DVR Classic as Jays, fans fall asleep at 8pm
Part of the reason that I love summer nights is that although there is nothing to watch on TV (well, there is the Olympics), the Blue Jays are usually on, and the games are pretty entertaining.
But these games are not entertaining, at all, not because the Jays lose, but in the manner that they lose. Tampa's pitching looks great, but the Jays pitching before they reach bullpen is just good. That allows the opposing team to win with less than 5 runs. The offense for the Jays has evaporated. Jose is not getting better. Lind is faultering. Arencibia is out. Lawrie will probably go on the DL. Hope for this team has all but disappeared. But I'll get to that later. Here are the highlights of this one:
The Jays opened the scoring in the top of the 3rd with a sac fly from Edwin to knock in Rajai Davis, who went first to third on a Colby Rasmus single.
Carlos Villanueva then had a minor blowout in the bottom of the third, allowing the first three runners to reach in a double-double-single combination to Jennings, Upton, and Matt Joyce, plating one. Evan Longoria grounded into a nice double play to plate Upton. Then two walks and a single to plate Ben Zobrist. 3-1 Rays after three.
Villanueva then allowed a single, then retired 9 in a row in the the middle frames.
The Jays threatened in the top of the 7th. With a double by Johnston, Farrell elected to bunt Mathis in order to try to score Johnston. But you know, sacrificing an out for a base at this stage in the game, down by 2, doesn't make sense with me. Let Mathis hit away and hope that a single scores the run again. As it turned out, the bunt did move Johnston, but Cobb went ahead and struck out rookie Gose and Hechavarria to wrap up the inning. It was a dumb time to bunt.
Delabar and Lincoln pitched excellently in the 7th and 8th, allowing one hit in the two innings.
The Jays made it interesting in the 9th, as David Cooper bounced a 325 foot home run off the top of the 5 foot wall next to the line in LF. Jennings was there but didn't make a real attempt to catch it. Johnson and Mathis then hit balls in the air to the shortstop to end the game.
The Jays bullpen have pitched extremely well in the last 13 games, including tonight's game. Over 41.1 innings pitched, the bullpen has let in 6 runs for an ERA of 1.41. They sport a BA of .162, an OBP of .256, and a SLG of .223 for an OPS of .479. So, the bullpen has completely righted itself thanks to the AA acquisitions. Unfortunately, the Jays have absolutely no run support and the starters have been decent as well. Now the story for the Jays is the absolute outage at the plate.
That doesn't mean I'm off the bandwagon - I'm being realistic. I still love this team, and the team has now I think got to focus on its youth. What does that mean?
For one, I think that the Jays need to come home and put the best players out there and try to eke out a series win against the Yankees. Once the fans have gone home from the weekend series, it's time to make some team changes. Maybe I'm being drastic...
First, Bench Rajai Davis and let Moises, Gose, and Rasmus play the outfield on a regular basis, get some ABs, and see how they progress. Rajai can come on and pinch hit or pinch run late in the game. Let Bautista heal. If Rasmus is playing with pain, let Gose play center. It's unlikely that Bautista will be back before September's callups anyway.
Second, I think you need to bench Escobar and put Hechavarria as the regular shortstop. Let the youth play at his natural position and see what he can do. Omar Visquel can finish his career at 3rd base until Lawrie comes back.
Third, leave David Cooper on first and let Edwin DH for the rest of the year.
Fourth, platoon Yan Gomes at catcher and let him learn the ropes at the MLB position.
Don't rush Brandon Morrow back to the majors. Let JA Happ pitch. Let Jenkins start. End Alvarez's year before he pitches too many innings and wears out his arm.
For the Jays fandoms, look for alot of losses, and the Jays will probably running 20-30 until the end of the season and finishing with 72-74 wins. But you know, that playing experience for the junior Jays will mean alot.
Injury and Insult?
When the Toronto Blue Jays came out of the preseason, they were looking hot. Brett Lawrie, at age 21, became the voice of the club, attracting young fans. Attendance is up over 20% (league attendance is up 5%). The preseason was great. Blue Jays fandom was looking for a good season, and the addition of the 2nd wild card represented great hope for the club. Your bench players were Visquel, Davis, and Mathis, which were upgrades over last year.
Rogers Media overhauled its messaging, stating that the the AL east was going to be closest in years, delivered some dramatic music, and off went the season, with a new closer in Sergio Santos and a very young rotation featuring Alvarez, Drabek, and Hutchinson in the back of the rotation.
This season is all about inconsistency. There was lacklustre hitting and blown saves in April. Lind, Bautista, Arencibia, and Yunel had poor starts. May was better but Thames and Lind were still awful. Walks were a problem. At the end of May, the Jays were 3 games over .500 and looking pretty good. Morrow was coming together. Hutchinson had adjusted and was starting to reimprove. Lind got demoted and up came Cooper or Gomes.
June started with optimism but then with the departures of Morrow, Drabek, and Hutchinson in the same week, it all started to unravel a bit. In came Cecil, Laffey, and Villanueva to pick up the slack, with only Carlos Del V doing excellent in the role. But despite the pitching outages, the Jays offense picked up the slack, and Bautista and Arencibia started hitting the cover off the ball to keep the ship afloat. Even Lind came back and was doing really well.
But then Bautista went down and alarm bells went off. The Yankees completed its sweep, and the Jays came back and completed the sweep against Boston, giving the fandom hope. Then Lind went down with back pain, and Arencibia suffered from a freak accident. Down were the #1, 5, and 6 hitters in the 2nd half (measured by OPS). Then Travis Snider got traded along with Thames and the #4 hitter was gone, leaving Rajai Davis and Edwin as the top two hitters on the team (2nd half).
So, what should Anthopolous have done? If you were the Jays upper management, what would you do.
First, realize that Anthopolous cannot simply go out and rent players, because alas (see previous post), AA reports to Rogers Media, which reports to Rogers Communications. The Blue Jays and Rogers Centre brought in 160 million in revenue last year. There will be increased revenue of about $12 million or so from increased ticket sales which AA will probably be able to use to purchase a pitcher in the off season.
And, really, even if AA went out and rented two batters (left field and 1st) and two starters (Garza, Dempster) where would hte Jays stand with 58 games to go. They have to pass 5 teams and win 5 more games then ALL of them, essentially having to win 2 of 3 to make the playoffs. Even the best team in baseball wins 3 of 5, so it would have taken luck and skill to pull them off. And the Jays would have given away its top prospects for a long shot possibility to have a 50/50 shot to make the post season. And Romero has fallen apart, going 1-8 since the Jays pitching debacle and an ERA approaching 9. So really, you can't blame AA for not going for broke at the deadline, and during the first three months of the season, you really can't pick up anyone.
No, not this year. Not this team. The team needed consistency and to perform better with the resources they had back in April. And now there are too many injuries and they are too far back.
In my opinion if AA can be criticized for anything, it's for not scoring a veteran starter in the last off-season. With Hutchinson, Alvarez, and Drabek being the back end of the starting rotation, everyone knew that there was a good chance that at least one of them would fail. And Drabek pretty much did, and the farm seemed to dry up. Carreno and Chavez didn't start well. Cecil is getting better, but has yet to perform, and while Villanueva is doing very well, the long reliever position suffered.
Snider and Thames' departure is a product of AA needing long term relievers, which is a result of Perez's season ending surgery, Villanueva's move to the starting rotation, and Santos' injury. I am sure that AA would have rather gotten a decent starter for both, but the market for starting pitching was just too expensive. The Jays will likely try to stretch out Lincoln again into a starter. Happ may also be a starter.
As for Snider (and Thames), the fans are sad to see him go, and most analysts are pretty critical of both the Jays and Snider of the inability to connect. The Jays didn't really give Snider a chance, and Snider really never proved himself at the major league level.
Once Bautista is back (hopefully at home by the end of next week), the Jays will send down Sierra and platoon Gose and Davis in left field or perhaps let Gose start in center and move Rasmus to left. The Jays will either go with six starters and seven relievers or five starters and eight relievers until the end of the year and leave a short bench for the rest of August (until the reinforcements can be added for September). Morrow will be back in three weeks, and perhaps we'll see Hutchinson in mid-September to take over for Alvarez who will be shut down.
In the end, the Jays will probably finish at .500 this year and the end result will be chalked up to injury and inconsistency. The fandom will argue about the effectiveness of Alex Anthopolous and John Farrell this year, but really, you gotta look at the injuries and the inconsistency, little of which are in Alex' control.
