Sánchez's adventurous day in left proves costly when comeback falls short

ST. PETERSBURG -- Jesús Sánchez looked a little lost. Twice.

His multiple misadventures in left field proved decisive in the Blue Jays’ 7-6 loss to the Rays on Wednesday night at Tropicana Field. Toronto’s offense battled valiantly to nearly erase a six-run deficit in the middle innings. But the fact is that the club shouldn’t have been trailing by that much in the first place.

“Today wasn't the best day for him,” manager John Schneider said of his left fielder.

The first miscue came in the first inning, when Rays star slugger Junior Caminero skied a ball down the left-field line. The ball was so high, it might have crossed over one of Tropicana Field’s catwalks, raising the degree of difficulty for Sánchez, who was trying to find a white ball against a white roof that was lit up by the bright Florida sun.

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Sánchez briefly looked down to gauge his position as he reached the left-field corner. That glance might have cost Sánchez, who then began to backpeddle and made a desperate stab at the ball as it bounced off the turf and over the short wall for a ground-rule double.

“Kind of looked like he took his eye off it on the first one, and it's tough to find it after that,” Schneider said.

If that ball is caught, Yandy Díaz doesn’t come to the plate with a runner on and two out in the first inning. But he did, and when he got a hanging slider from Max Scherzer, he smashed it a Statcast-projected 414 feet to left-center for a two-run homer.

“That's not acceptable,” Scherzer said of the slider that spun over the heart of the plate. “I'm a team guy; I don't sit here and point fingers and talk about other people's mistakes. I talk about my mistakes, and I'm accountable.”

The more puzzling outfield play occurred in the fourth inning, when Rays second baseman Richie Palacios lofted a shallow fly ball toward Sánchez. He charged in, but then seemed to lose the ball and only saw it again just before it found the ground about 10 feet to his right. That double scored two runs and opened the floodgates for Tampa Bay, which plated three more runs off Scherzer in the inning on a safety squeeze that resulted in no outs, an RBI bunt single and an RBI groundout. The Rays’ seven runs -- all earned – were charged to Scherzer.

“I'm sure it's a play [Sánchez] would have liked to have made,” Schneider said. “... He kind of looked like he kind of didn’t see it. Or saw it and didn’t see it. You’ve got to check with him on what he saw.”

Sánchez, who left the clubhouse before it opened to the media postgame, is routinely subbed out for a defensive replacement when the Blue Jays are leading in the late innings. His minus-6 outs above average is the lowest on the team, although much of that comes from his work in right field.

Still, any defensive shortcomings from Sánchez are not due to a lack of effort.

“He works,” Schneider said. “If a guy wasn't working, you'd be [upset], but he works at it.”

Toronto almost made those miscues a footnote as it chipped away in the fourth and fifth innings. That included a solo homer in the fourth from the red-hot Alejandro Kirk. It was his third dinger in his past five games and his sixth in his past seven games against the Rays.

Kirk added an RBI single one inning later. Charles McAdoo and Kazuma Okamoto also contributed run-scoring singles in the fifth, and McAdoo added an RBI double in the sixth to help turn a 7-1 blowout into a 7-6 nail-biter.

Five Blue Jays relievers kept the Rays at bay, setting up exactly the situation the Blue Jays wanted in the ninth: Kirk at the plate with two outs and the tying run on second base.

As he has done in just about every at-bat over the past few weeks, Kirk made solid contact, barreling up a high fastball from Rays closer Bryan Baker. It came off of Kirk’s bat at 100 mph and had a .470 expected batting average, but the line drive to right-center field found Cedric Mullins’ glove on the warning track to end it.

“Just a little bit lower in the zone, I think Kirky gets it,” Schneider said.