Are the Toronto Blue Jays slowly turning around from their sputtering start? Time will tell, but it’s always a good sign when Toronto comes home with five road wins in their pockets.
Blue Jays Slowly Turning Around?
During the Blue Jays seven-game road trip, the team pulled off five solid victories, helping them to slowly rise in the AL East standings. As of Thursday night, Toronto had a 24-25 record, one game below .500 and 6.5 games behind the division-leading Boston Red Sox. They play those same Red Sox this weekend in Toronto, and if they manage to win at least two games, they would move even closer. However, while the bats seem to be waking up a bit, the Jays still need help offensively.
The Jays did get a boost to their lineup with the return of Devon Travis. After missing most of last season due to some unfortunate injuries, Travis is finally back. With a few more games under his belt, he could become a major threat in the batting order. If the Jays are really lucky, he might be able to put up similar numbers to those of his rookie campaign, and that could be an issue for opposing teams.
Adding Travis also adds more diversity to the batting order, which seems to have been thrown in a blender lately. If Travis does play well, it could help take pressure off Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzky when he is fully healed, and the others who have been cold so far this season.
The offense seems to be waking up slowly, but if they can continue to string more wins together like they did on this road trip, then the Jays will climb up the standings easily. The pitchers also deserve more run support at this point.
Aside from R.A. Dickey, who hasn’t gotten much run support during his outings this season, all the starters have had fantastic games. Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez, and J.A. Happ have been really tough on opposing hitters all season long, except for a few games. Happ right now has more wins than any Jays pitcher with six, followed by Stroman with five and Sanchez with four. If the rotation continues to do its work, then Mark Shapiro will have to pick up the phone and find a way to get a few more high-end relievers so the Jays don’t end up losing more games thanks to their bullpen. They also need to find a quality pitcher who can takes some of the innings and games away from closer Roberto Osuna, who leads the team with twenty-one games pitched. Only eleven of those outings were save situations.
The team is slowly waking up, but they might want to do it a little faster, before the division gets out of reach. Right now, it’s hard to say what Shapiro and Ross Atkins will do with this team. Will they make a move now, or wait a bit to boost the team? Are they willing to push a big piece to bring in other pieces that can help this team? As bad as this might sound, management might want to stand pat right now. It might be better to see how the team plays in the next couple of weeks before making a huge move.
If the bats can fully wake up and the starting pitching continues to work it’s magic, the team will easily climb the standings and Jays fans will be able to relax a little bit more.
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