Blue Jays let a winnable game slip away, fall to Tigers

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The Blue Jays are going to have to start working on their killer instinct.

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That ability when teams are at their most vulnerable to put them away isn’t quite there yet this year, and it cost them again in Detroit. The Tigers came back from a 2-0 deficit on Friday to win the opener of a three-game series 3-2 on a Spencer Torkelson walk-off single.

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There were all kinds of reasons favouring a Blue Jays win, but what should happen and what does happen isn’t always the case in baseball.

The Tigers came into the game already vulnerable with a short bullpen and — here the Jays can relate — an injury-plagued rotation, and then quickly became even more vulnerable.

The Tigers were already onto their third reliever to start the third inning when a comebacker off the bat of Yohendrick Pinango hit Ty Madden flush on the forearm, knocking him out of the game just seven pitches into his evening.

Not only was Madden supposed to be the bulk guy, or the guy who would get the game into the latter innings, his immediate departure meant Burch Smith, the next man up, was rushed into the game inheriting a none-out, man on first situation.

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A vulnerable team looked suddenly ready to break.

Instead, the Jays let the Tigers off the hook. The Jays were already leading 2-0 at that point courtesy of an Andres Gimenez two-run double and looked primed to add to that.

First Vladimir Guerrero Jr, patiently watched three pitches sail out of the strike zone for a 3-0 count against a reliever who had just completed all of his warmup pitched from the mound because of Madden’s sudden departure.

On a 3-0 count, and maybe, just maybe, with Guerrero thinking about all that talk of his lack of home run power this year, the Jays first baseman swung and wound up popping up weakly to second base for the first out of the inning.

A pitch later, Pinango, whose 107-mile-an hour liner off Madden’s forearm earned him a single, got caught leaning towards second base and was picked off. Smith completed the Houdini act by punching out Kazuma Okamoto for the final out.

From that point on, the Jays offence went cold. As silly as Blue Jays starting pitcher Trey Yesavage was making the Tigers’ hitters look, he had almost as little idea where his devastating splitter was going either.

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Yesavage allowed just four hits in his six innings, but walked three and was charged with three wild pitches, two of which contributed to the Tigers pushing across the first run and just the second earned run all season scored with Yesavage on the mound.

Catcher Brandon Valenzuela has the bruises on his inner thighs to prove how unpredictable that splitter was all night as he was continually digging it out of the dirt or simply trying to block the one-hoppers that too often seemed to find pieces of his body where he didn’t have any protection.

The second run was the result of a Jays error, their 28^th of the season, which is now tied for the fourth-highest total in the major leagues. It came at the expense of the normally sure-handed Ernie Clement, who made a fine fielding play behind second base but seemed to rush the throw to first with Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler running.

Clement didn’t feel he had time to set his feet and wound up throwing wildly toward first base, with the ball getting past Guerrero and all the way to the infield wall, allowing Dingler second base.

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Riley Greene followed with a double to right to tie the game at two.

Yesavage finished the inning with a season-high 88 pitches but the 2-2 tie meant a win was not in the cards for him.

The Tigers finished the comeback in the bottom of the ninth. Matt Vierling scored from second base on a two-out Torkelson single to deep right centre against hard-luck reliever Jeff Hoffman, who took the loss.

Full credit to the Tigers bullpen, primarily Smith and Drew Anderson, who followed the former’s two shutout innings with four of his own for even keeping this game a game when it looked like it was about to get away.

Anderson, who had given up three earned runs in his previous two appearances over 2 1/3 innings, allowed just one hit over four innings blanking the Jays and saving the Tigers bullpen probably for the remainder of the series.

The Jays, meanwhile, are expected to rely on their own bullpen to get them through Game 2 of the series on Saturday, while the Tigers counter with Casey Mize (2-2, 2.90 ERA). Game time is 1:10 p.m. at Comerica Park.

mganter@postmedia.com

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