色色啦

Things had been looking so good, too. It seemed like the baseball gods were really on the Jays’ side.

Tuesday night, a sudden and unexpected Chicago rainstorm shortened their game to six innings, allowing Chris Bassitt to throw a “complete game” with just 78 pitches and giving a weary bullpen a full day off in the midst of a stretch of 16 games in 16 days.

Wednesday, the White Sox sent Adrian Houser and his 1.60 ERA to the mound, but their best pitcher was not physically at his best 鈥� including running back to the dugout to throw up during warmups before the second inning.

The opportunistic Jays took advantage, putting runners on the corners with one out in the frame before Tyler Heineman dropped a safety squeeze bunt, daring the weak-legged Houser to make a play. The pitcher couldn’t, everybody was safe and the Jays had their first run.聽

But Houser must have started feeling better. He didn’t allow another run and went seven strong innings, dropping that ERA to 1.56.

There have been several unheralded players that one can imagine the Jays would have been lost without聽鈥� Addison Barger, Ernie Clement, Nathan Lukes, Yariel Rodriguez and Braydon Fisher chief among them聽鈥� but Eric Lauer has been the most important of the bunch.

It was only fitting that Lauer was on the mound as the Jays tried to extend the streak to a club-record-tying 11 games.

The 30-year-old Lauer, signed as a minor-league free agent in the off-season, was called up at the end of April and immediately put a stop to the revolving door of fifth starters and openers the Jays had been using to cover the injury absence of Max Scherzer.

Lauer forced his way into the rotation by posting a 2.08 ERA over his first eight appearances, bouncing between long relief and spot starts. Since becoming a regular starter, he had a 2.89 ERA until an apparent issue with the fingers on his left hand in the fourth inning Wednesday.聽

In that frame, the left-hander gave up an RBI double by rookie catcher Edgar Quero and a softly-struck RBI single by Lenyn Sosa. Lauer did not come back out for the fifth and, though the Jays bullpen held the White Sox right there, the hitters couldn’t come up with the tying run despite several opportunities.

Lauer wasn’t the only Jays pitcher whose outing was truncated. Right-hander Ryan Burr left after 15 pitches in the seventh with an injured shoulder. It was just his second outing after missing the first 89 games with a shoulder injury. Yariel Rodriguez came on to pick up a full count to Mike Tauchman and struck him out on one pitch.

Guerrero runs into trouble

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was at the centre of the storm.

With an off-day on Thursday, Guerrero was the designated hitter to get him a little extra time off his feet, but the half-day of work did not serve him well.

Guerrero grounded into a double-play with two on and nobody out in the first inning, and grounded out to shortstop with the tying run at second base and two out in the eighth. His batting average with runners in scoring position dropped to .296.

In between those at-bats, Guerrero also had a couple of tough stints on the basepaths.

With two out in the third, Houser tried to pick off Guerrero at first base, but threw the ball into right field. Guerrero got to second easily, then watched Chase Meidroth’s throw get away in the middle of the infield and took off for the vacated third base.

Houser, despite his stomach churning, raced to third and tagged Guerrero out to end the inning, leaving Barger at the plate.

In the fifth, Guerrero was again on first with Lukes at third and one out. Barger hit a ground ball to first, where White Sox first baseman Tim Elko picked it up and stepped on the bag (removing the force at second) then threw to second. Guerrero couldn’t beat the tag and the inning was over before Lukes crossed home plate with the tying run.

There’s an argument to be made that Guerrero should have pulled up and gotten into a rundown to allow Lukes to scamper home, and he did appear to turn and see Elko step on first. There’s also an argument to be made that Lukes, a much faster runner, should have been able to get home from third before Guerrero was tagged out at second, in which case the run would have counted.

But it was that kind of day for the Jays, their nothing-can-go-wrong stylings of the past 10 days having caught up with them.

They hit into three inning-ending double-plays, stranded three leadoff singles, twice had runners at first and second with nobody out and didn’t score, and went just 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, the only hit being that Heineman bunt single.

Regardless of their recent success, there’s always an undercurrent of “we can’t have nice things” here in 色色啦, so it’s almost fitting that the 10-game win streak was snapped by the worst team in the AL.

The Jays are off to Sacramento to finish up the unofficial first half of the season with three games against the Athletics, the second-worst team in the league.