As September looms Blue Jays need to be better

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It had all the makings of a disaster for the Blue Jays to end what has been their worst month of the season.

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Max Scherzer lasting just four innings and allowing a season-high nine hits in a day when the Milwaukee Brewers’ bats were knocking him around, thanks in part to a sore back that limited the length of his outing.

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Brendon Little falling down while trying to retrieve a routine ground ball.

And more of the sloppiness that has seeped into their overall game in a worrisome way.

All the more reason, then, that a sometimes goofy game ended up falling their way, exactly what the Blue Jays needed on Sunday afternoon to at least mute some of the bad things that have been happening to them lately.

An 8-4 win over the National League-leading Milwaukee Brewers avoided a three-game sweep and stopped a skid in which they had dropped three of their previous four. And how about this? A bullpen that has been a flashpoint of concern didn’t allow a run through five innings of clean relief.

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“It would have been easy for guys to turtle a little bit,” manager John Schneider said afterwards. “You’re facing the best team in baseball and it would have been easy for guys to say ‘here we go again.’ So it’s good to get out of the series with a win.”

The Jays will need to be better in a number of areas as the catchy concept of meaningful September baseball begins with a three-game series in Cincinnati on Monday, in a week that ends with a critical series with the hot-on-their-tail Yankees in the Bronx.

But at least a win, as imperfect as it was, offered an opportunity to breathe.

The final month of the regular season promises to be a wild one for the Jays, who haven’t helped themselves of late and have plenty at stake as they try to find a way to win a playoff game for the first time since 2016.

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Suddenly, what once felt like a comfortable lead atop the AL East has been trimmed to 2.5 games, pending the result of the Yankees’ Sunday afternoon meeting with the White Sox.

The way things have been going, who knows where they’ll be in the standings when they next play at home nine days later?

That’s another reason why Saturday’s win felt so critical, even if it didn’t score particularly high on style points. The Jays finished a forgettable August with just 15 wins (15-12), their weakest month to date. With some massive series coming up in September with the high stakes, including a division race and the quest to lock down one of the top two seeds in the AL, the Jays need to sharpen up.

There are still some bullpen issues – though a combination of five relievers on Sunday didn’t allow a run – and the Jays have some areas to tighten up defensively.

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But a win to end a six-game homestand at 3-3 had to feel like a step in the right direction.

Some takeaways from a Jays win that improved their record to 79-58.

MAD MAX

It wasn’t the most efficient version of Scherzer that the Jays have seen, obviously, as the veteran gave up a two-run homer to Brewers catcher William Contreras in the first and a solo shot to Brice Turang in the third.

Through three innings, the veteran righty had allowed seven hits on the way the nine through four, making it Scherzer’s shortest outing since his three-inning debut with the Jays in March, one in which his sore thumb sent him to the injured list.

Scherzer struck out just one as he allowed a pair of home runs for the second consecutive game and the fifth time in 13 starts.

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Scherzer said he started feeling the back tightness as he warmed up but battled through it and expressed relief that the issue was “just muscular.”

“It’s just something I had to deal with. I wasn’t the guy today, but the rest of the team picked me up. And that’s the great news here, is that I wasn’t doing my job the way I wanted to but when you get the offence going, scoring like that and the guys in the bullpen coming in and doing their job and getting big zeros when we needed to … that was a reason why we were the win today.”

BULLPEN FOLLIES

With Scherzer’s afternoon done early, the sellout crowd of 41,488 took a deep breath as it was time for the beleaguered bullpen to save the day.

And it wasn’t pretty to start.

Little lasted just a third of an inning, even though he didn’t allow a run. After yielding a leadoff single to Jackson Chourio, Little went out to field a dribbler down the first base line. After failing to barehand the ball, he fell to the Rogers Centre turf, allowing Christian Yelich to reach on an error. Another throwing error by Little – when he hesitated throwing to third because Ernie Clement wasn’t at the bag, the bases were loaded with nobody out.

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Little was able to snag a sharply hit ball by Sal Frelick and make the throw for the force out to end his afternoon.

That brought Tommy Nance in to get the next two outs to end what loomed as a serious threat from the Brewers, who trailed 5-4 at the time.

The most encouraging sign from the Toronto pen was reserved for hard-throwing Louis Varland, who retired the five Brewers batters he faced, striking out three as his fastball touched 100 miles per hour.

Of course, the most interesting of the relievers to get work was Jeff Hoffman, in to pitch the ninth after giving up a pair of home runs in the ninth in a 4-1 loss to the Brewers the day earlier.

The Jays closer located much better than in Saturday’s disaster, striking out Andruw Monastario, had Myles Straw make a running, diving grab in left field for the second out.  Things got interesting quickly, though, as Hoffman allowed a two-out double to Jackson Chourio and an infield single to Christian Yelich before getting a groundout from William Contreras to end it.

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“You guys are sick of me saying it, but I trust them,” Schneider said of the bullpen.  “It’s not going to be perfect every single night, but to to step up the way they did as a whole was was really, really cool to see.

“A lot of credit goes to the guys, to the pitchers and to the staff for solving some problems and having some, some pretty direct conversations. So it was nice to see them bounce back the way they did.”

AROUND THE BASES

After being held to three runs in the first two games of the series against the tight-pitching Brewers, the Jays matched the output in the first inning.  Nathan Lukes got it started with a double to drive in a pair and was followed by an RBI single from Ernie Clement … The Jays added three more in the fifth … The Jays were helped by some shoddy base-running by the Brewers, who ended two innings by running into outs … Daulton Varsho entered the game for defensive purposes in the ninth, showing he continues to improve from his finger injury after getting hit by a pitch.

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