Blue Jays' bullpen bullied by long ball in loss

TORONTO -- After riding a wave of power through the month of August, the Blue Jays got a taste of their own medicine in Sunday’s series finale against the Mariners at Rogers Centre.

Seattle belted out four home runs in the 7-0 loss as the Blue Jays’ bats fell silent, combining for just two hits and one walk off Seattle starter Yusei Kikuchi. Wilmer Font played the role of opener in front of Thomas Pannone again, but the pair wasn’t able to recreate its success from Aug. 13.

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That time out against the Rangers, Font and Pannone showed what the opener strategy looks like when it works to perfection, covering six scoreless innings en route to a shutout win. On Sunday, the Mariners got to Font with a solo home run in the second before launching another two off Pannone in the fourth.

“I’m just working through some stuff out there and trying to make pitches,” Pannone said after the loss.

Pannone feels fine physically, so the issues that he’s working through appear to be more mechanical. He should still have plenty of opportunities to figure things out at the Major League level, given the state of Toronto’s pitching depth, but the lefty now owns a 6.44 ERA.

The home run ball has been a challenge for Pannone this season, with these being the 12th and 13th that he’s allowed over 65 2/3 innings. Neither were upper-deck shots by any means, with measured distances of 354 and 384 feet, according to Statcast, but they counted just the same. Each of the home runs came against Pannone’s four-seam fastball, which has been responsible for 10 of the 13 home runs against him in 2019.

One cause for this could be Pannone’s fastball velocity. While he isn’t a flamethrower by any means, Pannone hasn’t jumped above 90 mph as often as he did earlier in the season, with his four-seamer averaging just 89.2 mph on Sunday and dipping as low as 86.2 mph, according to Statcast.

“It’s a big challenge, because then you have to really locate,” said Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo. “If you don’t locate, you’re going to get hit at the big league level for sure. That’s what happened today. He’s not throwing as hard and he didn’t locate, so he got hit hard.”

Toronto’s offense was without Vladimir Guerrero Jr. on Sunday, who is day to day with left knee inflammation. The Blue Jays recorded three of the five hardest-hit balls in the game -- two from Randal Grichuk, one from Bo Bichette -- but they only came away with a single to show for it. Kikuchi tossed a shutout on just 96 pitches.

“It was a combination of him doing our job and us -- our approach wasn’t that great today,” Montoyo said. “I don’t want to take any credit away from what he did with a two-hitter. We hit some balls hard at people, and that kills momentum when somebody’s dealing and they have the lead.”