The Blue Jays lose both games of the doubleheader

Things worth mentioning…

• I mentioned after the disaster that was the series at Yankee Stadium that the Blue Jays would be better off this weekend facing Philadelphia, given the fact they wouldn’t see the Phillies’ top starters and they had multiple key players out due to injury. Well……
• Game 1 was an ugly one as the lineup simple couldn’t get anything going off of Zach Eflin, which is kind of sad given the fact he had just a 5.01 ERA coming into the game. Eflin had far and away the best outing of his season, shutting the Jays out on four hits over the course of seven innings. Robbie Ray pitched well for a few innings but then got smacked around once he tried to go through the order for a third time. He held the Phillies to one run over his first four innings, then got tagged for four in the fifth while recording just one out.
• Just about the only positive for the Blue Jays in Game 1 was Patrick Murphy, who had an excellent Major League debut, picking up three strikeouts over one-and-a-third innings of work to mop up the game…

• Game 2 was more interesting, but, unfortunately, more heartbreaking and frustrating. I’ll mention some key points rather than going through that whole rollercoaster ride…
• It looked like the Jays were ready to kick the door down and run away with the game in the fourth inning when they scored five runs to go up by a score of 5-2, but the Phillies answered back immediately when their third-string catcher, a guy who literally hadn’t hit a single home run in his entire professional career, smashed a game-tying, three-run bomb. How you let that happen to a guy who, I shit you not, went 486 plate appearances between 2016 and today without a single homer, to come up and tie the game like that is completely beyond me.

• The pulled ahead again in the top of the fifth inning, but, again, failed to close the door. In the bottom of the sixth, Anthony Bass allowed Philly’s eight and nine hitters to reach base before getting pulled in favour of Rafael Dolis. Dolis struck out Andrew McCutchen but then allowed a game-tying double to Bryce Harper. Next up, Alec Bohm hit a grounder to second that Vlad Jr. inexplicably dove for, meaning Dolis had to run to cover first. Joe Panik made an ill-advised throw as Dolis was just reaching the bag. Harper scored from second on the play and Dolis ended up leaving the game because he rolled his ankle. Vlad obviously need to stop diving for every ball hit in his vicinity (this happened in that opening weekend blown save against Tampa) but Panik, who’s the veteran here, absolutely needs to just eat that ball so Dolis doesn’t get killed at first. Just an absolute clusterfuck all around.
• So, now the Jays are on a five-game losing streak and it looks like they could be without one of their better late-inning options. Friday went about as poorly as you could have expected. Hopefully they can get their shit together with Hyun Jin Ryu on the mound tomorrow.