Better baseball, not enough victories

The Blue Jays should be on a fivegame winning streak right now.

- MIKE WILNER

Danny Jansen’s first-inning home run Thursday was his first in almost two months.

A 5-3 win Thursday at Oracle Park in San Francisco gave them a second straight series win, with the offence providing three first-inning runs against former teammate Jordan Hicks and Kevin Gausman giving up just two runs over seven innings against his former team. But it should have been a sweep.

The Jays were one strike away from a win in Tuesday night’s series opener but Trevor Richards walked the No. 8 hitter, allowed a seeingeye, game-tying single — also with two strikes — and threw a wild pitch to give up the winning run.

Had Richards been able to retire either one of the two hitters at the bottom of the Giants lineup, the conversation around the Jays would be entirely different as they head to the desert to open up a three-game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks before the all-star break.

Sure, the Jays would still be sitting five games under .500, instead of seven. They would still be well out of the playoff race with the July 30 trade deadline bearing down on them. And the bullpen would still be frighteningly thin.