TORONTO — Red Sox players and coaches learned early Thursday afternoon that chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom had been fired. They then played a second doubleheader in three days against the Yankees, traveled, and arrived at their hotel here at 4 a.m.
“You’ve got to keep going,” manager Alex Cora said Friday before his team played the Blue Jays. “That’s the brutal nature of this business. Tough day yesterday, but we’ve got a game here.”
Toronto had its own problems, having been swept in a four-game series against the Rangers at Rogers Centre that dropped it 1½ games out of a wild-card spot.
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Desperate overcame weary. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s three-run homer off Brayan Bello in the third inning was all the scoring as the Blue Jays beat the Sox, 3-0, before a crowd of 35,680.
That’s eight losses in the last 10 games for the 74-74 Red Sox. With the Yankees winning, the Sox are alone in last place in the American League East.
Bello (12-9) pitched well outside of the home run, allowing only three other hits and striking out a career-high 10. But the Sox did not advance a runner beyond second base against Jose Berrios (11-10) and two relievers.
The last eight hitters went in order against Berrios, Jordan Hicks, and Justin Romano (save No. 35).
Bello sailed through the first two innings and had a runner on first with two outs in the third when Bo Bichette saw eight pitches and drew a walk.
That put Guerrero at the plate. Bello’s first pitch was a fastball at 97 miles per hour over the plate that Guerrero sent over the wall in left-center field for his 23rd homer.
Via a translator, Bello admitted the walk led to him starting Guerrero with a fastball because he wanted to jump ahead in the count.
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“He was aggressive and jumped on that first pitch,” said Bello, who wanted to go outside with the fastball.
Guerrero, who also singled in the sixth inning, is 7 of 14 with two doubles, two home runs, a walk and six RBIs against Bello over five games.
Bello spent extra time before the game watching video of his previous encounters with Guerrero hoping to find where he was making mistakes. That search will continue.
“I’m frustrated because I did a lot of work on that,” Bello said. “He sees something with me or the sequence of the pitches is wrong. I’m trying to figure out what is going on.”
The other Toronto hitters were 2 for 20 against Bello and struck out 10 times.
The 24-year-old has a 3.71 ERA over 26 starts, six more than any teammate.
“Throughout the season he has been our most consistent starter,” Cora said. “Not too many people are talking about him throughout the league. When you look up the innings, the W’s, and the ERA, and all that stuff, it’s been a solid season for him.”
Berrios allowed five hits, two of them doubles by Justin Turner, and struck out eight without a walk. The Sox were hitless in four at-bats with runners in scoring position, part of a 3-for-42 skid over the last five games.
More on the Red Sox:
⋅ Finn: Gathering nine Red Sox thoughts as the Chaim Bloom Era comes to an end
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⋅ Abraham: Simply hiring a new baseball boss may not be enough to fix the Red Sox
⋅ Front office role interests Red Sox manager Alex Cora, but not now
⋅ ‘Great things are now in store’: Former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom issues statement
Peter Abraham can be reached at peter.abraham@globe.com. Follow him @PeteAbe.