May has been a brutal month for the Blue Jays.
Outside of two sweeps against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves, the Blue Jays have been getting hammered by American League East opponents. They were swept by the Red Sox in Boston, they dropped six of seven to the Yankees and Orioles at home, and now they’ve dropped three of four against the Rays in Tampa.
It looked like they might have found their groove following a 20-1 beating of the Rays on Tuesday but it was the same zombie Blue Jays the rest of the series. Shane McClanahan shut them down on Wednesday and then Alek Manoah struggled in a 6-3 loss on Thursday afternoon.
Things worth mentioning…
- The story of the game is obviously Alek Manoah. It looked like things were starting to move in a positive direction after his solid start against the Orioles on the weekend but things came crashing down at The Trop. Manoah went just three innings and allowed five runs (four earned) on three hits and five walks while striking out six. Of the 87 pitches that Manoah threw through those three laborious innings, only 44 were strikes.
- The bullpen was saved by Trevor Richards, who came into the game and tossed three clean innings in relief on only 32 pitches. Richards now has a 3.86 ERA on the season.
- The Blue Jays got things going in the first inning and they had a rally in the ninth inning but there wasn’t much going on otherwise for the bats. The tying run came to the plate when the Blue Jays had the bases loaded in the ninth inning and John Schneider opted to pinch-hit Ernie Clement for Daulton Varsho. To his credit, Clement drove in a run with a sac fly, but it was somewhat surprising to see one of the team’s bigger bats take a seat for a recent call-up.
- The Manoah and Alejandro Kirk battery tandem had a very difficult time handling Tampa’s speed on the bases. The Rays stole seven times against the Blue Jays on Thursday, which is the most the Blue Jays have allowed in a single game since September 19, 2012.
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