After an impressive seven-series consecutive win streak to begin August, the Toronto Blue Jays are starting to stumble.

Entering Wednesday’s game against the Kansas City Royals, the Blue Jays have lost three of their last four games and are on the verge of losing two straight series. The offence remains front and centre as the most glaring issue with this team, and with 29 games left in the regular season, they will need to start hitting immediately if they want a chance at postseason baseball.

On Tuesday, they managed just one run through their first eight innings, with Jesús Sánchez collecting a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 1-1 in the bottom of the first. It wasn’t until they were down to their final out that they recorded a hit with RISP, when Nathan Lukes drove home two on a single. But he was thrown out at second trying to stretch it into a double.

To make matters worse, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was on deck as the tying run and had just put together a great at-bat, roping a double to right-centre, but didn’t get a chance to tie the game. Overall, the Blue Jays finished with 10 hits, but yet again struggled in the clutch, going 1-11 with RISP and leaving eight men on base.

Max Scherzer started the game for Blue Jays, coming off a rough start in St. Petersburg, coughing up seven runs over four innings of work. Surprisingly, the veteran right-hander struggled with command in this outing, walking a pair and loading the bases in the first inning, yet escaped with just a single earned run.

Though he finished with five innings and two runs total, Scherzer was unable to find the strike zone consistently, walking a season-high five batters and throwing just 51 of his 92 pitches for strikes. Braydon Fisher surrendered the next two runs to the Royals. Both runs were unearned due to Guerrero’s errant throw to first base on a bunt attempt by Kyle Isbel. Tyler Rogers allowed the fifth and final Kansas City run of the night on a single by John Rave in the ninth inning.

The Jays are now five games back of .500, with a 64-69 record, back to last in the American League East and suddenly three games back of the final Wild Card spot. With less than a calendar month’s worth of games left to go and other teams in the hunt beginning to heat up, there has never been a more desperate time to win and do so consistently in Toronto this season.

Spencer Miles has been fantastic for the Blue Jays in his rookie campaign, thriving particularly as a reliever. Working in the bullpen, Miles has produced a 1.76 ERA across 66.1 innings with a .199 batting average against (BAA), yet as a starter, he has struggled to a 9.00 ERA in 14 innings of work with a .333 BAA.

With Shane Bieber recently landing on the injured list and Toronto having just four healthy and three stretched-out starters, Miles will need to provide length tonight and do his best to limit damage early.

Location: Rogers Centre – Toronto, Ontario

First Pitch: 7:07 p.m. ET

Watch/Listen: Sportsnet One, SN590

Toronto Blue Jays – Spencer Miles: 5-2 record, 3.02 ERA, 80.1 IP, 73 SO, 20 BB

Kansas City Royals – Randy Dobnak: 2-1 record, 1.58 ERA, 45.2 IP, 29 SO, 20 BB