TORONTO — A week ago, Toronto Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman said the everyday nature of baseball is both the easiest and hardest part about the sport.
On the one hand, the 162-game schedule is relentless, and it feels especially so in late August. But it also means players never have much time to dwell on a tough loss.
That point felt apt after the last 24 hours for the Blue Jays, who lost a 5-4 heartbreaker to the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night with manager John Schneider’s decision to not pinch-run for Alejandro Kirk in the eighth inning becoming a flash point for fans amid a season that has been so maddening, it’s made Toronto Maple Leafs fandom actually look sort of fun right now.
But for the players, it was about putting that loss behind them and focusing on at least winning the series on Wednesday. The Blue Jays did that, topping the Nationals 7-0 with an all-around offensive effort and a stellar eight-inning shutout performance from starter Chris Bassitt to keep themselves within striking distance of a wild-card spot.
“I think having a guy like Chris on the mound is huge on a day like today where it’s a quick turnaround and it was a tough loss yesterday and him setting the tone,” Schneider said. “But the rest of the guys, they’ve been around and they know how to push go, if you will, on a day game. I think having younger guys in the lineup is actually a good thing on days like today.”
It’s one thing to bounce back from a tough loss. It’s another to bottle up that momentum and try to sustain it for an extended period, however. For these Blue Jays, we’ve reached the point of the season where winning series is simply not going to be enough. This team needs a sustained run of success — think something like five wins in a row, eight wins in a row, 10 wins in a row. You know, what the Seattle Mariners did throughout the month of August to put themselves back in a playoff position? The Blue Jays need to pull off something resembling that. It’s the type of sustained success the team has been searching for all season long, and with only 28 games remaining on the schedule, it has to happen now.
“Winning a series is the absolute minimum that we have to do,” Schneider said. “There’s going to be times where you sweep the team. Hopefully, it’s consecutive series in a row and you get on a nice little roll. And again, I know it sounds funny, but there are still a lot of games to be played. So you got to take them one at a time. But I think if you can have productive at-bats, productive outs, and have the pitching staff that we do have, it’ll put us in a good spot to
