Little offence from Blue Jays in another loss to Rays

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It’s the kind of consistency the Blue Jays are trying to eliminate from their collective game.

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But no matter what the Jays try – pick the lineup out of a hat, give that slumping hitter a night off, bring that kid off the bench and let him have a try – the offence remains very much stuck in neutral.

Even scoring first as they did Wednesday night, the Jays mustered very little offensively the rest of the night, bowing out with just three hits against converted reliever turned starter Griffin Jax, and four hits overall, in an eventual 4-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.

All you need to know about Jax is in his last outing he gave up a career-high tying eight hits and a career-worst seven runs while taking the loss in a game against the Boston Red Sox.

Jax reversed course, or the Jays’ anemic offence helped turn the tide, as he went six strong innings, allowing just one run on three hits and a walk. Jax picked up his fifth win of the season.

The good news, and we stress calling it good is a bit of a stretch considering it still resulted in another loss, was a loud double off the bat of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. to drive in the first run and a solo homer from catcher Alejandro Kirk after the Jays got into the Tampa Bay bullpen.

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Other than that, there was very little noise at all from the Toronto lineup.

Jays reliever Jeff Hoffman took the loss. He was tagged for three unearned runs in the sixth inning, with all the runs scoring after a Daulton Varsho error in centre field.

With the loss, the Jays fell to 46-56, a full 6 1/2 games out of the third and final American League wild card spot.

It was Toronto’s seventh loss in its past eight games. It was also the fifth game in which the Blue Jays have failed to score more than two runs.

The MLB trade deadline is a week from Monday.

mganter@postmedia.com

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