Blue Jays’ recent late-game collapse shows lingering cost of rotation injuries

The Toronto Blue Jays blew a prime opportunity to draw even with the Cleveland Guardians for the final spot in the Wild Card in Monday, September 14's game against the Detroit Tigers. Being tied with the Guardians works in Toronto's favor as they hold the tiebreaker for winning the season series. The Blue Jays entered the seventh inning with a 2-0 lead and could see on the outfield wall scoreboard that the Chicago White Sox were ahead of Cleveland 6-0 at the same point in the game.

A major question is why no one was warming up in the bullpen with José Soriano set to face the Tigers' lineup a third time, starting with two-hole hitter Gleyber Torres. The thought process behind not warming up anyone could have been that Soriano had a no-hitter going after walking Zach McKinistry in the sixth, and the righty was only at 69 pitches. However, this was only the fourth time in 30 starts this season that Soriano pitched into the seventh inning.

Knowing Tuesday’s game was going to be a bullpen game was likely the reason for the decision to ride Soriano as long as possible, but teams and their managers should know their pitcher’s history. Soriano wasn’t likely going to last much longer. After giving up back-to-back hits to Torres and Riley Greene, Paul Sewald should have entered to preserve the 2-0 lead with runners on first and second with no outs.

The bullpen has been a strength for the Blue Jays lately, so it makes sense to give them the ball with a lead, despite the toll it could take on Tuesday’s bullpen game. However, Soriano was left in, and the Tigers would score four runs on five hits and with only one out getting recorded before manager John Schneider turned to Sewald. With a runner on second, the reliever got McKinstry to pop out and Hao-Yun Lee to line out.

In the bottom of the seventh, Kazuma Okamoto, who is having a tremendous rookie season, hit a two-run home run to give the Blue Jays the lead again, 5-4. Kevin McGonigle, Torres, and Greene were due up in the top of the eighth, leading to Schneider turning to left-hander Joe Mantiply.

All season, the strategy with a close lead in the eighth inning was to turn to submariner Tyler Rogers or southpaw Mason Fluharty, depending on the upcoming hitters. However, they had both thrown the two days prior. Rogers hasn’t thrown three consecutive days this season, but he performed the feat three times last season. Fluharty has done this feat once this season.

Including the games on Sept. 15th, 11 games remain, meaning every game counts. So, with the Guardians on the verge of losing, you would think the strategy would be to give the ball to your best setup guy, Rogers. He had thrown only 23 pitches over his two prior outings, and as a submariner, his arm motion puts less strain on his shoulder.

Even letting closer Louis Varland go for a six-out save, something he's done three times this season, seemed like a better use of the bullpen. Braydon Fisher was unavailable because he's the opener in Tuesday's game ahead of Spencer Miles, who will be the bulk-inning guy.

Brendon Little was the freshest arm available, not throwing since Friday, and has been the best option against lefties in the second half of the season. However, Schneider chose Mantiply, who has been good versus left-handed batters, which McGonigle and Greene are, but the southpaw has performed better this season when runners were on base than with no one on.

Batters are hitting .189 with runners on, and an even worse .143 against Mantiply with runners in scoring position. With the bases empty, Mantiply has allowed a .260 batting average. That’s a massive difference and another reason to turn to Rogers or Varland in a high-leverage situation.

McGonigle would single, Torres flied out to center, and Greene singled. So the lefty advantage didn’t even pay off, as both left-handed hitters got a base hit. Varland would then replace Mantiply. The closer would strike out Dillon Dingler, but then gave up a two-out, two-RBI single to rookie Brett Callahan to tie the game. Varland went back out for the ninth and an error allowed the go-ahead run to score.

Blue Jays not able to bounce back after a gut wrenching loss to Detroit

Obviously, hindsight is 20/20, but if at the end of the season, the Blue Jays fall a game short of a postseason trip, Monday’s game will be one that everyone will be talking about. The bullpen has been heavily relied on all season long due to the plethora of injuries to the starting rotation.

The strategy also failed to work when the Blue Jays got trounced by the Tigers 10-1 on Tuesday night as well to fall to 75-77 on the year. They now sit two games back of the Guardians. The first two Blue Jays' pitchers were great, pitching a combined three innings and allowing no runs and no hits with four strikeouts - with Brayden Fisher opening and Brendan Cellucci making his MLB debut.

But Michael Lorenzen came in and in two innings allowed five runs on four hits and three walks and the Tigers just ran up the score from there.

So now’s not the time to start thinking about easing their workload. Reinforcements in Trey Yesavage and/or Shane Bieber could be on the way to finish the season, but for now it's all hands on deck.

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