Blue Jays lose big in opener to Red Sox in pivotal series

TORONTO — The Boston Red Sox and the Blue Jays began a pivotal three-game series in Toronto, and it couldn’t have started much worse for the home team.

The Red Sox beat the Blue Jays 13-3 on Friday night at the Rogers Centre to pull ahead by two games in the tight American League East race and make the remaining two games near must-wins for the Blue Jays, if they want to keep pace.

Ahead of the game, this series, though just three games of 162 games, felt like much more than that with fans showing up hours before first pitch decked out in blue gear and a playoff-like atmosphere building inside the sold-out Rogers Centre.

Sure, there’s always excitement when division rivals visit, but many had this series circled as a crucial one for either side, especially the way September started for the Blue Jays.

Following their latest nine-game road trip that saw Toronto go 3-6, including a three-game sweep by the New York Yankees, the Blue Jays entered the weekend set a game behind the Red Sox in the AL East standings. This game, which manager John Gibbons characterized as “blah” in his post-game press conference, didn’t fare much better than the rest so far this month as the Blue Jays now drop to 1-6 in September and fall two games back of the Red Sox — which has not been the case for some time.

After being atop the division — either alone or tied — for nearly a month, two games is the furthest out of first the Blue Jays have been since July 27.

If Blue Jays fans, who enjoyed an unforgettable ride into the post-season last year, weren’t panicking before this trouncing at the hands of the Red Sox, they might be now.

But for those Blue Jays fans already hyperventilating into a paper bag, here’s a little perspective. Back in 1993, the Blue Jays had a dreadful start to September as well.

The ’93 Jays dropped six in a row starting on Sept. 2, getting swept by both the California Angels and Oakland Athletics. That skid led them to briefly fall into a tie for first in the division with the New York Yankees. But following the skid, the Jays would rebound with a nine-game win streak to regain first, and would go on to have a pretty successful playoff run, to say the least.

Still, if one was tense heading into this three-game affair, Friday did nothing to coax those nerves.

It was a forgettable outing for the team as much as it was for their left fielder Melvin Upton Jr., who made two defensive errors — in a mistake-riddled third inning — then had to endure Bronx cheers from the crowd when he completed a routine play thereafter.

After falling behind 4-0 after those defensive miscues in the top of the third, the Blue Jays would cut the lead in half after Devon Travis drove in two with a single to left field. But the Red Sox would tack on one run in the fourth and go on to score six in the seventh inning, including a three-run homer from Hanley Ramirez, to put the game all but out of reach for the Blue Jays.

“Well you don’t like it, no doubt about it,” Gibbons said about the poor effort in an important game. “It’s uncharacteristic of us so we’ll move on and play the game tomorrow.

“We haven’t been playing really necessary good baseball the last week, but you know I still believe; I like these guys. They got us to this point and I think they’ll continue to do that,” Gibbons continued.

To make matters worse, it was another rough outing for Marco Estrada, who was lifted during the third inning and gave up six hits and three earned runs. It’s part of a run of tough starts from the Blue Jays all-star, whose ERA is 7.71 over his last five starts.

For Estrada, and the Blue Jays, this significant home stretch of the season has been a less than ideal time to hit a funk.

“Nothing went our way today, and obviously it all started with me. You know, when your starting pitcher is out there making a bunch of pitches like that it brings everybody down a little bit so, I got to do a better job right out the gates to get quick outs cause obviously this can’t keep happening,” Estrada said after the game. “We’re in a tight race and luckily we get to play these guys again tomorrow and it’s a day game so you got to have a short memory, forget about today and move on, get ready for tomorrow.”

The Blue Jays will have two more tries to play against the Red Sox this weekend and try to reverse the trend of this woeful September, and work to ensure October baseball remains on the horizon in Toronto, like their counterparts of yesteryear.