{"id":32880,"date":"2025-07-29T22:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/32880\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T22:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:47:08","slug":"blue-jays-loss-to-orioles-underlines-need-for-pitching-depth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/32880\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays’ loss to Orioles underlines need for pitching depth"},"content":{"rendered":"

BALTIMORE \u2014 A day-night doubleheader in the clothes-soaking Maryland heat, immediately after a short outing by a starting pitcher, on the back-end of 14 games in 13 days, all as the trade deadline looms, is a pretty stern test of a team\u2019s pitching depth.<\/p>\n

And so the Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> dug back into a 40-man roster featuring an astonishing 37 players that have seen big-league time this season Tuesday morning, recalling Easton Lucas<\/a> for fellow lefty Justin Bruihl while naming Lazardo Estrada the 27th\u00a0man for their double date against the Baltimore Orioles.<\/p>\n

Needing both quantity and quality, the Blue Jays got far more of the former than the latter in a 16-4 beatdown, dropping a third straight game for the first time since they were swept at the Philadelphia Phillies June 13-15.<\/p>\n

Between games, they began addressing their bullpen by bringing high-velo arm Seranthony Dominguez over from across the diamond, sending double-A starter Juaron Watts-Brown, their No. 14-ranked prospect according to Baseball America, to the Orioles.<\/p>\n

The pending free-agent righty, whose fastball averages 97.7 m.p.h. and gives manager John Schneider another late-game leverage option, changed clubhouses and was active for the second game.<\/p>\n

To make room on the 26-man and 40-man rosters, struggling Chad Green<\/a> was designated for assignment, while further refreshing the bullpen, Paxton Schultz was activated from the injured list while Lucas was optioned back to triple-A Buffalo.<\/p>\n

Down George Springer<\/a>, who wasn\u2019t in the lineup although he was said to be feeling better in the morning after taking a pitch off the side of the head Monday, Lucas started the opener and surrendered four runs over 2.2 innings, all on sacrifice flies, although he managed to keep the game from fully unravelling.<\/p>\n

Estrada followed and was clean for 2.1 innings before coming undone during a six-run sixth, highlighted by Canadian Tyler O\u2019Neill\u2019s three-run homer and Ramon Urias\u2019 solo shot right after, all after the Blue Jays squandered chances to tie a 4-3 game against trade candidate Charlie Morton in three consecutive innings.<\/p>\n

That made for three save-up-for-salvage-mode innings to close things out \u2014 Gunnar Henderson added another three-run shot and Urias a solo shot in the seventh in what turned out to be Green\u2019s final Blue Jays outing \u2014 leaving Eric Lauer needing to get deep to save the bullpen, let alone end a losing streak in the nightcap.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The way the first two games of this series have gone underlines why the Blue Jays have prioritized pitching before the July 31 cutoff.<\/p>\n

Internally, Canadian lefty Adam Macko is the only available 40-man pitcher yet to see the majors \u2013 righty Jake Bloss is done for the year after reconstructive elbow surgery \u2013 so their own supply of arms is essentially exhausted. Already they\u2019ve used 29 different pitchers, not including the three position players pressed into duty \u2014 including catcher Ali Sanchez handling the eighth Tuesday \u2014 making any little ripple an issue of deep concern.<\/p>\n

Various industry sources have told colleague Ben Nicholson-Smith and myself that they are examining options across the trade market, linking them to everyone from starters Joe Ryan and Michael Soroka to relievers such as David Bednar<\/a>, Phil Maton and Anthony Bender. Ryan Helsley \u2014 whom the Cardinals and Blue Jays discussed as part of a potential deal for Danny Jansen after the 2022 season \u2014 surfaced as another target after the Dominguez trade.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s far from an exhaustive list, isn\u2019t indicative of their preferences and every team is engaging in some degree of value-gauging, but it is demonstrative of how the need is being viewed internally.<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays are better set up on the positional side, having run through 21 different players so far this year, with Orelvis Martinez the only 40-man roster player yet to get called up.<\/p>\n

Springer\u2019s absence, along with that of Alejandro Kirk, certainly thins out the lineup but those concerns are, to a certain extent, mitigated by the pending return of Daulton Varsho, with Andres Gimenez on the horizon and Anthony Santander and his ailing shoulder a wild card.<\/p>\n

They also survived a scare when X-Rays on the thumb of Joey Loperfido, who had three hits including a homer in the opener, came back negative for a fracture.<\/p>\n

The ability to dig so deep into their 40-man roster has been key to their success thus far, with rotation pillar Jose Berrios saying that \u201cwe understand we need all guys having success, putting all the little things together \u2013 that’s how we win ballgames.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery guy in the clubhouse is being accountable and putting up a lot of big games for the team,\u201d he said before the opener. \u201cI think a lot of us learned that from last year. We know we’re not Superman, we’re not superheroes, we need everybody together playing well together. Our guys understand that and they’ve been playing for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jays did much less of that in the opener:<\/p>\n

\u2022 In the first, after Jordan Westburg\u2019s leadoff double, Ramon Laureano followed by hitting a chopper to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.\u2019s right, which he fielded and immediately fired to third. Westburg paused and scrambled back to second ahead of Will Wagner\u2019s relay, and instead of a runner on third one out, Lucas was first and second, none out.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In the third, on Urias’ sacrifice fly to medium centre, Nathan Lukes threw home instead of third and Guerrero couldn\u2019t cut it off, allowing Henderson to take third and score on Cedric Mullins\u2019 second sac fly of the afternoon to make it 4-1.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In the fourth, with runners on the corners and one out, Sanchez fouled off a first-pitch safety squeeze attempt, fouled off the next pitch and then struck out. Then, with Lukes down 1-2 in the count, the Blue Jays tried a delayed double steal, with Wanger pausing between first and second after drawing an Alex Jackson throw and Henderson relaying home in time to get Loperfido, who jammed his left hand into Jackson\u2019s block of the plate, prompting the X-Ray.<\/p>\n

\u2022 In the fifth, Westburg losing Bichette\u2019s pop-up in a tough sky put runners on the corners with two outs, but Morton rallied to strike out Addison Barger \u2013 who hit a two-run homer in the fourth \u2013 and keep the Orioles up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BALTIMORE \u2014 A day-night doubleheader in the clothes-soaking Maryland heat, immediately after a short outing by a starting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-32880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}