Blue Jays lineup looks utterly punchless in loss to Indians

Those well-versed in the philosophy of baseball will tell you that good pitching beats good hitting, but you need to have some of the latter to put that theory to the test.

On Tuesday night, the Toronto Blue Jays didn’t have any on hand in a 6-0 loss to the Cleveland Indians. The Tribe brought dominating right-hander Carlos Carrasco to bear and a dangerously-thin Blue Jays lineup simply couldn’t compete.

“He lives at the knees, you know, and he gets a lot of groundballs,” manager John Gibbons said of the Indians’ starter. “He can strike you out too, he’s got pretty good stuff. But we’ve seen him good before, so it’s not unusual.”

Granted, making opponents look helpless is Carrasco’s MO, but Toronto’s attempt to create offence against the power pitcher was not only inept, but seemed almost futile from the get-go. In Monday’s win, an unexpected second-deck shot from Ryan Goins and a clutch single from Justin Smoak glossed over the club’s lineup holes — but on Tuesday they were on full display.

The second spot in the lineup — the spot where you’re best hitter should go, the one Josh Donaldson tends to occupy — belonged to Ezequiel Carrera. The men hitting six, seven, and eight were Goins, Darwin Barney and Chris Coghlan, who brought a collective .241/.297/.367 line into the game. In a larger sample last year, they were an even worse .219/.287/.336. In the nine hole resided 26-year-old rookie catcher Mike Ohlman making his major-league debut.

That’s a grim lineup to ride into battle with. Faced with a guy like Carrasco, it was a virtual no-hoper. The 30-year-old certainly capitalized on his opportunity, allowing just three base runners through seven innings — all on singles — and striking out seven. He allowed one man to reach scoring position and not once did he appear in any serious danger.

From there Andrew Miller came on and put together the kind of clean, effortless inning that he makes his living on and Nick Goody finished off Toronto in the ninth, allowing a single to Kevin Pillar and immediately erasing it with a double-play ball.

Not only did the Blue Jays batting order look extraordinarily short, it got shorter as the game wore on. In the seventh inning, Steve Pearce replaced Kendrys Morales as the big designated hitter had experienced some discomfort in his hamstring after grounding out in the fourth.

“In my second at-bat when I rolled over [on the ball] jogging on the way back I felt a little tightness in my hamstring,” Morales said through translator Josue Peley.

The veteran slugger isn’t particularly worried about the injury, but will undergo an MRI on Wednesday to bring some clarity to the situation.

“I’m not so concerned so far. We’ll do an MRI tomorrow,” he said. “We’ll see how it goes from there. They’ll tell me if it’s severe or not.”

As it stands now, the team is missing Russell Martin, Troy Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson all for uncertain periods of time with the status of Morales now coming into question. No matter how well you build a team, there’s no way to replace that kind of production and keep humming along. The Blue Jays in particular were considered a top-heavy team coming into the season and on Tuesday they showed why.

Perhaps the lone bright spot for Toronto was Mike Bolsinger, who put together a respectable outing in his Blue Jays debut, holding the Indians to two runs in 5.2 innings. While he kept Cleveland down for the most part, it was clear early on that his command was inconsistent. His first pitch of the game was a ball and then he followed that with 17 consecutive strikes, then nine straight balls that put two men on base to start the second. Those two walks were the only base runners he allowed to score on the day.

“That’s the thing I’d been doing well in Triple-A is not walking people,” Bolsinger said. “When you do it kind of seems like it can bite you in the butt.”

By the end of the start he’d issued four free passes, but only allowed three hits to keep things in check. The thorn in his side on the day was Lonnie Chisenhall who went 2-for-2 against him with two doubles and a walk.

The Blue Jays bullpen was more generous than Bolsinger, allowing the Indians to tack on insurance runs they had no need for in the game’s final three frames. Dominic Leone, J.P. Howell, Jason Grilli, Aaron Loup and Ryan Tepera combined to throw 3.1 innings of four-run ball.