Late letdown drops Blue Jays into tie with Rays for prime spot in wild-card race

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – No matter how this sequence on the Toronto Blue Jays’ perennial hell-spot of Tropicana Field performs out, the wild-card image received’t be any much less muddled heading into the ultimate week and a half of the common season. The hole is just too tight between them, the Tampa Bay Rays and Seattle Mariners to rule out any eventualities in the meanwhile, guaranteeing there’ll at minimal be some drama round who’s taking part in the place, if not who’s getting in.

All of which makes holding tiebreakers so necessary, one thing the Blue Jays surrendered after a irritating 10-6 loss Friday evening left them 7-10 in opposition to the Rays this season and unable to meet up with solely two extra head-to-head conferences remaining.

A back-and-forth recreation was settled within the eighth when David Peralta lifted a fly ball to shallow proper area and pinch-runner Taylor Walls charged house beneath a excessive and huge throw from Teoscar Hernandez to interrupt a 6-6 tie. A Bo Bichette error on a Harold Ramirez grounder later within the inning led to a different run earlier than Randy Arozarena’s two-run single padded the sting.

Pete Fairbanks mopped up within the ninth because the Rays (84-67) tied the Blue Jays (84-67), losers of three straight, for prime spot within the wild-card race, however they’re primarily forward by holding the tiebreaker. The Seattle Mariners (82-68), 5-1 losers at Kansas City, stay 1.5 video games again.

“It’s weird here. Whenever things kind of don’t go great or perfectly, it seems to unravel,” stated interim supervisor John Schneider, including later: “Tonight was a perfect example of how you kind of play into their strengths. You can’t walk guys and expect good things to happen. You want to let them beat you with their bats and tonight we didn’t do that and didn’t take care of the ball particularly well.”

Under new guidelines this yr, ties within the standings between two groups are damaged by head-to-head play quite than a single-game, winner-takes-all contest. A 3-team tiebreaker is set by which crew has one of the best mixed successful share in opposition to the opposite two golf equipment.

The Rays are within the driver’s seat on each fronts, holding the sting over the Blue Jays and the Mariners (5-2) in two-team-tie eventualities, in addition to holding one of the best cumulative mark if there’s a three-way impasse. Seattle beat Toronto 5-2 and is locked into second below such a state of affairs.

Hence, the Blue Jays have to be a minimum of a recreation higher than each rivals from right here on out to safe home-field benefit, with out the margin for error a tiebreaker supplies.

That’s been compounded by a tough week that started with a blown save in opposition to the Baltimore Orioles final Sunday, adopted by a messy 18-11 win Tuesday at Philadelphia earlier than one other missed probability in opposition to the Phillies in a 4-3, 10-inning loss Wednesday and a blowout loss Thursday to the Rays.

During that span the Blue Jays have gone from occupied with a potential run on the New York Yankees atop the AL East to sustaining homefield for the wild-card spherical.

Schneider talked about “putting each game in a vacuum one-by-one at this point,” one thing third baseman Matt Chapman, no stranger to the high-leverage tightrope, stated is less complicated stated than performed.

“It’s hard every day to try not to dwell too much on what happened, what you could have done better,” Chapman defined. “At this time of yr, everyone’s burnt a bit of bit. Everybody’s been grinding for a very long time. To be one of the best participant and finest teammate you might be tomorrow is simply to flush it and let it go. Everybody’s drained and it is not going to do you any good attempting to determine why this occurred or why you bought pitched a sure manner or why you did not make a play it is best to have made.

“Obviously, there are a couple of plays tonight that I wish I would have made and I’m pretty good at kicking myself for that,” he continued. “But I know that it doesn’t matter anymore and as much as I wish I did it differently, it’s like, hey, tomorrow, I’m going to get another opportunity to make a play for this team and help us win a game. That’s what I’m focused on and I know the guys are, too.”

The Blue Jays would have needed to win three straight in opposition to the Rays to offer themselves the tiebreaker starting with a Friday recreation that featured the standard array of miseries that are inclined to plague them on the Trop.

Mitch White, recalled from triple-A Buffalo to start out, bought bled for a pair of runs within the first, with Wander Franco dropping a 77.3-m.p.h. double simply contained in the left-field line to arrange a run-scoring groundout by Arozarena earlier than a Manuel Margot bunt single plated a second run.

Christian Bethancourt’s RBI double within the fourth made it 3-0 however back-to-back doubles by Teoscar Hernandez and Raimel Tapia to open the fifth minimize into the lead. Tapia then took third on a Whit Merrifield fly out to deep centre, Danny Jansen walked and after George Springer struck out, Bichette ripped an RBI single. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. then tied the sport with a bouncer up the center and Alejandro Kirk, below directions to select his spots working after lacking time final week with left hip tightness, booted it up the road to beat out an errant Isaac Paredes throw to place the Blue Jays up 4-3.

Needing a shutdown inning within the backside half, the Blue Jays pulled White for Tim Mayza, who struck out Jonathan Aranda earlier than Harold Ramirez singled and Wander Franco walked. In got here Anthony Bass and he bought up 1-2 on Arozarena, who then slashed the fourth straight slider he noticed over the wall in proper area to place the Rays again up 6-4.

The Blue Jays tied it within the sixth on a Jansen RBI single and Springer sacrifice fly however Guerrero struck out with two on to finish the body and issues stood there till the sport unravelled on Yimi Garcia within the eighth, simply because it did Wednesday in Philadelphia.

A Ji-Man Choi stroll to open the inning began the difficulty earlier than Miles Mastrobuoni adopted with a base hit that despatched pinch-runner Walls to 3rd. The shallow fly by Peralta adopted and the Rays poured it on from there.

“I thought (Garcia) made great pitches to Choi,” stated Schneider. “Really close 3-2 pitch, really close 2-2 pitch and you trust that you want the players to have the result of the outcome of the game in their hands. That happens sometimes.”

More than typically for the Blue Jays on the Trop, the baseball stadium with a warehouse-shopping-mall vibe Chapman diplomatically stated is “an interesting place to play.”

“A little bit different – just different in every way,” he continued. “It’s kind of hard to put your finger on why it is different. I’ve obviously only come once a year until this year. But definitely it takes some adjusting, definitely takes some getting used to. But it’s a good team we are playing. They play well at their home field just like we do. When you’re on the road here, you know that you’re in for a tough game and you’ve got to find alternate ways to just win.”

Mantra for the second for the Blue Jays.