TORONTO — The Chicago Cubs had men on the corners with two outs in the second inning and Zach McKinstry was down 0-2 in the count when Toronto Blue Jays starter Mitch White singled and Alfonso Rivas singled to second.
Here’s where everyone stood at the delivery.
White’s fastball flew high for a ball, Alejandro Kirk popped up and fired to second without hesitation, and as did Yan Gomez, already a third of the way down the line with Matt Chapman playing off the sack, he broke for home.
By the time the ball reached Bo Bichette at second base, Gomes was more than halfway home and had no chance of getting an out, as you can see here.
Bichette wisely kept the ball, chased down Rivas, who pulled as Kirk threw to second, and passed to Cavan Bijou, who applied the tag to end the frame. Still, Gomez made a touchdown well before the third out, stealing a run for the Cubs that opened up a 2-0 lead.
Not great, sure, but by no means insurmountable. In isolation, it’s not necessarily a big deal either, because baseball happens and the other team tries too. Still, in the context of the Blue Jays’ current season, the game was emblematic of the tight margins in which they’ve been too loose at times, making life more difficult if not costing them games.
In what ended up being a 7-5 loss to the Cubs on Wednesday night, Gomez’s achievement wasn’t decisive in itself. But along with Ian Happ’s RBI single in the first on a 102.7 mph liner that faded enough of Whit Merrifield, he scored “some runs that you can look back on and replay in your mind a little bit,” interim manager John Schneider said .
When White surrendered a three-run third that opened up a 5-0 Cubs advantage, Gomez’s smart break became even bigger.
“The play designed in a perfect world is, yes, we throw it to second with a layup and a return to home,” Schneider said. “The catcher has to look at third there, and if you see Gomez down that far, it kind of shifts your throw to second and gives Chappie some time to get to the bag. For any catcher, even though we’re throwing to second, you’ve got to check the runner and if he’s wandering like he was, you’ve got to make an adjustment.”
There was none this time, and though the Blue Jays (70-59) made it interesting, getting a two-run homer from Biggio in the third and a solo shot by Franmil Reyes in the fifth to make it 6-2, and a three-run shot from Kirk in the sixth — they never equalized again.
Chapman nearly tied the game in the sixth when he lined a fly ball off the left-field wall, but after a walk by Teoscar Hernandez, Bijo grounded out to end the frame.
McKinstry’s RBI single in the seventh made it 7-5, and Rowan Wick of North Vancouver, B.C., the last of seven Cubs pitchers, closed out the game in the ninth in front of a disappointed crowd of 28,572.
The loss capped a disappointing 2-4 homestand that followed a 6-1 sweep through the Bronx and Beantown and sent the Blue Jays into the day off down the stretch. At the same time, despite August 13-14, they will start September with the third and final wild card spot.
“We feel pretty good,” Bijo said. “Obviously the series against Anaheim was pretty tough. But if you look at that journey, you kind of saw it all come together, starting pitching, timely strikes, bull was clawing. That was exciting to see. The Anaheim series and maybe today is a little bit just the result of the dog days of August. We’ve got a bunch of guys grinding right now, and at the end of the day, that’s baseball.”
The 10-game road trip that begins Friday in Pittsburgh against the lowly Pirates looms large as it follows a crucial four-game stretch that includes a Monday doubleheader against the Orioles, two games back in the wild-card race.
The Blue Jays were brainstorming ways to retool their rotation to be at their best for this series, and a three-game stretch followed in Texas, the final soft spot in the September meat grinder.
“To be in every game that matters for the playoff stretch in the last month, that’s great,” Schneider said. “With that, if you want to call it pressure, it’s great, it’s deserved and we definitely deserved it. Many teams have deserved it by this point. The group of guys that are there accept the fact that every game is going to be important. It’s great for some of the young guys we have that are doing it again like we did last year. And it’s great that we have veteran leadership on both sides of the ball. So we’re looking forward to the challenge.”
This time around, the Blue Jays will, of course, be looking for a different outcome than the one they suffered last year when they fell one game short of the playoffs. To that end, they’ll need to get White back on track, as after allowing a career-high seven runs in his last start, he surrendered six more against the Cubs despite striking out 14 in 4.2 innings.
It’s an indicator that his fastball and slider can be effective, but that perhaps there are ways to make better use of them with tweaks around usage, along with the rest of his repertoire.
“The last two were obviously a little rough, so we’re looking into things like that,” White said. “Whether it’s pitch selection, pitch execution, that’s where we break it down with Pete (Walker) on video and then if there’s anything mechanical. We’re working on some little things in the pen, but at this point in the season, it’s not like we’re making any big old changes mechanically.”
Then, of course, there’s the tighter game, as mistakes can sometimes be overcome against teams like the Cubs, but they’re all the more vexing against the tougher competition looming later this month.
“It’s a complicated game,” Bijo said of Gomes’ run in the second. “The first and third plays we made it was a throw, but if you see him break through and you have a chance at home, try to turn it over and throw it at home. But the left fielder was up, Chappie was a little bit off third, which allowed the baserunner to get a little bit more of a lead, so as soon as he threw the ball, he took a huge leap and we had no chance to catch him. Just a good baseball game by them executed pretty well.”
The kind of little play that can make a big difference.
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