As of Monday the Toronto Blue Jays are tied for last in the AL East with a 9-10 record, but they are only two games back of the 11-8 New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays, who lead the division. Ironically it is because of the Rays the Blue Jays are in this position. In seven games they are 1-6 against Tampa, luckily for Toronto they won’t play the Rays again until late June.
Blue Jays Start is What We Expected
Before everyone starts freaking out it is good to remember at this point last season the Blue Jays were 12-13, so if anything the start of this season is very similar to last. The Blue Jays are playing exactly how we expected them to play, they have good hitting, they are a top homerun team, but their defense at times has been disappointing and the pitching has been shaky.
Let’s look at some of the positives and the negatives for the Blue Jays so far, first off the Rogers Center field turf has managed to go from terrible to, it is so bad that the MLB is keeping a close eye on it because of pellets hitting players in the face and other complaints teams have made.
Pitching has not been the greatest; there have been shining stars like Mark Buehrle, Drew Hutchison, Marco Estrada, rookies Robert Osuna and Miguel Castro, but as a whole it has struggled. The Blue Jays rank 28th in the league in ERA with a 4.80 ERA ahead of their division rivals the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Oriole. They have also given up the third most walks in baseball. Teams have hit .260 against the Jays which puts them 23rd in the league, they have only had eight quality starts this season and are 15th in strikeouts with 140.
The pitching has struggled early this season, but the Jays knew they were playing a risky game with two rookie pitchers in Daniel Norris and Aaron Sanchez instead of trying to get another veteran to fill the rotation. The bullpen is like a coin toss on any given night. Some nights they are great, while in others they completely blow it. Again, it is still too early to make any rash decisions, but it wouldn’t hurt if the Jays made a move or two to bolster the bullpen and the rotation, after all they are in win now mode.
As for the batting, Russell Martin, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion all have averages under 200 and Jose Reyes was having a weird start to the season before being placed on the disabled list. In defense of Martin he has started to wake up offensively with 8 hits, 9 runs, three homeruns and 7 runs batted in over his last ten games. April just doesn’t seem to be these guys’ months. However two of the brightest stars in Toronto are Josh Donaldson who in 19 games has 26 hits, 14 runs 4 homeruns, 14 RBIs and a .347 average. The second player is a huge surprise and that is rookie second basemen Devon Travis he has 23 hits, 13 runs, 5 homeruns, 16 RBIs and a .359 average. Those are unexpected numbers by the rookie second baseman, but are very welcome with the Jays. Traivs and Donaldson have been treats to watch. Toronto is second in the league with 100 runs scored, they rank twelfth in hits with 157, fourth in homeruns with 25 and second with 96 RBIs. They do rank 15th in OBP, 8th in slugging and 8th in OPS.
It seems like this is always the theme for the Blue Jays, the offense is there as they have been one of the top offensive teams this season, unfortunately they have lost games where their pitching hasn’t been good, or they don’t score when they get the good pitching. However things are starting to heat up for the Blue Jays and if the can keep the offense hot and sync it with the good pitching days then they could jump a top the AL East.
Remember everyone this is only the first month of a long MLB season, the Jays weren’t great last April either, what we should expect is a really good May, or at least a decent one that keeps them above .500 baseball, the pitching does need a hard look at, but either way it is not time to panic just yet.
