SEATTLE -- In the top of Sunday’s fifth inning, Ernie Clement looked beaten on a pitch from Mariners starter Emerson Hancock, but stuck the bat head out and got enough barrel on it to line it softly into shallow left field.
It seemed like last year’s American League Championship Series all over again: Clement getting on base and the Blue Jays poised to capitalize en route to a hard-fought victory.
Unfortunately for Clement and Toronto, Seattle shortstop Colt Emerson made a leaping catch to rob Clement of what looked like a sure single. The Blue Jays went on to lose the game, 4-0, and two of three in the series at T-Mobile Park.
Meanwhile, that play served as a bit of a microcosm of what’s been happening to this team in 2026. They just haven’t yet recaptured the magic that powered them to a World Series appearance last season.
On Sunday and throughout the series, the offense was the main culprit. The Blue Jays were shut out in 26 of the 27 innings. After scoring two runs in the third inning of Friday night’s series-opening 2-0 victory, they were held scoreless by the Mariners for the next 24 frames.
“If you’re trying to get after a guy’s fastball, you’ve got to be convicted with it and take the right swings in the right areas,” manager John Schneider said. “We just didn’t hit the fastball.”
Sunday’s pitcher, righty Trey Yesavage, grinded through a quality start, pitching six innings and giving up three runs (two earned) on three hits while striking out seven and walking two.
Yesavage, who so impressed as a rookie in last year’s postseason and remains in this year’s AL Rookie of the Year conversation, surrendered the game’s first run in the third inning when he gave up a leadoff single to Victor Robles, walked J.P. Crawford, and induced a groundout to Randy Arozarena that pushed runners to second and third. That set up Cal Raleigh for a sacrifice fly to right field.
The lead grew to 3-0 in the fourth when Cole Young reached on a throwing error by shortstop Clement and Mitch Garver followed with a two-run home run to left field.
After that, Yesavage settled back in and finished his outing strong, retiring the next eight hitters to cap his six innings at 96 pitches. It was his second consecutive quality start and the third in his last four outings.
After the game, Schneider said that there was a mixup prior to the game that resulted in an unlucky situation for Yesavage.
“He battled today for sure,” Schneider said. “Not an excuse, [but there was a] weird layoff in the first. We kind of got the wrong anthem times here, and he was sitting there for about 20 minutes after he was ready to go in the bullpen.”
Yesavage also said he didn’t want to use that as an excuse.
“I didn't have the best command the first four innings of the game,” he said. “I didn’t have the splitter. The fastball and slider the entire game were exactly what I wanted them to be, so I just leaned on those a little more.”
But the Blue Jays couldn’t help him because their hitters collectively continued to struggle at the plate.
On Sunday, Hancock limited the Blue Jays to two hits in seven innings and struck out five, and relievers Gabe Speier and Andrés Muñoz made quick work of them in the eighth and ninth.
That followed the futility of Saturday, when the Blue Jays scratched out one hit against Logan Gilbert in his 7 1/3 innings of work. Even when they won the game on Friday, they still only collected six hits, and none were homers.
The only got one runner as far as second base on Sunday, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a one-out double in the top of the first inning. But Hancock got Kazuma Okamoto on a flyout and Alejandro Kirk on a groundout, and the Blue Jays only managed two singles the rest of the way.
The Blue Jays remain hopeful that they’ll get back to the relentless, taxing offensive machine that they became in 2025. Having their sparkplug George Springer, who’s due to return from paternity leave when the team starts a series vs. the Giants in San Francisco on Monday, should help.
“We’re grinding a little bit as a team, but we can get out of it,” center fielder Daulton Varsho said.
“We’ve just got to get out of it pretty soon.”