MILWAUKEE – The main event at American Family Field on Monday night featured the Toronto Blue Jays taking on the Milwaukee Brewers with a chance to reach .500 for the first time since April 29. A quirky side story developed in the fourth inning, when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. fouled off a Colin Rea sweeper and launched his bat well over the visitors’ dugout, where the knob became entangled in the stadium’s protective netting.
After several attempts to dislodge the bat with a makeshift rod, Chris Bassitt liberated the lumber in the top of the sixth inning, a second oddity in as many days after Yusei Kikuchi’s bizarre but endearing and ultimately harmless collision with Tyler Soderstrom on Sunday.
As for the main event, well, that had a less happy ending for the Blue Jays, who managed just four hits in a 3-1 loss to the National League Central leaders.
Before the game, catching coach Luis Hurtado knocked two of Alejandro Kirk’s bats together to wake them up, and he responded with his second homer of the season, and first since April 28. But that was all the Blue Jays managed while Jose Berrios surrendered three runs, two of them on solo shots by Jackson Chourio in the third and Willy Adames in the fourth on slurves that broke right into the middle of the plate.
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If they hope to return home with their record level, the Blue Jays (32-34) will now need to take the final two games of this set against the Brewers (39-27).
Two weeks ago, when they dropped a 14-11 heartbreaker to the Detroit Tigers and fell a season-high six games below .500, it was hard to envision them being within sight of level ground this soon.
But a 9-4 stretch through a schedule soft spot pulled their season back from the brink, and reopened a number of possibilities for them ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.
