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| Dan Hamilton/USA Today |
Line Score - Final
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEA | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 17 | 0 |
| TOR | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 |
Box Score
| TOR | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | SEA | AB | R | H | RBI | BB | SO | BA | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LF | Granderson | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | .276 | SS | Segura | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .305 | |
| LF | Alford | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | .167 | RF | Haniger | 6 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | .297 | |
| 3B | Donaldson | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .241 | 2B | Canó | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | .286 | |
| 2B | Solarte | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .270 | DH | Cruz | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | .240 | |
| RF | Hernández, T | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | .257 | 1B | Healy, R | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | .260 | |
| 1B | Smoak | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | .254 | 3B | Seager, K | 5 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | .241 | |
| CF | Pillar | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .315 | C | Zunino | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | .194 | |
| PH | Pompey | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .222 | CF | Heredia | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | .244 | |
| C | Martin, R | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | .151 | LF | Romine, An | 5 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .174 | |
| PH | Ureña, R | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | .000 | ||||||||||
| DH | Morales, K | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .143 | ||||||||||
| SS | Gurriel Jr. | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | .215 |
| TOR | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA | SEA | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO | P-S | ERA | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Happ, J | 3.1 | 10 | 7 | 7 | 2 | 3 | 84-52 | 4.80 | Leake | 7.0 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 101-76 | 5.72 | |||||||||||
| Petricka | 1.2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 37-23 | 4.15 | Rzepczynski | 0.0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 7-3 | 10.13 | |||||||||||
| Loup | 2.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 41-22 | 4.02 | Bradford | 0.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1-1 | 2.40 | |||||||||||
| Mayza | 2.0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 32-26 | 4.26 | Pazos | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 9-7 | 1.35 | |||||||||||
| Díaz | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 19-14 | 1.86 |
The offence has cooled off significantly (including the disappearance of Travis, Morales, Martin, and Grichuk), the rotation is one of the very worst in baseball, there are more than a couple of injuries right now, and the team doesn't have a closer. Even so... the Jays entered today's game only 2.0 games back of a playoff spot. This team is going to be fine. It's still very early.
Now to expand on that a little.
The Jays have seven healthy players on the roster with wRC+ marks north of 100. One of those is Donaldson, at 116 (he has averaged ~150 since joining the Jays). Meanwhile, Martin, Morales, Grichuk, and Travis are all at 77 or lower. But each of those guys has averaged at least 100 in recent years and throughout their respective careers. Will they all reach that again this year? It’s unlikely. But it is likely that we will see serious improvement from a couple, and at least marginal improvement from the others. I would bet on Travis, given that he’s the youngest of the bunch and with the best track record among the young guys. Three bad weeks isn’t enough to have me believe that he suddenly can’t hit anymore. Meanwhile, the only two regulars who are seriously over-performing are Pillar and Solarte. Even Smoak isn’t on fire this year. Pearce and Granderson have done what we expected in their platoon roles. All of this to say that the offence has been bad this year, but there’s definitely reason to expect them to improve.
The rotation is among the worst in baseball. The rotation’s ERA is now 5.53. It was 4.42 last year, without Sanchez, and with Bolsinger and co. That’s a huge difference, despite adding Sanchez and Garcia, who should each be huge improvements over last year’s group. As Gregor points out, the rotation could be the very worst by the end of the night.
But again, this is a rotation with Stroman-Sanchez-Happ-Estrada-Garcia. Before the year began, they were thought to be among the top-10 in baseball. Now obviously, they’ve been putrid so far this year. But do you really expect to continue with an ERA of 4.80 this year, or for Stroman to continue with an ERA of 7.71 (remember, Stroman had an ERA of 3.20 in 303.2 innings between July, 2016 and September, 2017)? Garcia might not live up to our low expectations, and Estrada is probably due for a slide this year, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to conclude that the entire rotation has fallen off a cliff all of a sudden. There’s talent in that group.
The bullpen has been over performing. We all know that. They’re overworked, and are now without a closer. They’ll likely take a step back. Brace yourselves.
All told, though, I don’t understand where the attitude of “This is who they really are” has come from. I don’t know why it’s so easy to accept the past month as though it should be the norm going forward for those who are struggling, while discounting their fairly lengthy track records.
So far, this is a team that has had to overcome all kinds of under-performance, and still finds themselves in the thick of a “playoff race” (or whatever you want to call 2.5 games back of the playoffs on May 10). Bear in mind that the competition, the Angels and apparently the Mariners, have had relatively smooth sailing to this point.
It’s still very early. As easy as it is to be needlessly pessimistic and throw in the towel after a poor 10-day stretch, it seems more sensible to me to recognize that the team is due to regress in a positive direction, which should only help their playoff chances moving forward. Remember how good things seemed only 10 days ago? They were 16-12 and everything was fine. That was only 10 days ago.
The realistic goal this year was always the second Wild Card, and the fact that the Jays have withstood so much under-performance to date hasn’t changed my mind that they should still find themselves chasing that spot come September.
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