Richard, Blue Jays run into trouble in 4th

TORONTO -- As the season approaches its midway point, the Blue Jays have been focused on providing opportunities.

A foundation is being established through the addition of some fresh, young faces to the big league roster as building blocks for the future, and everyone is looking for ways to take any positives they can to run with them, while discarding anything considered less than ideal.

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“What our thought was going into this offseason was providing opportunity for young players was the best thing to do,” general manager Ross Atkins said Saturday. “And we have provided more opportunity to young players than any other team in baseball. And when you do that, there are risks of losing more than you win.”

Toronto fell victim to that philosophy on Saturday, losing 8-1 to the Orioles at Rogers Centre, but the biggest opportunity provided in the matchup was one offered to more than just a young lineup, one also given to a veteran hurler.

Clayton Richard spent the better part of the first two months of the season working his way back from a right knee stress reaction and on Saturday -- for the first time this season -- he got his pitch count up to 93, while lasting a season-high six innings for his third straight start in his ninth outing of the year.

“I’ve made good progress,” Richard said of the season so far. “I’m definitely not where I want to be, but we’ve been working on things and they’re starting to come to fruition. The fastball command has definitely improved, the slider has improved, being able to use it more extensively and more consistently, and I’m definitely in a better position now than I was eight starts ago.

“We have to just continue working and making progress to be a better pitcher and put our team in a position to win more often than we’re doing now.”

On Saturday, the 35-year-old left-hander ran into trouble in a five-run fourth inning that included a two-run homer by Renato Núñez and a run-scoring double by Keon Broxton -- that put the Blue Jays in a hole they couldn’t climb out of. However, Toronto committed two errors in the frame, and three of those five runs were unearned.

Richard, who still managed a quality start scattering seven hits with one walk and two strikeouts, said he believes he could have done a better job of limiting the damage.

“It’s definitely something you have to apply yourself and realize what’s going on to slow it down and understand what you have to do to get back into it and then stop the bleeding,” Richard said. “I felt there were a couple pitches that I executed poorly, but for the most part, like the home run was a good pitch.

“It was with the game plan, we wanted to start [Nunez] off inside, and unfortunately he put a good swing on a pretty decent pitch. … You make a couple mistakes to a big league lineup and they’ll hurt you.”

Throughout this season, the veteran southpaw has stressed the importance of limiting walks, and after his outing against Baltimore he sits at 18 free passes with 21 strikeouts over his 43 1/3 innings. He believes the bases on balls have led to later damage in his outings, something he saw again on Saturday.

“In particular, at-bats where I get behind or walk a guy I shouldn’t walk, or sometimes their first at-bat [I] show them too many pitches. Then that second time through a guy comes up in a key opportunity that I’ve walked the first time, and they’ve seen everything and they’re able to put the ball in play,” Richard said.

“Today it was unfortunate that I wasn’t able to pick us up when we got into a little bit of trouble in the fourth and fell behind a couple guys, left the ball up, just a few pitches here and there that led to a big inning that really hurt us.”

Ahead of Saturday’s matchup, the first time opposing lineups have faced Richard this season, they have hit .213/.319/.459. The second time through, those numbers improve for the opposition to .344/.420/.639. And the third time Richard has taken on hitters this season, they have slashed .435/.480/.522, something he feels he needs to improve from the beginning of games.

“Aggressively attacking hitters the first time through,” Richard said of doing better later times through the order. “When you don’t do that, they see more pitches and later in the game that hurts you. I think that’s kind of evidenced by the Keon Broxton at-bats. He saw a lot of pitches in his first at-bat [when he walked] and then came back to bite us in the second.”

Offensively, Toronto mustered just three hits against Orioles starter Andrew Cashner, singles from Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Cavan Biggio and Luke Maile. Guerrero’s 1-for-3 day followed a stretch that has seen him hitting .188 (13-for-69) with one home run over his last 20 games. Maile now has 10 hits in his last 13 games with an at-bat.

“You’ve got to give credit to the other pitcher once in a while,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said. “We’ve been hot for a while now, scoring [more than] six runs a game, so the last two games the other pitcher deserves credit because they have pitched really well, honestly.”