The late-inning comeback giveth and the late-inning comeback taketh away. The Blue Jays had the turns tabled on them in Saturday’s 5-3 loss to the Cleveland Guardians at Rogers Centre.
After winning three games in a row, coming from behind in the seventh inning or later each time, it was the Jays who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory Saturday.
A two-out, ninth-inning grand slam by Daniel Schneemann, off Yimi Garcia, brought the visitors back for the win.
“You’ve got all the trust in the world in (Garcia),” Jays manager John Schneider said of the right-hander, who was pressed into action as the closer after Jeff Hoffman’s 26-pitch, white-knuckle ninth inning Friday. “He just made a mistake pitch.”
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The pitch, an 0-and-1 fastball that was waist-high and over the inner half of the plate, was Garcia’s 32nd of the inning. He had thrown more than 20 pitches in only two of his previous 14 outings this season, with a high of 24, and hadn’t reached the 30-pitch mark since September 2022.
“He was a pitch away to (pinch-hitter Bo) Naylor (who drew a walk before the slam),” Schneider said. ”(Schneemann) was his last hitter. It sucks when a reliever’s pitch count gets up to that point, but you still trust him. He’s still made for those spots. With him and (Hoffman), you have ultimate trust in those guys.”
Garcia has earned that trust, to be sure. He hadn’t allowed an earned run all season coming into Saturday and had only given up 10 baserunners in 14 innings for a 0.714 WHIP.
Long before that big hit flipped the script, there were plenty of smiles in the Jays’ dugout as Bo Bichette聽hit his first home run in almost a calendar year.
The Blue Jays shortstop turned on Cleveland starter Gavin Williams’ first pitch of the game and belted the 97 miles-per-hour inside fastball about six rows into the seats in left field.
The instant the ball came off the bat, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. raised his hands to the heavens in the on-deck circle. At one point in his trip around the bases, Bichette clasped his hands together and drew them to his chest as if in prayer.
“It felt good,” the typically understated Bichette said. His last homer was May 27 of last season, the final blast of four he would hit during a miserable campaign.
“People were excited for me, for sure. I was excited for myself.”
It was the club’s first leadoff home run of the season.
More importantly, it was the team’s seventh round-tripper in the past four games and gave the Jays eight straight games with a home run. Heady territory for a team that hit聽14 homers over the first 27 games.
“I like our at-bats recently,” Bichette said. “The past four games, maybe. I mean, we’re capable of so much more. We’ve definitely got to be better. There’s a fine line (between) being patient, waiting for it and doing something about it. It’s not always that easy, but we have the ability to be a really good offence and we’re showing that a little bit.”
An early lead was something new; the Jays had gone five games without scoring first. When a bases-loaded walk to Friday night’s hero, Nathan Lukes, added another run in the third inning, it marked the first time since April 16聽鈥 a span of 14 games聽鈥 that the Jays had scored the first two runs in a game.
The lead was extended to 3-0 in the fifth when Ernie Clement led off with a pinch-hit double and came around to score on two fly balls, but then the spigot was shut off. The Jays didn’t have another hitter reach base after Clement聽鈥 15 in a row were retired 鈥 leaving the door open for the Cleveland comeback.
A fantastic start by Kevin Gausman was wasted. The right-hander dominated the visitors and shook off any initial concerns about the effects of his club-record-tying 53-pitch inning last weekend.
“It’s usually a lot if a guy throws 40 pitches in an inning,” Gausman said Saturday. “I was closer to 60 than I was 30, so not ideal聽鈥 I felt like I pitched an entire game in 2 2/3 (innings) so it was just about listening to my body, being able to recognize that I’m 34 now, so I just took some time off (between starts).”
Gausman allowed only one hit and one walk through six spectacular innings, striking out nine and not allowing a runner past first base in throwing 94 pitches.
“Really, it’s about getting the first guy out to start the inning,” he said. “If you do that, you’re more often than not going to set yourself up to have a quick inning. We did that every inning tonight, so that was probably the biggest difference-maker.”
The biggest difference-maker until the ninth, that is.
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