Blue Jays have to pick up pace in tight WC race

TORONTO — Two games in, the biggest series of the Blue Jays’ season isn’t feeling like it.

Tuesday night’s 6-3 loss flipped the American League Wild Card standings yet again, sending Texas into second place with Toronto now a half-game back in the third spot. The Rangers also clinched the season series between these clubs, which could be a major hurdle for the Blue Jays in a tight race down to the wire.

“It’s going to be a battle. It’s going to be a grind,” manager John Schneider said. “We have to control what we can and try to pile up the wins. It’s going to go right down to the end.”

With both the Rangers and Mariners holding the tiebreaker over them, that wouldn’t exactly be good news for the Blue Jays.

This race has evolved into a game of high-stakes musical chairs with three teams circling two seats until the song stops. To take back some level of control, Toronto will need to see more from its offense, which needs to show up while Texas is in town.

Toronto’s offense didn’t show a pulse until Max Scherzer’s early exit with a right triceps spasm, opening the door to a Texas bullpen that has been a glaring weakness in this race. It was too little, too late, and once again the Blue Jays were forced to chase the Rangers from behind.

Comebacks are not this Toronto team’s strength, and playing from behind eliminates its biggest advantage: a bullpen that’s built to take a close lead and put it to bed. These weak points are all magnified in such a crucial series, but Schneider doesn’t see his team sweating it.

“Pressure, no. Importance, yes,” Schneider said, “just because of where we are in the season. You have to try to get out of here with a split [of the four-game set] and take it one game at a time, knowing that it’s a really important series.

“Pressure, absolutely not, I don’t think so. These guys are looking forward to this series and this challenge. It’s a really good team. We just haven’t really strung those hits together in a row so far.”

The deficit also led to the Blue Jays chasing offense with their substitutions, which dragged them away from their other strength of top-end defense. By the eighth, Davis Schneider and Cavan Biggio had moved out of the infield to play the corner outfield spots with George Springer shifting from right to center field.

There’s no mystery about where this production needs to come from, either.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette are a combined 0-for-16 through the first two games of this series, and while it’s easier to envision Bichette and his .308 average finding a hole soon, some of Guerrero’s at-bats have looked very uncharacteristic with strikeouts in four of his eight trips to the plate.

“Everyone is going to target them as really good hitters. I don’t think it’s anything different,” Schneider said. “They seem to get pitched really tough. At the same time, we’re going to continue to want those guys up in big spots.

“You look at two games, then you look at how good they’ve both been for not just this year, but their entire time here. You want them to be up.”

Instead, it was the Buffalo Boys sparking the offense again.

Spencer Horwitz sent a 385-foot double off the wall in right-center that would have left nine MLB parks, and with Brandon Belt on the IL, you can get used to seeing his name in the lineup. Davis Schneider ripped his eighth home run in just 25 games and added a double, which is somehow a normal day at the office for him.

There’s little time for feel-good stories, though, at a time of year where wins matter and nothing else registers on the radar.

“We don’t have many games left in the season,” starter Hyun Jin Ryu said through a club interpreter. “I understand that we’ve lost two games in a row, but that’s part of the game. Tomorrow is another day. We just have to focus and do more tomorrow.”

Those tomorrows are running out, and without a tiebreaker advantage, the Blue Jays need to avoid the photo finish they’re headed for.