Blue Jays must make sure inexplicable Jeff Hoffman-Kazuma Okamoto moment doesn't start spiral

It is almost the end of June, but the Toronto Blue Jays are still making fundamental mistakes you'd expect them to take car of during spring training. The latest example came in the top of the eighth inning on Wednesday (Jun. 25) against the Houston Astros. A complete communication breakdown between reliever Jeff Hoffman and third baseman Kazuma Okamoto allowed the go-ahead run to score in what would eventually be a 3-1 Astros win.

With Hoffman on the mound and former Blue Jays outfielder Joey Loperfido on third, after having just hit a one-out triple, Hoffman attempted to pick off Loperfido. The only problem was that not only was Okamoto no where near the third base bag, he wasn't even looking in Hoffman's direction to receive the throw. That throw ended up down the left field line, allowing Loperfido to trot home.

After the game, manager John Schneider said Okamoto thought the throw was going to be coming from catcher Alejandro Kirk after the pitch, and that's why he wasn't expecting the throw from Hoffman.

“I think with Kaz not covering, it kind of threw Jeff off a little bit,” Schneider said. “So just miscommunication with Kaz, really.” Which sort of explains it, but doesn't make up for why the throw was about 12 feet wide of the target, and why Hoffman didn't just hold on to the ball when he looked over and saw Okamoto not moving to the bag.

Regardless, it's one mental error in what has been a series full of them as the Blue Jays dropped what should have been a winnable series against the Astros.

Blue Jays letting too many opportunities slip away

The Blue Jays just seem to be finding new ways to lose lately. They got pounded 16-2 by the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field last Friday, but after bouncing back with wins over their next two games and finding themselves with a .500 record they failed to capitalize against a team they are trying to distance themselves from in the chase for the Wild Card playoff spots.

They had Shane Bieber returning on Tuesday afternoon. It what should have been a true pivotal, turning point moment on the year, it instead gave the Astros some life as Bieber allowed back-to-back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning and his day was done after 3.2 innings and nine hits allowed.

Despite that, the Blue Jays still had a chance to win that game, leading 6-4 going into the ninth, but giving up that lead and then losing the game in extra innings. They followed up that clunker with another awful offensive performance on Wednesday, scoring one run on four hits and going 0-for-2 with RISP.

Saying that the team had four hits is almost a compliment. Nathan Lukes had one of them, and it went over the wall for the Blue Jays' only run, (his thrid home run of the year). Daulton Varsho had a pair of singles, and the newest Blue Jays' infielder, Luis Urias, hit a single in the eighth.

After moving up to second on a passed ball, Urias was in scoring position but then got doubled up on a fly out to right field off the bat of George Springer - again, another mental mistake by the Blue Jays, this one coming on the base paths.

Believe it or not, but the Blue Jays, from a win-loss record stand point, have been one of the best teams in the league over the last month and a half. In fact, going into Tuesday's game, the Blue Jays were 20-15 since May 14. That was the weekend they went into Detroit and took two out of the three games, including Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hitting a home run. That's the best record in the American League - however, they had been outscored 149-140 in that stretch as well.

So while there have been some nice building blocks since the middle of May for the Blue Jays to point to and say, "this is team we want to be," the fact remains they keep taking two steps back and acting like the team nobody wants to see.

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