Blue Jays drop opener of key series as bats go cold vs. dominant Williams

CLEVELAND – As the late innings of Tuesday’s game developed, the strikeouts piled up for Gavin Williams and time started running out on the Blue Jays.

This offence has been searching for answers all year and with Williams at his best, scoring would be an even greater challenge than usual. The Blue Jays kept it close with a bullpen game, but Cleveland’s pitching was ultimately too much at Progressive Field.

Thanks to a career-best 13 strikeouts from Williams, the Guardians won the series opener 6-1 over the Blue Jays to expand their lead over Toronto to 2.5 games in the American League wild-card race.

The Blue Jays still have two opportunities to regain that ground, and with Dylan Cease and Jose Soriano lined up for Wednesday and Thursday they like their chances. Yet every game is precious for the 68-71 Blue Jays, which makes Tuesday’s lack of offence sting.

As a group, the Blue Jays managed just three hits – singles by Alejandro Kirk, Kazuma Okamoto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Otherwise: nothing but a lone walk.

At times this year, the Blue Jays’ offence has been to blame. As the final month of the season begins, the group ranks 29th of the 30 MLB teams in runs scored. This time, Williams deserves lots of credit, but that doesn’t change the disappointment of the end result.

On the pitching side, there were some positives. Spencer Miles opened the game with a scoreless inning, touching 100 m.p.h. on the radar gun a couple of times. It’s been a remarkable season from start to finish for Miles, who’s seemingly getting stronger as the year progresses.

After a scoreless inning from rookie left-hander Ricky Tiedemann, Spencer Arrighetti entered for some bulk coverage and provided 3.2 innings of two-run ball – a respectable performance despite the two-run homer he allowed to Guardians catcher Patrick Bailey.

It wasn’t until Angel Genao homered off Joe Mantiply that the Guardians took full control of the game. Angel Martínez’s eighth-inning homer off Michael Lorenzen pushed the score further out of reach.

For this game, the Blue Jays looked flat. More importantly, they didn’t get the result they needed. Yet bigger picture, the Guardians were wary of the Blue Jays entering this series.

“They're good,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said Tuesday afternoon. “So are we. And we're fighting with each other, so it should be a fun series.”

Before the game, the Blue Jays finalized four additions as active rosters expanded to 28 for the month of September. Left-handers Tiedemann and Mantiply joined the pitching staff with utility player Josh Smith and corner infielder Sean Keys joining the position-player group while Daz Cameron was designated for assignment in a corresponding move.

With those four additions, the roster keeps evolving rather considerably as the season winds down.

“Good teams get better as the season goes on,” Vogt said. “And both these teams are getting better at the right time.”