Blue Jays offence fails to back Yesavage in loss to White Sox

However, unfortunately for the Toronto Blue Jays, that didn’t impact the result as the team’s offence continued to sputter. 

Yesavage righted himself after an outing that was marred by wildness, yet the Blue Jays couldn’t muster any runs during a 3-0 loss to the White Sox in front of 41,288 at Rogers Centre on Sunday. With the loss, the Blue Jays dropped two out three games in the weekend series, and fell to 46-53 on the campaign. 

The club currently sits four games behind the final American League wild-card spot. 

Walks have been an issue for Yesavage this season and that became glaringly evident during his previous start, when he couldn’t find the zone and issued seven free passes in just 1.2 innings against the San Diego Padres last week. 

Following that outing, the rookie said his wildness was the result of a mechanical issue — he was leaning too far back during his delivery and that was causing his front side to fly open. Yesavage worked with the Blue Jays coaching staff on correcting that during what manager John Schneider described as a “good work day” on Friday. 

“With the unique delivery comes a lot of moving parts and making sure that they’re all in sync,” Schneider said this weekend. “The fact that he’s aware of it is good. It’s not like we’re sitting here screaming, ‘This is what you’re doing.’ He felt that. He was aware of it. 

And he’s had a few of those outings, even looking back into last year in the minor leagues where things can get out of whack a little bit,” continued the manager. “So, I think it was a lot delivery, nothing about stuff. Stuff comes with the delivery being kind of intact.”

The stuff, along with everything else, certainly looked sharp for Yesavage out of the gate on Sunday as he struck out six out of the first nine hitters he faced. 

He ran into trouble in the fourth inning when the White Sox opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly and then again in the sixth when Chicago shortstop Colson Montgomery launched a solo home run and right-fielder Braden Montgomery added a hard-hit RBI single that pushed the lead to 3-0. 

All told though, Yesavage authored a quality start by allowing three runs on five hits over six innings. He walked just two batters and punched out nine while generating 21 whiffs, an indication that his stuff was back to normal. 

Perhaps most impressive, though, was that Yesavage filled up the strike zone. He recorded first-pitch strikes to 22 of the 24 batters he faced while 69 of his 95 total pitches were strikes (72.6 per cent).

Under most circumstances, such a performance would be worthy of a win. But that’s not the case when a lineup is experiencing the type of struggles that the Blue Jays are going through.

The club was shut down by White Sox starter Sean Burke, who surrendered just two hits over 6.2 frames, and remained punchless against the Chicago bullpen. The Blue Jays tallied just five runs during the three-game series and sit 26^th in the majors in OPS (.687) and 27^th in runs (397). 

Sunday also began on an emotional note with news of the passing of former Blue Jays pitcher Duane Ward, who died on Saturday of natural causes. The team held a moment of silence for Ward, who was an impactful reliver during his nine years with the franchise. He was 62. 

Up next is a pivotal four-game set against the AL-East leading Tampa Bay Rays, beginning Monday at Rogers Centre.