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Blue Jays' woeful offense continues to make history

Jason Miller / Getty Images Sport / Getty

The Toronto Blue Jays' offense continues to reach new lows early on in 2019 after an ugly four-game sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Indians.

After their 3-1 loss Sunday, the Blue Jays have struck out at least 13 times in four consecutive games for the first time in franchise history, Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com reports.

The club joined the Arizona Diamonbacks (2017), Tampa Bay Rays (2015), and Houston Astros (2013) as the only teams to do that in MLB history, according to Baseball Reference.

Toronto could become the only team to strike out at least 13 times in five straight games when it takes on Chris Sale and the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday. Only Max Scherzer has more strikeouts than the left-hander since 2017, per FanGraphs.

Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo didn't mince words about his team's effort following its eighth loss in 11 games to start the campaign.

"I’m not going to insult your intelligence - our approach has not been good," Montoyo said, according to Arden Zwelling of Sportsnet. "I’m not going to sugar coat it. It’s been really bad. But I promise you one thing, we’re going to frigging work on it.

"And we’re going to continue to work on it until we get out of this slump that we’re into right now."

The team compiled 57 strikeouts against Cleveland, second-most in franchise history, while its 19 hits are the second-fewest in a four-game series, Chisholm notes.

Last week, the Blue Jays became the fourth team in the last five seasons to have 44 hitless innings over its first eight contests, according to EliasSports, via ESPN Stats & Info. No other team had more.

Toronto has also been held hitless into the sixth inning or later four times, including almost being no-hit Thursday by the Indians to begin the series.

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