The
disappointing first week has turned into a two-week embarrassment. And if
things don’t change soon, it could very quickly become a lost cause. Twelve
games into the regular season, and the Toronto Blue Jays have won two of twelve
games. That’s right, the team that made the post season in both 2015 and 2016
have the worst record in all of baseball. And it doesn’t look like it’s going
to improve any time soon.
Of course, trying to pin-point
exactly what is wrong is the hard part, but so far this season, it’s obvious
the offense is to blame. This is basically the same team that struggled
offensively in September and looked rather pathetic in the American League
Championship Series against the Cleveland Indians, you know, the team that had
two starters on the disabled list and had to start a rookie with four games MLB
experience in the series-clinching game and still won.
And exactly what did the Jays’
management do to improve the offense? Absolutely nothing. They let their best
slugger, Edwin Encarnacion, depart to Cleveland. Yes, you can say that EE got
greedy and was looking for a better offer, but if the Jays were serious about
signing him, they would have upped their offer rather than signing Kendrys
Morales immediately. Now, only time will tell what Morales does during the rest
of the season, but I’m pretty sure, he won’t put up the numbers Edwin will.
Then, they lied and tried to
convince the fans that they were pursing any number of outfielders (Dexter
Fowler, Jay Bruce, Curtis Granderson and Andrew McCutcheon were all mentioned),
when in reality, they never intended to seriously pursue any of them. Instead
they re-signed declining slugger, Jose Bautista. Of course, I’ll admit that I
thought that was a good idea at the time, but only because the other options in
the cupboard were worse.
And now we have MVP candidate
Josh Donaldson out with an injury, which makes the line-up even weaker, and
what do you get? A bunch of players who can’t produce and are trying to hit
500-foot home runs on every pitch. Look at these batting averages: Bautista .143,
Morales .227, Troy Tulowitzki .233 and Russell Martin .097. This is supposed to
be the heart of the batting order?
And then look at the free agents
they did sign. A part-time outfielder/first baseman and a bunch of relief
pitchers that nobody wanted. There is no other way this season could have
started. What do you expect when you do your free agency shopping at the dollar
store?
And now the starting pitching,
with no support from the bats, is starting to falter. That’s inevitable. It’s
hard to keep your motivation when you don’t get any runs behind you.
It looks like it’s going to be a
long season for Jays’ fans (the ones that don’t jump off the bandwagon) and it
could only be a matter of time before management starts selling off their
assets. Let’s just hope that it’s not another 22-year rebuild.
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