TORONTO – The team can't stay healthy, the thinned-out offence is in a deep funk, and now a key starter leaves the mound in a huff after a quick pull.
Yup, the problems just keep piling up for the Toronto Blue Jays.
The latest fire manager John Farrell must tend to now comes courtesy of Brandon Morrow, who turned back and stared in the direction of the mound, muttered an obscenity and then whipped down his glove in the dugout following his fourth-inning hook in Monday's 10-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers.
Morrow (1-2) had allowed just two runs but had the bases loaded with one out when Farrell came to get him. Shawn Camp came on and struck out Ryan Raburn before Austin Jackson ripped a three-run double that essentially cemented a third straight loss for the Blue Jays (15-20).
It got uglier from there, as Ramon Santiago's RBI double capped the six-run fourth for the Tigers (18-18), who won for the sixth time in seven outings before a grumpy Rogers Centre crowd of 11,785.
Detroit tacked on four more in the seventh against Octavio Dotel, highlighted by Victor Martinez's two-run blast, adding to the home side's current misery.
Max Scherzer (6-0) allowed just two runs – on Jose Bautista's RBI double in the first and Yunel Escobar's solo shot in the third – over five innings, as the Blue Jays again failed to muster much of an offensive attack.
Missing first baseman Adam Lind for a second straight game due to lower back stiffness didn't help, and there's no timeline for his return. Without him, there is little support for Bautista in the lineup and not much else to fear besides the slugging right-fielder, although they showed some signs of life in the ninth on Corey Patterson's two-run double and Edwin Encarnacion's RBI single.
Perhaps that's why Farrell was so quick to pull Morrow in the fourth.
The right-hander cruised through his first three frames before things started to unravel. Brennan Boesch struck out to start the inning but reached base when Jose Molina couldn't corral strike three. Miguel Cabrera then walked before Martinez ripped a run-scoring double to centre field that was awkwardly played by Corey Patterson, in the lineup in place of the slumping Rajai Davis.
Don Kelly followed with an RBI single and, after Jhonny Peralta's liner to short was caught by Escobar for the first out, Morrow walked Alex Avila to load the bases, prompting Farrell to make the change.
Morrow had thrown 31 pitches in the inning, but perhaps Farrell was trying to ensure the damage didn't get worse for his challenged offence.
Either way, the decision created one more problem for a team already with more than its share of them.
NOTES: Plans were afoot for Adam Lind to have an MRI on his back after the stiffness he had Sunday didn't ease at all Monday. "The spasms are strong," said manager John Farrell. "It's concerning if there's no improvement over the next day or two. We have to strongly at that point, provided there's no improvement, consider the next step." That would be the disabled list, as the Jays, carrying 13 pitchers on the roster, cannot afford to further shorten their bench for long. … Martinez, 3-for-4 with two doubles, two runs, three RBIs and a walk to go with his homer, is now batting .316 (74-for-234) in 61 career games against the Blue Jays. He has nine homers, 17 doubles and 50 RBIs and 35 runs in those games.
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