For two teams as offensively challenged as the Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays, Tuesday’s outcome was about what one would expect.
Neither club has a player dominating the offensive stats, although in Toronto’s case, George Springer has been pretty good for the past month or so while Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has rebounded from a truly woeful April.
Tampa has got some power out of both first baseman Isaac Paredes and outfielder Randy Arozarena but nothing consistently.
And both teams rank closer to 30th or dead last in most of the major offensive stat categories.
But on a night where Tampa was without a traditional starting pitcher, choosing the opener and a slew of bullpen arms to get them through an open spot in the rotation and the Jays starter Jose Berrios, following a stellar 10-pitch first inning, was life and death to find the strike zone, there was at least realistic hope for some actual offence.
It still didn’t help either side much with Tampa somehow pushing across four runs on the night for a 4-2 win.
The 38,575 paying customers had multiple reasons to complain about the lack of bang for their buck. At least they had Loonie Dogs night to keep things remotely palatable.
Berrios did his best to contribute to Tampa’s chances with six walks over the 42/3 innings he remained in the game.
Still, Tampa managed to turn that into just three runs as it could sandwich just three hits around those six walks.
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Toronto’s own tepid offence was held in check by opener Shawn Armstrong and bulk reliever Tyler Alexander over the first five innings.
Armstrong got the Rays through the first two frames without a blemish on the scorecard while Alexander would give them three scoreless.
The bulk of that lead evaporated on back-to-back at bats by the Jays in the sixth when first Guerrero connected off Manuel Rodriguez for his 17th home run of the year and was immediately followed by Justin Turner who knocked his sixth out of the park.
Rodriguez got through the rest of the inning without further damage but the Jays were back within a run.
Those back-to-back home runs by the Jays were the lone semblance of offence they would muster all game.
Toronto would settle for four hits on the night while the victorious Rays needed just six of their own to put one in the win column.
Three more relievers from that Tampa bullpen all contributed a scoreless inning following that outburst against Rodriguez to settle the issue.
Pete Fairbanks closed it out with his 19th save of the year.