TORONTO — The pitching matchup for the Orioles in the ninth inning can be traced backward to the beginning of the seventh inning, when interim manager Tony Mansolino decided Tomoyuki Sugano’s game was done after 63 pitches.

The right-hander had cruised despite taking a hard-hit ball off his left shin at the end of the first inning. He hobbled off the field then returned in fine form, allowing one run in six innings, yet Mansolino turned the game over to the bullpen, and the loss that followed can be dissected and critiqued but all come back to the choice that Sugano was done.

“We’re going for the win right there,” Mansolino said, so he pulled Sugano before the Japanese starter faced Vladimir Guerrero Jr. a third time.

In a vacuum, that single move worked out. Right-hander Rico Garcia allowed a single to Guerrero but retired the side without a run crossing the plate. But everything that followed was the trickle-down of removing Sugano there, and it meant right-hander Yennier Cano — who has struggled against left-handed hitters all season — faced multiple lefties with the game on the line in the ninth inning.

Baltimore passed the ball from Garcia to right-hander Kade Strowd to left-hander Keegan Akin to Cano. The latter three allowed one run in the eighth and three in the ninth. The Orioles, who enjoyed a walk-off frenzy this month at home, then felt the ache that comes from being on the losing side.

The Blue Jays walked off the Orioles with a 5-4 win on Saturday, marking the first time this month Baltimore has lost consecutive games. The Orioles had impressed with eight wins in 10 games this month entering Saturday, but the late stumble in the second game at Rogers Centre reminded one of the earlier foibles of this team.

“Those are things that just happen,” catcher Samuel Basallo said of the late collapse through team interpreter Brandon Quinones. “Part of the game. We don’t want them to happen, but they happen.”

There was still much to like Saturday. Sugano supplied six innings with one run against him, and a stable of young players provided clutch hits, with the solo home run from Coby Mayo in the top of the ninth seeming to be the boost to assist a bullpen on the ropes.

But it all fell away because of the bullpen collapse.

In the eighth, the Orioles turned to Akin to inherit runners on the corners rather than having Strowd continue against a left-handed hitter, Nathan Lukes. The Blue Jays countered with a pinch hitter, Alejandro Kirk, who promptly scored one run with a single.

Akin, who has allowed three homers in 14 previous at-bats against Guerrero, pitched around the slugger to face another pinch hitter in Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The groundout stranded the bases loaded and retained a narrow lead for Baltimore.

Akin returned for the save situation, but an infield single and a throwing error prompted Baltimore to call on Cano.

But the lone out Cano recorded was the game-winning sacrifice fly, also off the bat of Kirk. The Blue Jays raced onto the field and it was Baltimore’s turn to trudge to the showers, wondering how a win turned into a loss.

“Just weren’t able to make the right pitches in the right locations, and we paid the price,” Mansolino said.

Earlier, the young players in the lineup were positive notes. Mansolino wanted to reduce at least some of the pressure that lands upon a newcomer at this level, so he kept Dylan Beavers stashed lower in the batting order for much of the outfielder’s first three weeks in the majors. But the way Beavers has performed allowed Mansolino to push him to the No. 2 spot in Saturday’s lineup.

“He’s kind of proven to this point thus far that he can handle some expectations, and a little bit of pressure might be a good thing for him,” Mansolino said before the game.

The new lineup construction, at least for one day, yielded immediate results.

The Orioles scored quickly against right-hander Max Scherzer. Jackson Holliday, who was 2 years old when the 41-year-old Scherzer was drafted, poked a single through the middle. Beavers was bailed out by a missed call that could’ve been strike three, and he drew a walk. And then Gunnar Henderson lasered an RBI double off the right-field fence when Scherzer hung a slider.

Beavers scored on Tyler O’Neill’s groundout to give the Orioles a 2-0 lead before Sugano took the mound, and he made full advantage of that edge. But, before Sugano spun a quality start over six innings, his day might’ve been over after one.

For the second straight start, Sugano took a hard-hit grounder off an extremity. In his last outing, a ball off Sugano’s right foot forced him out.

On Saturday, Guerrero rifled a chopper at 112.6 mph and it ricocheted off Sugano’s lower left leg. The pitcher hobbled off the field and into the dugout after Basallo gathered the loose ball and recorded the third out, and right-hander Albert Suárez began warming in case Sugano couldn’t return.

But it was Sugano who trotted to the mound for the second, and the third, and so forth. He struck out the side in the second, seemingly proving the ball off his shin wouldn’t be an issue.

“At the time I got hit it was pretty painful, but gradually it was complying,” Sugano said through team interpreter Yuto Sakurai. “I got hit last week, too, so I wanted to throw more.”

Sugano allowed one run via a solo homer from Addison Barger in the fifth inning. He completed six innings at just 63 pitches, yet Mansolino turned the one-run game over to the bullpen.

“Man, he was tough. He hung in there,” Mansolino said. “He got hit hard. To see him fight through it and pitch the way he did in this environment, after six innings, just felt like it was the right thing to do for him and also for us to try to win the game.”

The Orioles haven’t put up crooked numbers frequently of late, but part of the success Saturday came via Beavers’ plate discipline, which yielded three walks. With 20 bases on balls in his first 88 plate appearances, Beavers is walking at a 22.7% rate, and no other player in Orioles history has walked that much through the first 23 games of his career.

Beavers’ third walk, with one out in the eighth, was nullified by Henderson’s fielder’s choice. But it extended the inning for O’Neill’s infield single and Basallo’s opposite-field RBI double against right-hander Seranthony Domínguez.

Mayo’s eighth homer this season pushed the Orioles’ lead back to two runs in the top of the ninth. Still, that wasn’t enough. If Sugano had pitched deeper, the bullpen matchups all change.

The benefit of hindsight puts this all into consideration. But, as Basallo said, “I think sometimes just baseball happens.” There’s a lesson in there — the best-laid plans can fall apart.

This article has been updated.