Dodgers that nonetheless was their sixth loss in a row. 

While the result was by no means what they wanted, Schneider described it as “closer to what we should look like,” as they had a chance to win thanks to 5.1 innings from Kevin Gausman, which led to more optimal bullpen deployment, preventing the scramble to cover innings so common in the previous losses.

Still, much work remains, especially at the plate, where they loaded the bases with nobody out in the seventh to knock out Yoshinobu Yamamoto but watched Alex Vesia get Andres Gimenez on a fly out to left, strike out Brandon Valenzuela and get George Springer on a fly out to right, preserving a 3-1 lead. 

Blake Treinen and Edwin Diaz locked down the final two frames to secure a win in which the Blue Jays had their chances, but went 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position – fittingly, two of those hits didn’t score runs – and are now just 20-for-94 this season.

Their .213 average is third-worst in the majors and even more glaring is that they’re a hard-to-fathom 1-for-17 with the bases loaded.

“Not anxiety. Patience comes into it. What you’re swinging at comes into it. And then not being afraid to just take a walk at times. That’s all part of it,” Schneider said of what’s leading to the lack of execution at the plate. “It’s a tricky thing and pitchers are good. You have to be convicted in what you’re trying to do in every situation, whether it’s bases loaded, nobody out, or first and third on, one out, whatever it may be, just do your job and move it on to the next guy. That’s what we were really good at last year. It’s what we are striving to continue to do and it’s just not happening right now.”

The Blue Jays aren’t playing nearly tight enough in other parts of their game to compensate, either, as a poor Gausman throw on an Alex Freeland bunt in a two-run third led to one run, a controversial balk call on the right-hander in the fifth — “definitely not a balk, I’m not going to move off that,” said Schneider — led to another and a misplayed chopper and a throwing error in the ninth produced a third.

“The way we’re built is, we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot, we can’t give extra outs, and then it just allows us to be who we are,” said Schneider. “That hasn’t really been the case last week.”

Despite that, once you factor that Gausman is also fighting the flu-bug sweeping through the clubhouse, he pitched better than his final line of three runs on five hits and two walks with five strikeouts suggests, and was followed by strong relief work from Mason Fluharty, Louis Varland and Jeff Hoffman.

While he lamented the Freeland throw and the balk — “It wasn’t a balk, but if it’s close enough for them to call it, then maybe it’s on me,” he said — the night’s pitching formula is “how we consistently win ballgames, by using those guys in roles that they expect to be used in, and that’s late in the game, hopefully, or to get a certain lefty out.”

“We’ve been asking a lot of them already,” Gausman added. “We go deep in the game, everything lines up the way it should … it’s kind of a trickle effect.”

The same applies to what the Blue Jays have gone through the past week, which traces back to the springtime injuries suffered by Trey Yesavage and Jose Berrios, along with Shane Bieber needing more time. Ponce’s injury was followed by Alejandro Kirk’s injury — he underwent surgery Tuesday and will miss six weeks — followed by Barger’s injury, with a flu in the mix, too.

“It’s been crazy. It really has. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything like this, such a short period of time,” said Gausman. “You can kind of hang your hat on the fact that we do have a lot of the season left, but we just need to start playing better, playing more like our brand of baseball.”

Beginning with finding some more secure footing.

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