The Blue Jays ended the first half of the season with a blowout win Friday night, then started the second half by getting absolutely hammered: 15-1 by the Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston.
Chris Bassitt got thoroughly worked over by a team that entered Saturday with baseball’s worst offence over the last 10 games.
Since trading star slugger Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants in a controversial move聽鈥 immediately after sweeping their hated rivals, the New York Yankees聽鈥 the Red Sox had hit an embarrassing .184 with a .555 on-base-plus-slugging percentage. They had averaged 2.8 runs per game, and Friday’s loss was their sixth in a row.
Saturday, they looked like an entirely different team.
Bassitt retired the first two batters he faced, then only managed to set down three of the next 17.
With two out in the first, Abraham Toro (the pride of Longueuil, Que.)聽stroked a single on the 10th pitch of his at-bat, then Bassitt allowed a first-pitch single to Carlos Narv谩ez and a first-pitch three-run homer by Wilyer Abreu to open the scoring. The inning could have been even more of a train wreck after the Red Sox loaded the bases following the homer, but ninth-place hitter Ceddanne Rafaela grounded out to end it.
Like in the first inning, Bassitt was one out away from escaping the second with no damage. But with two on and two out, Abreu got him again. This time it was an RBI double into the right-field corner. Trevor Story followed with a two-run single.聽
The right-hander was back out for the third, but left with the bases loaded and none out after walking a pair around a single. All three runners wound up scoring against rookie reliever Braydon Fisher, the last one on a throwing error by Alejandro Kirk.
Eight earned runs and only six outs ballooned Bassitt’s ERA by more than two-thirds of a run, from 3.61 to 4.29.
It was by far the worst outing of the season for the 36-year-old veteran, who prides himself on going deep into games and giving the bullpen a break. Bassitt had only given up more than four runs twice this year, and had failed to get through five innings just once.
The abbreviated outing meant the Jays needed 15 outs from an already overworked bullpen. (It would have been 18, but backup catcher Tyler Heineman pitched the eighth with the game out of hand.) The good news was that聽the ‘pen had only thrown three innings since Wednesday. The bad news was that after all of Saturday’s heavy lifting, the Jays still have 11 games before their next day off.
As well, Sunday starter Eric Lauer聽is coming off his longest outing of the season (just 5 1/3 innings) and Monday’s starter against the first-place Yankees is Max Scherzer, so the bullpen will be needed a bunch between now and Kevin Gausman’s Canada Day start.
The high-leverage relievers 鈥斅closer Jeff Hoffman,听Yariel Rodriguez and Brendon Little聽鈥 weren’t used, so they’ll be fine, but bridges will need to be built to them if there are leads to protect.
Chad Green and Nick Sandlin haven’t exactly worked their way into the circle of trust. Fisher has, but he threw 27 pitches over two innings Saturday (one walk, one hit, no runs) so he’s down for a day or two.
Manager John Schneider’s hands are going to be tied for at least couple of days as the Jays try to win the series in Boston on Sunday, then kick off their final homestand before the all-star break against the Yankees on Monday.
Barger, Gim茅nez and the heat
- Pitchers have started throwing Addison Barger fewer fastballs, and the second-year slugger is having a hard time adjusting. The 25-year-old Jay went 1-for-4 Saturday and the hit was a flare double down the right-field line after he got jammed on a heater up and in, one of only three fastballs he saw in the strike zone all day. Facing a different plan of attack, Barger has hit just .172 over his past seven games. He has to show he can do damage against spin in order to start seeing more straight stuff.
- Andr茅s Gim茅nez could not sustain the momentum of Friday’s three-hit night and went 0-for-3, dropping his average to .198. The book on Gim茅nez is the opposite of Barger, and Red Sox starter Lucas Giolito threw him five fastballs in a row in his first at-bat to strike him out. Next time up, Gim茅nez saw seven straight heaters and couldn’t catch up, though he fouled off five of them. With Gim茅nez geared up for the express, Giolito made him look silly with a changeup and struck him out on the eighth pitch.
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