Chris Sale Cannot Be Blue Jays’ Sweep Excuse
Sale is the opponent, not the alibi. Toronto has scored three runs in each Atlanta loss and needs more than a preloaded shrug Thursday.
The worst thing the Blue Jays can do Thursday is treat Chris Sale like a permission slip.
Permission to be quiet.
Permission to call competitive at-bats a moral victory.
Permission to lose a third straight game in Atlanta and explain it away as one of those matchups.
No.
That has to be rejected before first pitch.
The Blue Jays are trying to avoid a sweep. They have scored 3 runs in each of the first two games of this series, losing 4-3 on Tuesday and 7-3 on Wednesday. They are 29-33, with a .468 winning percentage, an L4 streak, and a last-ten line of 4-6.
There is no more room for tasteful losing.
Chris Sale is listed for Atlanta. Toronto has no starter listed.
That is a hard setup.
It is not an excuse for the hitters to disappear.
Three runs keeps losing the argument
The Blue Jays scored early Wednesday.
That part matters.
Nathan Lukes scored in the first when Jesús Sánchez grounded into a double play off Grant Holmes. Lukes then homered in the third. Brandon Valenzuela added a ninth-inning homer off Tyler Kinley.
Three runs.
Again.
The Tuesday score was 4-3. The Wednesday score was 7-3. Different game shape, same offensive ceiling.
That cannot continue into Thursday.
Toronto had 8 hits Wednesday and left 8 on base. The Braves had 9 hits and left 4 on base. That is the difference between creating traffic and actually making the other team pay for standing in it.
The Jays did some things.
Lukes went 2 for 5 with a homer and an RBI. Valenzuela went 1 for 3 with a homer and an RBI. Ernie Clement, Daulton Varsho, Andrés Giménez, Yohendrick Piñango, and Kazuma Okamoto each had a hit.
Good.
Now finish innings.
Because against Sale, the Jays cannot bank on a long list of chances. They cannot waste the ones they get and then act shocked when the scoreboard stays small.
That has been the trap too often with this offence. Activity gets mistaken for production. A few baserunners become proof of life. A ninth-inning homer makes the final line look less barren.
But the standings do not grade effort.
The standings count the final score.
The lineup has to carry its share
Toronto’s season line is not a mystery box.
The Blue Jays have played 62 games. They have scored 250 runs, 4.03 per game. They have a .244 batting average, a .690 OPS, and 59 home runs.
That is enough to know what this offence is: capable, uneven, and not dangerous enough to coast.
So the approach against Sale has to be direct.
Put the ball in play with intent. Do not wait for the perfect inning to arrive fully assembled. Do not make the game feel like it only starts after Atlanta has already built a lead.
Wednesday’s first-inning run was welcome, but it came on a double play. That is baseball, and a run is a run, but it also tells the story of a team that got something while giving something back.
The third-inning Lukes homer was clean.
The ninth-inning Valenzuela homer was clean.
Everything else needed more bite.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 0 for 3. Sánchez went 0 for 4. Myles Straw went 0 for 2. Those lines do not explain the entire loss, and they should not become a character trial. But in a game where Toronto is trying to avoid a sweep against Sale, empty nights from important lineup spots are not background noise.
They are central to the problem.
The Jays do not need everyone to hit a homer.
They need enough pressure that Sale is not allowed to turn the game into a slow walk toward the obvious.
The pitching uncertainty raises the offensive demand
Here is the uncomfortable truth.
When no starter is listed, the offence does not get to ask for perfect conditions.
It has to help create them.
Toronto’s pitching staff struck out 1 batter Wednesday. The Braves scored in the second on Ha-Seong Kim’s single off Patrick Corbin, with Eli White scoring and Kim advancing on Nathan Lukes’ throwing error. In the third, Mauricio Dubón homered off Corbin, scoring Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies. In the seventh, Albies homered off Adam Macko, scoring Dominic Smith and Olson.
That was enough to make Toronto’s three runs feel thin.
Thursday could become another complicated pitching day. The listed facts say Atlanta has Sale and Toronto has nobody named. That does not mean defeat is automatic. It does mean the hitters should understand the assignment before it becomes desperate.
Score first if possible.
If there are runners on, do not turn the inning into a museum exhibit.
If Sale gives them an opening, take the opening without asking whether a better one might arrive later.
Because later has not been kind to this team lately.
Stop making the opponent the headline
Good teams can acknowledge a tough matchup without surrendering the story to it.
That is the line for Toronto on Thursday.
Sale will get the attention. The no-starter-listed Jays will get the nervous jokes. The sweep angle will sit over the whole game like weather.
Fine.
Then change the subject with the bats.
The Blue Jays are not in a position to accept another three-run performance as understandable. Not after Tuesday. Not after Wednesday. Not at 29-33. Not on an L4 streak. Not when a sweep would drag the conversation even deeper into the same old swamp.
This is an Opinion Desk take, so here it is plainly: the offence has to be held to a higher standard Thursday precisely because the pitching situation is unclear.
That may feel unfair.
The standings are unfair.
The schedule is unfair.
Chris Sale being the listed opposing starter while Toronto has no starter listed is unfair.
Nobody is coming to balance the scales for them.
So hit.
Not eventually. Not aesthetically. Not in one late solo shot that makes the box score look less severe.
Hit like a team that understands a sweep is avoidable only if the offence stops treating three runs as a reasonable closing statement.
React