A column that appeared in the Toronto Star this morning by baseball beat writer Richard Griffin, a wise old hand most of the time, really gave me pause. It was entitled “Bautista’s return can’t come soon enough”, and it took the approach that there were a number of “distractions” that had cropped up for the team just before and during the All-Star break which had caused the team to lose focus and experience a loss of momentum. Most of the points he makes are either minor issues, or absolutely non-issues. Evidence of the team’s malaise is that they split their last two games with the Tigers before the break, and they lost two out of three in Oakland after the break. In spite of the fact that he picked an interval that started with the only game out of four that the Tigers won in Toronto, and that the two losses in Oakland were close one-run games, he seems to see a rationale for thinking that there was a negative trend in evidence.
His thesis is that the Jays didn’t play “well” through that period because there were things “bothering” the team, such as Marco Estrada’s temporary stay on the DL, which actually came at a most opportune moment, things such as Michael Saunders’ having to organize getting “his family” to San Diego for the big game, which somehow may have caused him to go one for seventeen in Oakland, things such as the uncertainty over Aaron Sanchez’s selection to the team and its effect on planning his starts around the break, things such as the recent decline in Ezequiel Carrera’s offensive production, making it imperative that Bautista’s big bat be returned to the lineup ASAP, and Carrera being relegated to “the reserve role that best suits him”, things such as, finally, the allegedly deleterious effects of some of the players having gone off to enjoy themselves in Mexico during the break.
He also mentions that this period, when “recent doubts have been creeping in like fog off of San Francisco Bay”, has been marked by some of Manager John Gibbons’ more egregious and questionable decisions. I can’t address his criticisms of Gibbons, because he doesn’t actually state any, but it seems to me that the rest of these points are all small potatoes, perfectly normal things that crop up in the course of a season.
I’m not sure what side of the lens he was looking through when he wrote the column, and I understand that it was filed before Aaron Sanchez’ fine Tuesday night outing in Phoenix, but I don’t agree with his pessimism in the least, though it makes me stop and think about how I’m seeing the Blue Jays right now, both in terms of recent developments, and in terms of where they are in the season, and in comparison with where they were last year at about this time. At the same time, I’m thinking about how Blue Jays’ fans in general tend to feel about their favourite team pretty well all the time.
Which is to worry. Worry when they’re playing well that dark days are around the corner. Worry when they’re not playing well that this is really their natural state and we’re all doomed, I say doomed, to the mediocrity that the Maple Leafs have made a natural condition of life in Toronto.
Let’s look at Mr. Griffin’s short term “doubts” and “troubles” cropping up. Add two games to the beginning of the period and they’ve won four games out of seven. Add the two games in Arizona (and, to be fair, he didn’t know about these when he wrote), and they’ve won six of their last nine. Michael Saunders slumped in Oakland, and Zeke Carrera’s been slumping for a while longer, all of this while Jose Bautista’s still out. But Kevin Pillar’s hit over .350 for that same stretch, Junior Lake gets the odd big hit for us, and his errors of over-enthusiasm haven’t really hurt yet, and now, what more can we say about Darwin Barney, rock-solid veteran left-fielder and RBI machine after only one start out there in his career? Aaron Sanchez wasn’t bothered by the All-Star stuff, not at all, and if Marcus Stroman threw himself out of whack by going deep-sea fishing in Cabo San Lucas, what threw him back into whack to find the brilliance he showed yesterday?
Let’s leave the gloomy Richard Griffin aside now, and look at where we are and how we’ve come to be here. Much of the first half of the season was accompanied by hand-wringing and cries of woe. We’re not hitting. We’re not hitting with runners in scoring position. One-run games! The bullpen sucks. Sure, the starters are good, but Dickey sucks again, and Thole can’t hit. And the rest of the starters can’t keep it up anyway. Besides, Stroman’s lost it. Martin’s slumping. Tulo’s slumping. Donaldson and Encarnacion are bound to slump. Baltimore’s getting away from us. Boston’s buying up all the players. We shoulda signed Price. We shouldna traded Syndergaard. What’s with this guy Storen. I know, a lot of these are the chorus of the title song of the newly-released disc of Rob McKown and the Whiners, but most of us have thought most of these things at some point this season.
And yet. We are 12 games over .500. We are one game behind the Red Sox and a half game behind the Orioles. We have the second wild card spot by a couple of games. Without David Price and with Marcus Stroman at less than optimal, we are in a virtual tie with the Cleveland Indians for best starting rotation in the American League, second in ERA, second in opponents’ batting average, and first in innings pitched. Edwin Encarnation is leading the major leagues in RBIs. Josh Donaldson joined four fabled hall-of-famers and Alex Rodriguez in scoring 80 runs and hitting 20 home runs before the All-Star break. What slumps? Tulo’s hitting better. Martin’s hitting better. In the short term the break enabled them to paper over Marco Estrada’s back problems, and we’ll see tomorrow night how he’s doing. And what other team has the luxury of a proven mid-rotation starter just waiting in the wings in triple A? Jason Grilli has brought to the team what Drew Storen hasn’t, as of yet. Michael Saunders has exceeded all hopes at the plate. They’ve maintained full steam ahead with Bautista on the DL. In conclusion: we’re in the playoff mix now, and we know that all of the cylinders aren’t quite pumping together yet like they could be.
And how does this compare with 2015? One year ago today, we were 47-47, in third place, four and a half games behind the Yankees and a half game behind the Orioles. On the last day of July, trade deadline day, we were 53-51, but had fallen to six behind the Yankees, and were knotted with the O’s. Then of course the drive started. On August fifteenth, we were 64-54, one and a half behind the Yanks and three and a half ahead of the Orioles. By then, David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Revere, LaTroy Hawkins, and Mark Lowe were all in place and contributing, though Tulo would soon go on the DL, and incidentally Mark Buehrle was still a solid member of the rotation. The drive that had begun by mid-August carried them right to game six of the ALCS, after all those years of frustration.
It’s hardly necessary to point out that of all of the key players mentioned above, only Tulo remains a Blue Jay. All of the other major additions to the team that put them decisively over the top are gone, including the unfortunate and sadly missed Chris Colabello. Others have arrived and are contributing in ways and measures that could never have been anticipated. That is the nature of the game. Every team experiences turnover from year to year. Sometimes it is a negative, as witnessed by the 2016 Yankees and Royals. But no one can argue that the Toronto Blue Jays are not in a better position now than one year ago at the trade deadline. So let’s all take a deep breath, and get ready for a great pennant race.
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