Toronto comeback falls short in ninth

First the good news: Starter Brandon Morrow came off the disabled list to make an impressive season debut and Jose Bautista hit two more home runs. He has now reached base 10 consecutive times.

But, back to cold reality: It wasn’t enough to hold off the Tampa Rays, who roughed up the Jays’ bullpen for a 6-4 win.

Morrow and Tampa starter David Price are on the cusp of becoming two of baseball’s brightest young pitching stars and didn’t disappoint. They locked in a pitching duel into the sixth inning when Morrow hit 93 pitches and — recovering from a forearm strain — had to bid farewell. By then he’d fanned 10, allowing three hits.

It couldn’t have come at a better time for manager John Farrell after having to demote two starters the past week for sub-par results. “He was outstanding. He maintained his stuff through the game. There was a pitch up in the zone that (Johnny Damon) hooked down the line for the two (-run homer to open the first inning),” said Farrell. “Other than that, he was dominating.”

There had been uncertainty about how well Morrow would come back after some suspect numbers in his Florida rehab assignment. But he struck out the side in the first after Damon’s homer and set down 15 of the next 16 Rays, handing a 2-2 game to reliever Carlos Villanueva.

“I would’ve liked to finish the inning but you can’t push it too far,” said Morrow, after watching a bullpen that ranks fourth in the AL fail to shut the door in what evolved into a three-run Tampa sixth. “It’s tough. But I understand. You can’t throw 25-30 more pitches than you have the last time out.”

Morrow threw 80 pitches in his final rehab start in Florida and Farrell didn’t want to push him beyond 90 against the Rays.

Morrow’s fastball consistently hit in the low 90s and by the fifth inning he had upped the heat, Sean Rodriguez and Reid Brignac swinging through 97 and 96 m.p.h. pitches.

Bautista was a wrecking crew, homering in the first and fourth against Price, who otherwise held the Jays’ hitless, until Jose Molina’s seventh-inning single. “I was trying to look at the video to see what (Price) was doing inning to inning,” said Bautista. “In the first inning he had two outs with three pitches. I gave him a pitch and was looking fastball and I got it in a good spot.” Home run No. 6.

“After that I saw him throwing a lot of sliders. In that (second) at-bat he threw me all offspeed and ... he left the pitch up in the zone.” The line drive cleared the Toronto bullpen wall.

A walk, as so often happens, turned into Morrow’s undoing. He left Sam Fuld aboard when he departed after fanning Johnny Damon.

Villanueva walked Matt Joyce on four pitches, and Ben Zobrist sent his 1-1 offering so deep to right Bautista didn’t even bother giving chase. They’d add another run against Casey Janssen.

Defeat hurt; for a seventh time in the last 11 games. But equally, nobody could discount the silver lining provided by Morrow’s return. “You continue to increase that over six, seven, eight innings and that’s the guy who was very effective much of last year,” said Farrell. “It was very good to see him walk to the mound and have that kind of stuff.”