CLEVELAND -- The way the Blue Jays have been going as of late, it seems like the only way they have a chance to stay into a game in the late innings is if they get a near-perfect outing from their starting pitcher.

That didn’t happen on Saturday afternoon, as José Berríos allowed three homers and five earned runs over five laborious innings in Toronto’s 6-3 loss to Cleveland at Progressive Field.

“All the homers today were on the fastball,” manager John Schneider said. “It was location; he had a lot of balls in the middle, which is very uncharacteristic.”

It marked another tough start for Berríos, who now has a 5.32 ERA in four starts in June after starting the season with a sparkling 1.44 ERA in March and April.

After only allowing four home runs in his previous eight career starts at Progressive Field, Berríos nearly equaled that number on Saturday, as Bo Naylor, José Ramírez and Steven Kwan all took him deep. The three homers accounted for all five of the Guardians’ runs against Berríos.

After the game, Berríos said that his game plan was to pitch the Guardians’ lineup inside, but he ended up missing over the middle on all three home runs.

“I left three pitches in the middle,” Berríos said. “Bad pitches for me, good for the hitters.”

Six days after allowing four runs over six innings in Toronto’s series-clinching win over the Guardians at Rogers Centre, Berríos failed to go more than five innings for the first time since May 7. That lack of length has been a detriment to the Blue Jays (35-41) this season. They’re now 10-3 when Berríos goes six innings or more and 0-4 when he doesn’t.

“They put together great at-bats the last time I faced them and they did it again today,” Berríos said. “I left those three pitches in the middle and they made me pay.”

The right-hander now has a 5.07 ERA at Progressive Field, which is his second-highest ERA at any stadium where he’s thrown more than 40 innings.

Early on, it appeared the Blue Jays' offense would be able to go homer-for-homer with the Guardians, as Davis Schneider opened the scoring with a solo home run in the first before Isiah Kiner-Falefa added another homer in the second.

But the bats went silent in the middle innings, and the Blue Jays squandered a great chance to get closer in the sixth.

Trailing by three runs, Toronto put runners on first and second with nobody out for Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who grounded into a double play against Guardians starter Ben Lively. George Springer followed that up with a walk to knock Lively out of the game before Daulton Varsho lined out sharply on the first pitch he saw from reliever Cade Smith to end the threat and the frame.

Toronto inched closer in the eighth inning on Kiner-Falefa's second solo homer of the day, but the chance for a bigger frame was erased when Spencer Horwitz was picked off at first base with Guerrero at the plate.

“I think in between, if we did generate a little traffic, those situational at-bats [weren’t good],” Schneider said. “Little things like situational at-bats and just the awareness on the basepaths didn’t give us a chance to win.”

It was the first career multi-homer game for Kiner-Falefa, who hit leadoff for the first time this season. It was only the third time this year the Blue Jays had a player hit multiple home runs in a game.

“He’s been swinging the bat well,” Schneider said of Kiner-Falefa. “You don’t think of homers when you think of him, but it’s [about] having a plan. He’s just having competitive at-bats right now.”

Things went from bad to worse for the Blue Jays in the ninth inning when Varsho grabbed his back and fell to the ground as he stepped out of the box on a grounder.

While Schneider said Varsho was “doing better” postgame, any injury to the All-Star candidate would be a worst-case scenario for a team that’s already struggling to find offense. Varsho entered Saturday’s game leading the team in home runs (11) and RBIs (35).

“I don’t know if hitting the wall on his catch [earlier in the game] had anything to do with it, but he seems to be all right,” Schneider said. “He’s a gamer, so for him to feel it is not ideal. He’s been playing a ton and never says anything. We’ll probably be careful with him tomorrow.”