Blue Jays Bullpen Turns 5-3 Lead Into 7-6 Loss
A two-run lead in the seventh should not feel like a haunted object. The Blue Jays made it one anyway.
A 5-3 lead is not a guarantee.
We are adults here, at least by calendar definition.
A 5-3 lead at Yankee Stadium is not a warm blanket. It is more like holding a paper bag full of soup while crossing a busy street.
Still.
The Blue Jays had it.
They led the Yankees 5-3 after six innings on Monday, and that should have been enough to ask the bullpen for competence, not perfection.
Instead, the seventh inning arrived carrying a clipboard and a shovel.
Yariel Rodríguez gave up two two-run homers. Cody Bellinger to center with Aaron Judge aboard. Jazz Chisholm Jr. to left with Trent Grisham aboard.
A 5-3 Blue Jays lead became a 7-5 Yankees lead.
The final was 7-6.
That is not a loss you analyze with a microscope.
That is a loss you find by following the smoke.
The first six innings gave them a chance
Patrick Corbin did not pitch a painting.
Goldschmidt homered off him in the first. In the fourth, J.C. Escarra hit a sacrifice fly off Corbin to score Anthony Volpe, and Goldschmidt doubled off him to score Max Schuemann.
Corbin finished with 4.0 innings, three earned runs, and three strikeouts.
Messy enough to notice.
Not messy enough to excuse what came later.
The offence did real work against New York. Ernie Clement hit a three-run homer in the fourth off Ryan Weathers, scoring Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Kazuma Okamoto. George Springer homered in the fifth. Clement drove in another run in the sixth on a force out, with Lenyn Sosa scoring.
That is a team building a road lead in pieces.
Not an avalanche.
Not a gala.
Just enough honest baseball to put the game where it needed to be.
Blue Jays 5, Yankees 3.
A fragile lead, yes.
But fragile things are still supposed to be carried carefully.
The bullpen context is not comforting
The Blue Jays have been moving pieces around.
Yariel Rodríguez was selected from Buffalo on May 11. Tommy Nance went on the 15-day injured list on May 17 with right forearm discomfort. Adam Macko was recalled from Buffalo that same day.
That is not an excuse for Monday.
It is the wallpaper behind Monday.
The room has been rearranged, and some of the furniture is clearly blocking the exit.
Macko’s line was 1.0 inning, zero earned runs. Jeff Hoffman’s line was 1.0 inning, zero earned runs and one strikeout. Braydon Fisher’s line was 1.2 innings, zero earned runs and one strikeout.
There were functioning parts here.
That almost makes it worse.
Because the collapse was not spread thin enough to become abstract. It was concentrated. Rodríguez was charged with 0.1 innings, four earned runs, and no strikeouts, and the scoring plays tell the rest of it in two very plain sentences.
Bellinger homer.
Chisholm homer.
The bridge did not creak.
It vanished.
The one-run finish was not mercy
The ninth inning had the nerve to make everything hurt more.
Jesús Sánchez doubled off David Bednar, and Clement scored.
Now it was 7-6.
Now the Blue Jays were not buried. They were just close enough to see the thing they had dropped.
There is a specific cruelty in the one-run loss after a bullpen detonation. A cleaner defeat lets everyone mutter about the whole operation and move on. This kind points to the exact burned-out section and asks you to stare.
Toronto finished with six runs and nine hits.
New York finished with seven runs and 11 hits.
The Blue Jays also had two errors, because apparently one form of discomfort was not enough for the evening.
But the seventh is the only chapter anyone will remember.
It swallowed the game.
It swallowed Clement’s four RBI.
It swallowed Springer’s homer.
It swallowed Sánchez making the ninth interesting.
A late lead has to be treated like something precious by a 21-26 team. There are not enough extra wins lying around to keep donating them to the cause of future regret.
The official ruling from the kitchen
The standings say 21-26.
The winning percentage says .447.
The last ten say 5-5.
The streak says L1.
The eyes say they have seen this movie before, and the projector is starting to make a grinding noise.
Today brings another game against the Yankees, with Dylan Cease listed against Will Warren.
Fine.
Baseball continues.
That is both the charm and the punishment.
But Monday cannot be shrugged off as just one inning, because one inning is plenty when it contains four Yankees runs and two Rodríguez homers and the complete evaporation of a 5-3 lead.
The Blue Jays did enough to be in position to win.
Then the bullpen turned position into posture, posture into panic, and panic into another 7-6 loss.
There are losses that happen.
This one was performed.
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