Blue Jays stumble to start make-or-break stretch

TORONTO -- The word “soon” has turned into a workhorse this season, throwing a thousand innings for the Blue Jays.

On days the offense drags, forcing a brilliant pitching staff to be perfect, you’ve heard that the bats will bounce back "soon." When it all comes together for a day or two, you’ve heard that the prolonged stretch of winning that catapults the Blue Jays from the fringes to the forefront of the postseason race is coming "soon."

But even in baseball, “soon” runs out. Ready or not, the Blue Jays are facing a stretch of 15 games that will make or break their season, and they know it. Bo Bichette has called for his club to be “fearless,” while Kevin Gausman has called for “urgency" -- and the Blue Jays will need a little more of both after Friday night’s 5-2 loss to the Guardians at Rogers Centre.

The loss started a run of 15 very winnable games against the Guardians, Nationals, Rockies, A’s and Royals. Nothing is given, but if a team in a postseason race could draw up a soft stretch of schedule, this is what it would look like.

“The expectation for those games is to win them, starting tonight,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said before Friday's game. “It’s a long season and it seems like, for whatever reason, you get to this time of year and the emotion and urgency seems to turn up a notch. Guys are well aware of that. Not looking past this series or the next one, but looking at the next couple of weeks as a whole, we’ve got to do a lot of winning. They’re well aware of that.”

The loss keeps the Blue Jays 1 1/2 games behind the Astros, who lost Friday for the final American League Wild Card spot. The Blue Jays, however, hold the tiebreaker over Houston.

When Schneider says his players are “well aware of that” -- twice -- it means something. The weight of this isn’t lost on Schneider, who inherited a postseason run a year ago, but is leading his first full season in 2023. After Thursday’s loss in Baltimore, he made it very clear that more urgency was needed -- and Schneider’s tone has changed along with it.

It’s tempting to put a magic number on this stretch. Is 10 wins in 15 games enough? Would 8-7 send the sky careening to the ground, sirens wailing?

That’s the exact thinking Schneider wants his club to avoid. There’s a difficult balance to strike here as the Blue Jays need to be aware of the stakes and what awaits them down the road, but keep their eyes glued only on the next turn. This is where veterans become more and more valuable.

“If you ask for someone to hit balls further or to places where they aren’t, then it’s really hard,” general manager Ross Atkins said Friday. “I think the question that runs through clubhouses and many fans are asking, and I’m sure many of you are, is if there’s some level of pressing? We just don’t see that.”

What does “urgency” look like, then? Like “clutch," it’s easy to say but hard to properly define in baseball.

“It’s a collective, one-through-nine thing,” Schneider said. “It’s not trying any harder. It’s understanding what we are good at and things we can continue to get better at. The dudes are in the room. The dudes are right there. These guys have done it for their entire career, whether it’s here or somewhere else. It’s time to win, so you flush this one and you try to win the series tomorrow and Sunday.”

Chris Bassitt holds the same belief for the same reason. Bassitt allowed four runs over 5 2/3 innings, enough to move his ERA to an even 4.00 and earn a self-grade of “terrible," but he doesn’t need to look far to find optimism.

“We have the guys in the locker room who can do it,” Bassitt said. “There’s a lot of teams that are in the race sometimes and they just don’t have the guys to do it. We’ve got the guys to do it. We just need to get it done.”

At this point, there’s no time for the Blue Jays to point down the road to the mathematics or miracle cure that will bring about better baseball.

It’s up to the guys -- and dudes -- in the clubhouse. There’s enough talent in those long lines of lockers to turn a frustrating season into a run fans never forget, but the clock keeps ticking.