{"id":704956,"date":"2026-05-31T02:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/704956\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T02:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T02:20:16","slug":"another-ninth-inning-hoffman-meltdown-halts-blue-jays-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/704956\/","title":{"rendered":"Another ninth-inning Hoffman meltdown halts Blue Jays’ momentum"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Toronto Blue Jays<\/a> appeared to be in good stead on Saturday, until Jeff Hoffman ran into trouble in the ninth. <\/p>\n

It was a familiar sight as the hard-throwing right-hander allowed five earned runs, blowing a four-run lead as the Blue Jays lost 6-5 to the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Hoffman first allowed a string of hits, before losing the zone and walking consecutive batters. He gave Orioles leadoff hitter Taylor Ward a free pass on four pitches and then bounced a slider to Gunnar Henderson that walked in a run. <\/p>\n

Recent Blue Jays acquisition Connor Seabold entered with a 5-4 lead, then walked in a run and gave up a walk-off single. Both runs were charged to Hoffman.<\/p>\n

It was only Seabold’s second relief appearance with the Blue Jays after he was traded from the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

“You put Connor in a tough spot there,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said after the game. <\/p>\n

Hoffman started the inning strong, striking out Orioles catcher Samuel Basallo \u2014 who appeared to suffer an injury while swinging \u2014 on a sharp splitter. However, he then hit Coby Mayo with a pitch and the Orioles followed with three straight hits that put a Blue Jays lead that seemed safe in peril.<\/p>\n

“They made some good swings on some sliders down, and then kind of just lost the zone for the walks,” Schneider said.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. went 4-for-5 in the game and scored a pair of runs while Kazuma Okamoto extended Toronto’s lead in the eighth inning with a two-RBI double. <\/p>\n

But it was all for naught as the meltdown snapped a four-game Blue Jays winning streak and dropped them back below .500 at 29-30.<\/p>\n

Entering play Saturday, Hoffman’s 31-per-cent strikeout minus walk rate was fifth among qualified relievers and his .492 batting average on balls in play was first.<\/p>\n

However, despite strong underlying metrics and numbers that indicate bad luck, his results \u2014 a 6.31 ERA and seven combined losses and blown saves \u2014 tell a different story.<\/p>\n

It was also Hoffman’s third time pitching in four days, and he had thrown more pitches than any other Blue Jays reliever over the previous three days. <\/p>\n

“We’re asking a lot of them,” Schneider said. “Outings like that happen. It sucks. It’s unfortunate when you go into the ninth with a lead, but these guys are all pitching a lot. (We’re) asking them to cover a lot of innings, asking them to cover a lot of high-leverage innings.”<\/p>\n

Toronto will be aiming to win the four-game series in the finale on Sunday. Watch the game on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ at noon ET \/ 9 a.m. PT. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Blue Jays appeared to be in good stead on Saturday, until Jeff Hoffman ran into trouble…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-704956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704956","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=704956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}