Vintage Gausman goes 6 strong to end tough June on high note

TORONTO -- The Blue Jays ran into a buzzsaw Tuesday night at Rogers Centre. His name is Nolan McLean.

The Mets’ rookie dominated the Blue Jays’ lineup, or at least what was left of it. The 3-0 loss rolled by all too calmly without much of a threat from the Blue Jays, who recorded just six hits and are now 2-7 on this homestand to drop to 40-46 on the season.

This is what mattered most from a quiet night at the ballpark:

1. Gausman’s good night wasted

This was vintage Kevin Gausman. Coming off a pair of ugly starts, it’s exactly what the Blue Jays needed to see from Gausman, too.

Gausman doesn’t get the win he fully deserved, but that’s no fault of his own, with the only blemish coming on a heater that caught too much of the plate against Francisco Alvarez in the fifth. Otherwise, Gausman gave the Blue Jays six rock-solid innings and struck out seven.

“That looked like Kev,” manager John Schneider said, which is all the Blue Jays need.

Painful as it may be for Blue Jays fans to think of, this is Gausman’s final season under contract with Toronto. If this is it for Gausman in Toronto, he deserves one more shot at the postseason in this uniform, and the Blue Jays will need Gausman to help drag them there. Given all of the injuries this organization has piled up, plus Tuesday’s decision to bump Patrick Corbin to relief and embrace a bullpen day, the Blue Jays need a couple of spots in the rotation to be calm and reliable. After a couple of stumbles, it looks like Gausman is back to being just that.

2. Thin lineup puts up a zero

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was scratched from the lineup less than two hours prior to first pitch with back tightness, something that’s been nagging him for weeks now. With birthday boy Kazuma Okamoto also scheduled to get the night off after a heavy workload, that left the Blue Jays’ lineup awfully thin.

“As tempting as it was with Vlad coming out of the lineup to put [Okamoto] in, you have to really try to do right by him, as well,” Schneider said. “It’s an opportunity for guys to step up and hopefully have some good at-bats. That’s a tough pitcher, so I don’t want to say I’m putting Kaz ahead of the team, but I think he needed today to take a deep breath. You count on other guys to do it, but tonight was just a tough assignment.”

This further highlights the Blue Jays’ need for secondary power and secondary production. That’s a role Addison Barger was expected to step into this season, but after ankle and elbow injuries earlier in the year, he’s now shut down for the next few weeks with a stress reaction (small fracture) in his back.

The Blue Jays have gotten quick bursts of that role from some of the young guns, like Yohendrick Piñango and Brandon Valenzuela, but it’s hard to sustain when both Guerrero and George Springer enter July with an OPS south of .700.

3. Fans continued to show their appreciation for Bichette

Monday was the big, emotional return for Bo Bichette in his first game back in Toronto since signing with the Mets, but Blue Jays fans weren’t done with him yet.

Bichette received another extended standing ovation when he walked to the plate in the top of the first, and even when it was clear that he wanted to dig in and get down to business, the crowd just kept going. Gausman added a touch of class, too, taking his time while he asked the umpire for a new ball that he surely didn’t need, his way of giving the crowd a little longer to show its appreciation.

“It’s awesome, it’s sad, it’s great. It’s everything. I love Bo,” Springer said of Bichette’s return Monday. “He was so good to me while he was here and he was so good for us as a team and an organization. He means the world to that locker room. To see him here in another jersey, it’s tough, but it’s OK. I’m happy for him.”

The series wraps Wednesday with an early, 3:07 p.m. ET start on Canada Day, which will bring in 40,000-plus more fans and, surely, one more day of appreciation for Bichette’s years in this country.