A similar song as Toronto walked off by TB

An extra-innings game where the Blue Jays would have liked another inning or two from their starter has become the official script of their 2020 season.

Toronto fell to the Rays, 2-1, in its league-leading eighth extra-innings game on Saturday night at Tropicana Field after the team failed to push a run across in its half of the 10th inning. It was another excellent performance from the Blue Jays’ bullpen, for the most part, which carried a heavy load once again.

• Box score

Earlier, Hyun Jin Ryu tossed five innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts, as he continues to look exactly like the ace the Blue Jays hoped they signed this past offseason. But Toronto would love to finally get a deeper start from a front-end arm. It’s nitpicking, but that comes along with holding the final American League playoff spot after a six-game win streak over the past week.

“I wish I could have thrown more innings with less pitches, but I just have to give them credit,” Ryu said. “They kept fighting and fighting off pitches. My pitch count wasn’t at an ideal place towards the end of that fifth inning.”

Through the first four innings, it looked like Ryu was trending towards being the first Toronto starter this season to throw a pitch in the seventh inning. He threw 64 pitches up to that point, but a pair of singles and some long at-bats forced him to throw 30 in the fifth, pushing him up to 94 and ending his night early.

Ryu’s pitch count for the day was set at 100, manager Charlie Montoyo revealed after the loss, so he didn’t want to send him out with just six left in the tank. Ryu wants to do a better job of controlling his pitch count inning to inning, but against a team stringing together scrappy at-bats like the Rays, it’s not always fully in his control.

This has been a trend for the Blue Jays, who entered the weekend with 101 2/3 innings from starting pitchers (just under 4 1/3 innings per start), ranking 26th in MLB. Some of that is misleading, with a score of strong starts from Ryu mixed in and encouraging signs from other starters, but the broader issue remains. Toronto has survived this rather easily thanks to a bullpen that’s been the best story of its season. But the true concern comes in September and October, not August.

As the Blue Jays continue to lean on their bullpen, sustainability will be a major factor. A playoff run calls for tighter bullpen management, and when you add in 10 games against the Yankees in 18 days in September, everything will be magnified.

“Any time your bullpen’s thin, it stresses you out a little bit,” Montoyo said. “But again, we played extra innings because our bullpen did a great job.”

All that aside, Ryu was fantastic. The ace lefty has been at his best over his last four starts in August, posting a 1.23 ERA with 24 strikeouts over 22 innings, with plenty of weak contact forced along the way. A young team like the Blue Jays needs to steal the odd game in this expanded playoff race, and pitching like this, Ryu is a safe bet to help do exactly that.

Toronto has been on a home run tear recently, so naturally, its first run came on a bases-loaded walk in the fifth inning. Cavan Biggio being the man to make it happen fits the bill, at least, owning the best plate approach in the organization. Reese McGuire had struck out with the bases loaded and one out in front of Biggio, so his 3-2 take on a high fastball was critical to avoid a wasted opportunity.

After the game, Montoyo pointed to hitting with runners in scoring position, where the Blue Jays went 1-for-8 on Saturday, as the reason they lost. That was an issue earlier in the season that home runs have covered up, but Toronto will need those timely singles along the way, too.

Biggio nearly put the Blue Jays ahead in the seventh on a wild baserunning play to end the inning following a Randal Grichuk strikeout. After Grichuk swung a missed on strike three, the ball bounced far from catcher Mike Zunino, and leaving from second base, Biggio rounded third and tried to surprise the Rays by racing home. But was tagged out just before his lead foot touched the plate.