Blue Jays without Edwin Encarnacion, Devon Travis against Phillies

The Blue Jays’ lineup was in flux after Reyes, reliever Miguel Castro and minor-league pitchers Jeff Hoffman and Jesus Tinoco were traded to Colorado earlier in the day.

Jays starter Felix Doubront, who has been on borrowed time ever since his call-up from Triple-A Buffalo earlier this month, hit a wall in the fifth inning as he failed to make an out and watched the slim lead evaporate on three straight doubles following a tough-luck infield single by Ryan Howard (replays showed Howard clearly fouled the pitch off his leg).

Encarnacion jammed his left middle finger in Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Philadelphia.

“He shut us down us as well as any lefty has all year”, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. “That was the difference in the game”.

Jeanmar Gomez pitched the seventh, Luis Garcia worked the eighth and Giles finished.

Mired in baseball’s longest postseason drought, the Toronto Blue Jays were rumored to be looking for pitching help. “I can’t see a more fitting way to end it”.

“He lost the zone and started scattering”, Gibbons said.

It was a costly game for Toronto, as second baseman Devon Travis left the game with irritation in his left shoulder between the second and third innings.

“He was yelling like he was in pain and I saw the ball but I stopped running because I saw the situation”, said Doubront.

Darin Ruf, Asche and Andres Blanco followed with consecutive doubles. Hawkins debuted for the Blue Jays on Tuesday night, but Tulowitzki remained in the United States while he resettled his family. Tulowitzki was assigned the locker that once belonged to Reyes.

While the Phillies are playing very good baseball right now, most of the attention is focused on Friday’s 4:00pm non-waiver trade deadline and how active the Phillies will be. Hamels threw a season-high 129 pitches in Sunday’s no-hitter over the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Haren is 1-1 with a 3.94 ERA in five starts in July. He is 6-7 with a 3.64 ERA in 20 starts.

Travis, who hit a leadoff homer in the first, missed 36 games this season with a shoulder injury sustained when he was hit by a bad-hop grounder in an April 30 game at Cleveland. This will be his sixth start in the big leagues, he has gone 1-2 in the first five with a 4.28 ERA. Dickey has allowed three earned runs or fewer in nine of his past 10 outings.