Déjà vu: bats quiet, starter falters, Jays fall 5-1

White Sox 5 Blue Jays 1

Take the worst of Friday and the worst of Saturday, and you get another clunker as the Jays dropped a fourth straight series on Mother’s Day.

As on Friday night, the bats came out firing on all cylinders against Lucas Giolito. Freddy Galvis singled, with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. following by reaching for in his fifth straight trip to the plate with a hard double to put two in scoring position with none out. Justin Smoak hit another ball hard, but lined out to first. Rowdy Tellez was the fourth straight batter to hit a ball hard, lining a RBI single into right field to put the Jays in flight.

Unfortunately, that was the highwater mark of the afternoon, as 26 of the next 28 were retired. Randal Grichuk couldn’t get Vladdy home from third by striking out, and Brandon Drury couldn’t pick him up. Teoscar Hernandez led off the second with a single: that was the last Jays hit. Grichuk led off the 4th with a walk; he was the last to reach. The last 18 batters went in order. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes.

As Marcus Stroman did on Saturday, Aaron Sanchez came out firing. He had a perfect first two innings, the last five batters all set down swinging. Also as on Saturday, the White Sox figured him out and starting hitting him hard the second time though.

He caught a break in the 3rd as Tim Anderson led off with a single but was ruled out trying to steal, upheld on replay even though he appeared to be pretty clearly safe. There was no such luck in the 4th. After a leadoff flyout, he allowed a hard single and then a no doubt bomb to Yonder Alonso. Two more hard singles, and then another bomb to Anderson.

Five batters, five runs — it was all the damage he yielded, but more than enough. Sanchez stranded a pair of runners in each of the next two, going 6 innings and allowing the five runs though he did strike out 11.

On the plus side, the bullpen was almost perfect over the last three innings. Daniel Hudson and Joe Biagini threw perfect innings; Tim Mayza struck out the side around a single. Those six strikeouts made for 17 on the game, a season high. And in the Pyrrhic victory department, they won one inning and lost one inning.

But that’s not how baseball works, and so the Jays have now lost 10 of 12.

Jays of the Day: [image of The Scream]

Blew Jays: Sanchez (-.290 WPA), and as usual pretty much the whole lineup though we’ll single out Smoak (-0.096) and Drury (-0.092).

Tomorrow the Jays are off as they travel to San Francisco for (checks notes) their third trip out west in the last month. Trent Thornton will apparently take on Tyler Beede following Derek Holland’s demotion to the bullpen as the Jays face a teams whose rotation is in as much turmoil as their own.