Blue Jays’ Robbie Ray falters at worst possible time

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The Blue Jays didn’t go out and get Robbie Ray to pitch in games like Thursday night’s.

When they took a one-year flier on him in free agency, the hope was that Ray could be serviceable. At the very least, not the base-on-balls generator he’d been in previous years.

But after a remarkable campaign for which he will probably win the American League Cy Young Award, Ray had become the bridge between the Jays and the post-season.

In that end, that faith would prove too big a burden, both for Ray and the Jays.

When Ray wobbled, the Jays stuck with him. That resulted in the worst inning of his 2021 campaign.

The New York Yankees won 6-2, taking two out of three from their ersatz playoff series in Toronto.

The upshot: New York moves into a commanding two-game lead for the first wild-card spot.

The Jays lost, but so did the Boston Red Sox (to the suddenly streaking Baltimore Orioles, who arrive in Toronto on Friday).

By virtue of not playing, the Seattle Mariners move into a tie with Boston for the final wild-card spot. The Jays are a single game behind those two.

Three days to go. Three teams fighting for what is probably a date in New York next Tuesday.

Based on Thursday – the Jays’ best pitcher in a kinda-must-win game – Toronto’s ability to close remains very much in question. Because of that, it’s no longer in its power to play its way into the post-season. The Jays need other teams to simultaneously play their way out.

You kind of knew this was going to happen mid-afternoon. Ahead of the game, as managers tend to do, Jays’s boss Charlie Montoyo gushed about Ray.

“We feel great just because Robbie’s on the mound,” Montoyo said.

“Just the one start against the Orioles that he struggled a bit,” Montoyo continued. “Other than that he’s been good in every outing.”

No. No, no. You never talk in specifics. You don’t name the fear. That sort of flagrant fate-tempting is not tolerated in baseball.

So in the first inning, Ray – who used to be the sort of guy who’d give up a home run exactly when you could least afford one – served one up to Aaron Judge.

It came off the bat so hard, Ray nearly corkscrewed himself into the mound whipping around. After five minutes, it landed inside the Flight Deck restaurant in dead centre field.

From that point on, it was a game of small increments. The beauty of October baseball (and this is that, despite the date) is reducing a game of hours to dozens of encounters of a few seconds.

In October, it’s possible for a baseball game story to be something it cannot be in August: potentially interesting.

Ray set the evening’s tone. In the early going, he wasn’t the Cy Young winner Montoyo had hoped for, but nor was he the pitching sieve. He gave up several deeply hit balls (more on that later). He walked a couple of guys. The strikeouts were fewer and less overpowering.

But he did what good starters do – he was better than the other guy.

Bo Bichette created the first Jays run – a single, a stolen base, a Corey Dickerson double. In that same inning, Judge robbed Santiago Espinal of another run with a sprawling catch in shallow right. It wasn’t Judge’s speed that surprised you. It was his ability to fold all 80 inches of his body quickly enough to get down to the ball. In July or August, Judge lets that ball bounce in front of him. But now it’s bending-over time.

In the mid-fourth, the Jumbotron showed highlights from the Baltimore-Boston game. The Orioles got the second-biggest cheer of the night to that point when they were shown going up 3-1.

In the sixth, a series of fortunate occurrences fell the Jays’ way. George Springer lined a ball straight at Yankees shortstop Gio Urshela, who made everything about the play look easy except the catching the ball part.

Marcus Semien was called out on the second leg of an inning-ending double-play, but that was overturned via replay. Vlad Guerrero Jr. subsequently hit a ball so hard that it bounced off the top of the centre-field fence and back into the park.

At this point, you’d have said luck was tilting just slightly toward the Jays. Always a bad sign.

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Ray came back out for the sixth, working his way through the top of the Yankees’ order for the third time.

You’d like to think it was an endorsement of Ray, but it was probably a fear of going to the bullpen before it was strictly unnecessary.

As it turned out, it was strictly necessary. The second Yankee batter, Anthony Rizzo, homered. Judge, now getting a real feel for what Ray was up to, was the next man. He took a 1-1 pitch over the wall left centre.

The Jays brain trust came out for a little chat: “How you feeling?”; “We believe in you.”; “Don’t those pants hurt sometimes?”

Ray was left in to work out his own issues.

He half-intentionally walked Giancarlo Stanton. That wasn’t a bad plan. However, giving up a home run to the next batter, popless Yankees second baseman Gleyber Torres, could have been better thought out.

Ray left, having given up only four hits on the evening. All of them were homers. His five earned runs were a season high.

A bad time to have a bad outing. Much, much worse than that night against Baltimore Montoyo mentioned.

But like they’re always telling you in sports, adversity something something something.

Ray is still going to win the Cy Young. Signing him was a gamble that paid off like a daily double.

But if the Jays miss the playoffs, you’d have to say that all the unexpected goodwill built up between pitcher and club over the course of a year helped undo it at a crucial moment.