ATLANTA – Kevin Gausman would like to see more consistency from the reigning American League champion Blue Jays.
Gausman strung together a respectable six innings as he allowed four runs on five hits and two walks with eight strikeouts in Tuesday’s series opener against the Braves at Truist Park. But it was all for naught as Toronto fell to Atlanta, 4-3, and dropped its third straight game.
The Blue Jays had won eight of 10 games from May 20-29 prior to their three-game skid, which has dropped their record to 29-32.
“We feel like we kind of take four steps forward and two steps back,” Gausman said. “We kind of haven’t hit our stride yet, and that’s kind of what we’re looking for – to kind of get things rolling in all aspects of the game. We’ve had good series here and there. [In] Baltimore, the first two games were great. Then the last two, we didn’t play great. We just [have] to be more consistent.”
The Blue Jays were 31-29 on June 3 last season, but they finished 94-68 to win their first AL East title since 2015, en route to an eventual World Series berth.
“Every year is different,” Gausman said. “Last year I didn’t know when we were [going to] hit our stride, but it felt like we were kind of on the right path. This year has been a lot different because we’ve lost a lot of guys. It’s asking a lot of guys to do things that maybe they haven’t been asked to do. That was last year, as well. It just wasn’t [because of] injuries. You feel confident in the group. We just have to play a little better. That includes me, too. I need to pitch better. I can’t give up two runs in the first.”
On Tuesday, Gausman gave up the aforementioned two runs in the first, a run in the third and a run in the sixth. It was the third time in Gausman’s 13 starts this season that the 35-year-old right-hander gave up four or more runs. Matt Olson’s solo home run in the bottom of the sixth was the difference.
“It was a rough start in the first and I was really climbing uphill the whole game [after that],” Gausman said. “I only gave up four [runs], but [it was] a big homer there in the sixth after the [offense] just tied it up. I’m not happy about that, for sure.”
Gausman had a whiff percentage of 40.4% (19 of 47) and nine out of 19 of the Braves' swinging strikes were against Gausman’s splitter. Gausman, however, said he didn’t have his best splitter Tuesday.
“I feel like I didn’t have my splitter [consistently] until the last inning,” Gausman said. “[There were some] really good sliders and we were kind of wildly effective, which I’m not really known for. It worked in certain spots tonight. [Catcher Brandon Valenzuela] did a really good job tonight recognizing that the split was really sporadic.”
Gausman threw 17 sliders compared to 30 splitters, and his slider usage has increased in recent outings. Olson made Gausman pay for the slider usage, though. Olson hit Gausman’s middle-middle slider a Statcast-projected 355 feet. The game-winning solo home run just cleared the right-field wall.
“I feel like my last four or five starts, [the slider] has kind of gotten better and better,” Gausman said. “I’m throwing it to guys that, if you asked me a month ago, I probably would have said I wouldn’t throw it to them. At the same time, I gave up a home run in a big spot on it. It was a bad pitch in that spot.”
Olson’s homer wasn’t a mammoth blast. Rather, it was a moonshot that had a 49-degree launch angle, which is the highest home run in MLB this season and the fourth highest since Statcast began tracking in 2015.
“He was around the zone,” said manager John Schneider. “[The Braves] were pretty selective, I think, kind of seeing him up. He still managed to get his swing-and-miss with both the fastball and the split. The split was probably the best it was in his last inning. It was one of those days where he had to locate the heater, and I thought he did a good job of that. The home run to Olson was a 2-0 slider, and the [third] inning was just a couple of good pieces of hitting.”