The Toronto Blue Jays went nearly 30 innings without scoring a run.
The bats on the Blue Jays’ West Coast trip have been virtually silent as Toronto nearly matched a franchise record for consecutive innings without a run Monday night in their series-opener against the San Francisco Giants.
Before Kazuma Okamoto hit a towering solo home run in the sixth inning of Monday’s game, the Blue Jays had gone 29.2 innings without scoring, finishing just two and one-third innings away from matching their franchise record of 32 from May of 1981.
The homer was Okamoto’s 20th of the season as he continues to be one of the few bright spots in the Blue Jay batting order during his first season in the Major Leagues.
The Blue Jays tallied a pair of runs in the third inning of Friday’s series opener against the Seattle Mariners, but were unable to score the rest of the game. That set into motion a streak that stretched all the way to the sixth inning against the Giants three games later as Toronto was shut out in back-to-back contests over the weekend against the Mariners.
The Jays did manage to win Friday’s game 2-0 but fell 11-0 on Saturday and 4-0 Sunday to drop to six games below .500 (42-48) on the season. Toronto trailed 3-1 at the time of Okamoto’s homer Monday evening, but allowed five runs in the bottom half of the sixth to fall behind 8-1.
The Blue Jays entered play Monday second-last in all of baseball in total runs scored (356). They were also fifth-last in slugging percentage (.382) and seventh-last in home runs (88), while being tied with the San Diego Padres with an OPS+ of 87.
They sat three games back of the final American League wild-card spot as of Monday morning.
