Blue Jays lose 4-3 to Rays in series opener

Guerrero throwing error in sixth leads to Bassitt loss

On most nights in the first two months of this, thus far, disappointing Blue Jays season, manager John Schneider’s team has relied on pitching and defence to compete and to win. The third side of baseball’s winning triangle is hitting and that aspect has remained consistently inconsistent, letting the team down again on Friday night in a 4-3 loss to the Rays that was not as close as the score might suggest.

A pedestrian 29-year-old lefthander, with a below-average fastball, Tyler Alexander, dazzled the Jays, retiring his first 22 batters, twirling a 4-0 perfect game with one out in the bottom of the eighth, before Danny Jansen looped a single to right, followed by a Davis Schneider home run and, later vin the same inning, by a pinch-hit RBI single from Cavan Biggio.

Starter Chris Bassitt was really good through the first five innings, recording his career 900^th strikeout on a pitch-clock violation and then sheepishly rolling the ball to the home dugout to be authenticated, even if he, i…