Instant Reaction: George Springer hit his second home run in as many days, but the Blue Jays fell 8-2 to the Rays

The lead was short lived though, as with runners on first and second, Bo Bichette committed an error on a double-play ball. The next batter, Brandon Lowe, went deep for a grand slam to give the Rays a 4-1 lead, and they never looked back.

That doesn’t mean that the Rays stopped the offense, nor did the Blue Jays’ defence help their matter. The team committed two straight errors, one where Vladimir Guerrero Jr. whiffed on a tough throw by Bo Bichette, as well as Guerrero Jr. airmailing the ball and missing Chris Bassitt.

In turn, this led to an opportunity for Randy Arozarena to drive in a run, which he did with an RBI single up the middle. This gave the Rays a 5-1 lead, which was a little unnecessary with how the Blue Jays offense was working.

They scored a handful more, including a Yandy Díaz single that drove in two runs, giving the Rays an 8-1 lead heading into the top of the ninth. The Jays just lacked fight after the grand slam.

In a meaningless game, Justin Turner hit a double, was moved over on the next out, and was driven in with Alejandro Kirk’s first RBI of the season on a sac fly. Way too little, way too late.

Things worth mentioning…

Chris Bassitt had a great start to his game, striking out the first four batters he saw. However, he ended the game with a line of 5 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 6 K. The lack of an out clearly changed the game, but Bassitt wasn’t at his best. Here are all six strikeouts.

Wes Parsons completed the rest of the game, finishing with a line of 3 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 1 K. He did what he needed to do, throw strikes, eat innings in an unwinnable game. He wasn’t really bad by any means, but he is clearly the garbage time pitcher.

Justin Turner hit a double, which was his first hit as a Blue Jay. Nice swing to his pull side that was 102.1 mph off the bat with an expected batting average of .560. More of this, please.

Vladimir Guerrero  had two hits on Friday evening, which made up 33.33% of the Blue Jays’ hits in this game. The other two hits we haven’t covered were Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s first hit as a Blue Jay, and a hit from Daulton Varsho.

Up next:  Burn the tape of this game and move on. On Saturday at 4:10 PM ET, the Blue Jays will have a chance to get at least a draw in this four game set. Yusei Kikuchi will be on the mound for Toronto.