To that end, the interim manager met with Bo Bichette a few times to discuss his decision to pitch the shortstop to the seventh spot in the batting order, the lowest he had ever started in a major league game, with Matt Chapman coming up. . at five on Tuesday. He gathered the players for what he said was a brief pregame chat about what to do against the Baltimore Orioles, though it wouldn’t be surprising if more came up. And it left the door wide open for Yusei Kikuchi not to make his next start on Saturday, rotation TBD beyond Jose Berrios on Thursday and Kevin Gausman on Friday in New York against the Yankees. The bottom line? There is a lot of management going on right now. The fact that the win still hasn’t followed is a growing concern, as Tuesday night’s 4-2 loss for the Orioles made nine losses in the club’s last 12 outings, all against teams around them in the playoff race. Ross Stripling returns from the injured list to start Wednesday’s finale, and if the Blue Jays don’t avoid the sweep, Baltimore will leapfrog them into the third wild card, one of several testing moments looming in the coming weeks. “With what we’ve been through the last couple of years in terms of where we play and the type of games we play in, those experiences mean a lot going forward,” Schneider said. “A lot of guys have been in a lot of these spots. That’s where the urgency comes in and you have to get it done very quickly.” This one started with promise, as Alek Manoah was his dominant self early and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. followed George Springer’s impressive two-run single, hitting a medium fastball 398 feet despite a top of just 43 feet. The course was remarkable. “I was looking for that pitch and I got it and made good contact,” Guerrero said through interpreter Hector Lebron. However, the auspicious start was not enough to prevent an inauspicious ending, the game began to change once the Blue Jays were empty after loading the bases with one out in the third. Chapman quickly fell behind 0-2 to Dean Kramer before rolling over an outside cutter for a groundout double play and the game broke out from there in front of a crowd of 37,940. Manoah, moving to four, gave up back-to-back solo shots to Cedric Mullins and Adley Rutschman in the fifth to tie the game, then allowed a two-out RBI single to Ramon Urias in the sixth to seal the win. A rare Jackie Bradley Jr., error to center allowed Urias to take second and after Manoah walked Jorge Mateo, Anthony Bass delivered another RBI single to Ryan McKenna that made it 4-2. Indicative of how things are going for the Blue Jays, Teoscar Hernandez made a strong throw at the plate, but it went high to Alejandro Kirk, preventing him from making a tag. The Blue Jays burned their challenge by challenging a safe call on a back-pick attempt at first base that inning, and it loomed large in the seventh when Raimel Tapia appeared to earn an infield hit, but his team had lost the her criticism. That came a few pitches after Tapia walked through a Kremer offering on a hit-and-run attempt and Santiago Espinal, who had breathed some life into the Blue Jays dugout with a shorthanded single, was thrown out trying to steal second. Everything fell into the category when it rains, it pours. “We have probably our best contact man at this point in a 1-0 count and it didn’t work,” Schneider said. “Watching the pace and tempo of the game, what was going on, trying to force it a little bit back to the top with George, knowing Dillon Tate was coming in. Best case first and third with one out, worst care first and second, one out and we’ll take our chances there. It did not work.” That’s been the case more often than not over the past two often out-of-sync weeks for the Blue Jays. Guerrero pointed to the club’s hitting with runners in scoring position as an issue of late, believing that needs to change as Toronto has combined for just 24 runs over the last nine games. At the same time, the Blue Jays have allowed 49 runs in that same span, and this is a time to keep the faith. “You just have to trust yourself,” Guerrero said. “And I told my teammates, keep believing in yourself, keep working hard, somehow, at some point, things will turn around.” Given that they are now 2-6 against the Orioles with four games to go against the New York Yankees, against whom they are 4-8, Schneider’s word of the day – urgency – rings even more true. “We’re still in a playoff position. We are a playoff team. We know we’re a playoff team. Going through a rough patch and we’re going to keep getting better,” Manoah said, adding that the Orioles right now “are doing a good job. We’ll see a lot more of these coming down. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.” To that end, the Blue Jays are looking to start Mitch White in place of Kikuchi this weekend against the Yankees and will continue to look to make things happen in their lineup. Bichette’s decline has felt jarring, but his .727 OPS currently ranks seventh on the Blue Jays roster, with his .427 slugging percentage ranking sixth and his .300 on-base percentage eighth. While he’s clearly a more talented player than that, that’s where he’s at right now, and with the Blue Jays needing to find ways to put together hits, it’s understandable that the lineup changes. “Just shaking things up and giving guys different looks and seeing how it shakes out, really,” Schneider said. “Nothing in particular. Like Chappy’s bats recently, offense doesn’t really kill it. So I’m just trying to shake it off.” Shake harder, shake different, as the Blue Jays continue to search for a combination that will break them out of a day-to-day funk.
