Blue Jays Return Home for White Sox Rake Test
The Jays get the White Sox after the break, which is nice, unless they immediately step on the same rake again.
The Blue Jays are back home Friday, which means the Rogers Centre gets another chance to become either a ballpark or a group therapy yurt with cupholders.
After the break, Toronto gets the Chicago White Sox.
Spencer Miles is listed for the Jays.
Anthony Kay is listed for Chicago.
On paper, this is a clean little reset.
In Blue Jays reality, paper is what they use to wrap the rake before stepping on it again.
Please identify the rake
The rake is not complicated.
The Jays are 45-51.
They are fifth in the division.
Their winning percentage is .469.
They are 5-5 in the last ten and on an L2 streak.
This is the sort of standing that does not require a philosopher.
It requires a team meeting where nobody is allowed to say flush it unless an actual toilet is present.
The problem has not been a total lack of baseball events.
Toronto has 392 runs in 96 games, 98 home runs, a .244 batting average, a .690 OPS, and 4.08 runs per game.
That is not an offence living in a cave drawing pictures of bats on the wall.
It is an offence that exists, makes noise, occasionally finds power, and then sometimes misplaces the plot under a stack of expired coupons.
The margins are not friendly anymore.
At 45-51, fifth place, and coming off two straight losses, the Jays do not get to act like a winnable game is a light suggestion from the universe.
A winnable game is a raccoon in your kitchen.
You deal with it now.
The Padres supplied the instructional video
The recent Padres series was practically a safety demonstration.
Toronto won 5-3 on Saturday.
Then the series turned into a treadmill with emotional banana peels.
Sunday brought a 7-8 loss.
Sunday also brought a 4-5 loss.
The summary is clean: lost 2 of 3 vs the San Diego Padres.
The feeling is less clean, more like finding soup in your shoe.
The last game had enough good parts to make the bad part extra annoying.
Nathan Lukes homered in the top of the first off Germán Márquez.
Ernie Clement homered in the top of the fourth off Márquez, scoring Andrés Giménez.
Jonatan Clase singled in the top of the eighth off Adrian Morejon, scoring Daulton Varsho and moving Alejandro Kirk to second.
Clase went 2-for-4 with an RBI.
Kazuma Okamoto went 2-for-3.
Lukes and Clement each provided a homer.
Kevin Gausman gave Toronto 6.0 innings with 3 earned runs and 8 strikeouts.
You can work with that.
You can build a normal baseball afternoon from that.
Then the bottom of the eighth wandered in wearing a fake moustache.
Manny Machado singled off Jeff Hoffman, scoring Xander Bogaerts.
Ty France hit a sacrifice fly off Hoffman, scoring Jase Bowen.
The Jays lost 4-5.
They finished with 9 hits and 8 left on base.
The Padres had 7 hits and 6 left on base.
This is how you create a box score that feels like it is smirking.
The White Sox series is the part with no trapdoor
There is no need to make the White Sox into a myth.
The schedule says Chicago comes to Toronto on Friday.
The Jays are home.
Miles faces Kay.
That is enough information for the assignment.
Win the game in front of you without adding a slapstick subplot.
The Jays do not need to spend Friday proving the whole season has been healed by rest, orange slices, and maybe a very sincere playlist.
They just need to be functional.
Functional baseball is underrated.
Functional baseball is a clean inning after your team scores.
Functional baseball is turning 9 hits into enough damage that everyone does not spend the ninth inning refreshing the standings with one eye closed.
Functional baseball is letting Spencer Miles pitch in a game that does not feel like a forklift certification exam conducted during a fire drill.
The offence has enough identifiable pieces to avoid becoming interpretive dance.
Lukes homered in the last game.
Clement homered.
Clase had two hits.
Okamoto had two hits.
There is a version of this lineup that looks like it understands the concept of innings arriving in order.
There is also the other version.
We have met the other version.
It keeps leaving runners on base like abandoned shopping carts.
Friday needs adult supervision
The funniest possible outcome is not a blowout.
The funniest possible outcome is the Jays simply playing a crisp home game against the White Sox, winning it, and leaving all of us with nothing to do but nod like normal people.
Imagine the luxury.
No emergency math.
No eighth-inning fog machine.
No staring at a 4-5 final and wondering whether the sport is personally committed to bit comedy.
Just Spencer Miles starting, Anthony Kay starting, and the Blue Jays treating the first game after the break like it matters because it does.
The season has reached the point where every game is both a baseball game and a small referendum on whether Toronto wants to remain a serious conversation.
That is annoying.
It is also earned.
You go 45-51, sit fifth, lose 2 of 3 before the break, and the schedule stops giving you charming little mulligans.
So welcome back.
The White Sox are in town Friday.
The rake is visible.
Please, for once, walk around it.
React