Trey Yesavage’s 6.2 Innings Hide Blue Jays Cracks
Yesavage gave Toronto exactly what it needed in a 2-1 win over the Mets. That is the comfort, and also the warning.
There is comfort in Trey Yesavage giving the Blue Jays 6.2 innings and allowing 1 earned run.
There is also terror in needing it quite that badly.
Toronto beat the New York Mets 2-1 on Monday. Take the win. Put it somewhere dry. Do not be proud. Do not be picky. Just take it.
The Blue Jays are 40-45.
They are 3-7 over their last ten.
They have a W1 streak, which is technically progress and emotionally a small candle in a wet basement.
This was a victory, yes.
It was also a reminder that the pitching staff is being asked to cover an awful lot of cracks with one thin coat of paint.
Yesavage gave them the night
Louis Varland started the pitching line with 1.0 inning, no earned runs, and 2 strikeouts.
Then Yesavage carried the bulk of the game.
6.2 innings. 1 earned run. 3 strikeouts.
For a team that has spent too much of June shuffling bodies and explanations, that kind of length is not just helpful. It is oxygen.
Mason Fluharty recorded 0.1 innings with no earned runs. Tyler Rogers finished with 1.0 inning and no earned runs.
The staff total was 5 strikeouts and 1 earned run.
That is a clean enough pitching night to win many games. On Monday, it had to be nearly airtight because the offence supplied only 2 runs on 4 hits.
That is where the sadness enters.
Not because 2-1 wins are bad. They can be beautiful, in the right season, on the right team, with the right sense of momentum around them.
Here, it felt like watching someone carry groceries through a storm in a paper bag.
One swing made the whole lead feel old
The Jays scored first, at least.
In the bottom of the first, George Springer tripled off Sean Manaea on a line drive to center, and a fielding error by A.J. Ewing brought Springer home.
That was not a rally so much as a useful accident with excellent timing.
In the bottom of the fifth, Myles Straw hit a sacrifice fly to center off Manaea, scoring Luis Urías.
A 2-0 lead.
Two runs, both welcome, neither suggesting the gates had been opened.
Then came the top of the seventh.
Francisco Lindor homered to right off Yesavage, and suddenly the whole game tilted toward the familiar feeling. The lead was still there. The Blue Jays were still ahead. Nothing had collapsed.
And yet every long-suffering Jays fan knows that particular temperature change.
The room cools.
The remote gets held a little tighter.
The mind starts preparing legal arguments against hope.
Toronto survived it. Fluharty and Rogers helped close the line. The Mets did not score again.
Good.
Still, it says something grim that a game with 1 earned run allowed could feel so breakable from the seventh inning onward.
Four hits is not a cushion
The lineup did enough because the pitchers made enough very small.
Springer went 1-for-4. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 1-for-4. Luis Urías went 1-for-2. Ernie Clement went 1-for-3.
That was the hit column for Toronto, sitting inside a team total of 4 hits.
Straw went 0-for-2 but delivered the sacrifice fly. Brandon Valenzuela, Nathan Lukes, Yohendrick Piñango, and Kazuma Okamoto each finished 0-for-3.
The Blue Jays left 7 on base. The Mets left 7 on base too.
The Mets also made 2 errors, and one of them was wrapped directly into Toronto’s first run.
Again, nobody gives the win back.
But it is hard to stare at that shape and feel restored.
This was not the lineup declaring that the skid is over, that the roster has found its footing, that the larger mess was simply a bad week wearing a fake moustache.
This was a team taking the help that appeared and asking the pitching to make it stand up.
That is allowed.
It is not sustainable as an identity.
The roster keeps moving underfoot
The broader picture is the part that makes the 2-1 feel heavier.
Daulton Varsho was activated from the 10-day injured list on June 20. Shane Bieber was activated from the 60-day injured list on June 23. Jesús Sánchez was placed on the 10-day injured list on June 27 with a right ankle sprain.
Luis Urías was acquired from Arizona for cash on June 20 and had his contract selected from Buffalo on June 22. Yohendrick Piñango was optioned to Buffalo on June 22 and recalled on June 27. Sean Keys had his contract selected from Buffalo on June 27.
Simeon Woods Richardson was designated for assignment on June 26. Adam Macko was recalled from Buffalo the same day. Hayden Juenger was designated for assignment on June 23, then traded to the Athletics for Owen Carapellotti on June 27.
That is not a roster settling.
That is a roster looking for floorboards that do not creak.
Toronto has played 85 games. The team has 345 runs, 4.06 runs per game, a .247 batting average, a .699 OPS, and 86 home runs.
Those numbers are not a funeral.
They are not a hymn either.
They are the background hum behind a 40-45 team trying to make one clean pitching night mean more than it can.
Today, Kevin Gausman is listed for Toronto against Nolan McLean and the Mets.
The schedule does not pause to admire Yesavage’s work.
It just hands the Blue Jays another game and asks whether the fumes can last one more night.
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