Jays Lose 6-3

Another rough one. The offence was bad again (except Davis Schneider, again), and the pitching staff’s recent struggles continued. The Jays came into this series with a chance to bury a Rangers team that’s been reeling for almost a month, and now they’ve officially lost the season series and have to scramble to secure a split.

It was a pitchers’ duel early. Hyun Jin Ryu was excellent through three innings, allowing a walk to Robbie Grossman in the first but otherwise facing the minimum. The Rangers got to him early in the fourth, though. Corey Seager lined a single and Grossman lofted a ball just over the wall into the home bullpen to put Texas up 2-0. Jonah Heim added a single, but Ryu stopped the damage there.

Texas extended their lead in the sixth. Seager doubled and advanced on a Mitch Garver line single. Heim brought him home with a sac fly.

Overall it was six pretty good innings for Ryu. He gave up 5 hits and a walk, striking out 5, but unfortunately the Rangers brought home three of those six base runners.

Yimi Garcia took over in the seventh. He gave up back to back doubles to Leody Taveras and Josh Smith to extend the lead to 4, but did manage to record two outs before giving way to Tim Mayza. Mayza gave up a double of his own, to Seager, making it 5-0. That fourth run would wind up being the difference.

Erik Swanson worked a 1-2-3 top of the eighth. Trevor Richards walked two and gave up a single in the ninth to push the lead back to four.

The Jays could not figure Max Scherzer out. He only recorded a pair of strikeouts, but also allowed just three hits (two doubles, to Cavan Biggio and Davis Schneider, and one single to George Springer) and a walk (to Daulton Varsho). He was forced to leave with one out in the bottom of the sixth with what’s being described as “right triceps spasms”, which was lucky for the Jays because at just 73 pitches he was in shape to go at least eight innings if he’d been able to and they weren’t showing many signs of catching up to him.

Jose Leclerc took over and got out of the inning without a baserunner.

The Jays finally got something going in the bottom of the seventh. Leclerc gave up a double to Spencer Horwitz that was about two feet short of getting out. Schneider followed with a ball to the same spot but ten or fifteen feet shorter which Travis Jankowski was able to get to for the first out. Bruce Bochy called for Brock Burke to face the Jays’ trio of lefties. Biggo lined a single into right that scored Horwitz, cutting it to 5-1. Santiago Espinal, hitting for Varsho, lined a ball to the gap in left that advanced Biggo to third, and managed to get himself to second just ahead of the tag (he was actually called out but the call was overturned). Ernie Clement came in for Kiermaier and grounded out, bringing Biggio home to cut the lead to three. John Schneider made yet another move, hitting Alejandro Kirk for Tyler Heineman, and Bochy countered by calling for Right Chris Stratton. Kirk grounded out to end the rally.

Stratton retired the top of the Jays’ lineup in order in the eighth.

The Jays scored one more off Aroldis Chapman in the ninth, on a Davis Schneider solo shot. That made it 6-3, which would stand as the final score.

Jays of the Day: nobody qualifies, but I’m giving it to Schneider because it’s not his fault his team was too bad to make use of a homer and a double.

Burnt Ends: only Bichette qualifies officially (-0.104) because 15 of the 18 Jays who appeared tonight hurt the cause by wpa.

We have to get to do two more games of this. I’m sure you’re all as excited as I am. Tomorrow, the offence gets to try to work out of their funk against Jordan Montgomery (8-11, 3.62), while Yusei Kikuchi (9-5, 3.57) will try to break the pitching staff out of theirs. First pitch goes at 7:07pm ET.