As I write this here today, the Blue Jays sit 7.5 games back of the AL East Lead, with a pathetic 5-13 record so far in this young season. For a team coming off back-to-back ALCS appearances, this is pretty concerning. Baseball is tough to analyze and react because of its inherently long, tiring season and whatever stretch we look at is ultimately a very small sample size. So take whatever is being written with a grain of salt, or just full well knowing that I’m aware that there’s still 9 / 10 of the season that remains.
Hitting
The team ranks 25th overall in average (.223), 27th in RBI (60), and 28th in OPS (.639). When you’re in the bottom dwelling of those categories, it’s no surprise that the team’s record is what it is. I’m not going to cast blame on Kendrys Morales because he’s been one of the very few Jays that have performed so far. And the team has been ravaged in injuries, but certain players really aren’t earning their paycheque so far. Jose Bautista is hitting just .132, with 1 home run and 4 rbi… At the current rate he is on pace for 9 home runs and 36 RBI. He’s a streaky player and I don’t think that will be the case, but as our leader and a guy battling for a contract next year he simply isn’t doing enough. With Donaldson and Tulo out, if we don’t have our biggest bats performing then we can expect more of the same. The main issue, however, is that the jays poor bats didn’t come out of nowhere- this is an issue that arose in the last 2 months of last season. Failing to get timely runs, especially with runners in scoring position was a problem that was prevalent back on August 1st, 2016. The frustrating part is that management did very little to address those red flags, save for letting one of the best sluggers in the game leave for Cleveland.
Pitching
ERA 4.11 (20th)
OPP AVG: .250 (22ND)
WHIP: 1.30 (20TH)
STRIKEOUTS: 151 (16TH)
I find these stats to be somewhat predictable as there was no way all of our pitchers would continue at the level they were at last year. You knew that Happ and Estrada would regress somewhat, and conversely that Stroman would bounce back. The pitching should slightly improve once we Sanchez and Happ back from the DL.