TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays hit the halfway point of the season by opening their longest homestand of the year with a loss to the Cleveland Indians, the latest victim in the Tribe’s run of 13 straight wins — the longest such streak in the American League since the Oakland A’s won 20 in a row in 2002 (a streak so amazing they made a movie about it).
The Jays wound up going 15-12 in June, their second straight winning month after opening the season with an 11-14 April, though this past month’s winning record certainly came in an untraditional way.
June began with the Blue Jays on fire, winning 11 of 16, but the tide turned and Toronto dropped six of eight before rebounding to win a pair in Colorado, then came home to close out the month with Thursday’s throttling at the hands of Carlos Carrasco.
One could opine that the cause for the recent skid was the loss of Jose Bautista, who ran into the right-field wall in the series finale at the Philadelphia Phillies on June 16 and hasn’t played since, and there’s no question the Jays miss their relatively-newly-crowned leadoff man, easily one of their best hitters.
But the Jays have scored in double digits three times in Bautista’s absence (and one other time when he was out of the lineup prior to this injury), something they’d only done five times with him playing. That’s not to illustrate that they wouldn’t be better off with Bautista in the lineup — you’d have to be a fool to think that were true — but just to point out that there are plenty of big bats in there even when one of their best can’t suit up.
There’s no question it’s been a disappointing first half for the Blue Jays — players and fans alike expected them to be better — and yet here they sit 81 games through a 162-game season just half a game out of a wild card. That’s a pretty good spot to be in, even though we all feel it should be better. And I see the fact that everyone (rightfully) feels that way as a positive.
Outside the 20-8 run the Blue Jays went on from May 19 to June 17, they really haven’t played anywhere close to their best baseball yet this season. The starting pitching has been phenomenal the whole way through (as a group), but it hasn’t been able to paper over an offence that has generally underperformed and a bullpen that has been unreliable, at best.
The bats have started to come around, though, without question. Even though they were stifled by Carrasco on Thursday night, the team’s OPS in June was over 100 points higher than it was in either April or May, and the team’s batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage with runners in scoring position are now all better than they are outside that situation.
Still though, the Blue Jays are on pace to score just 766 runs this season after cashing 891 last year. That number is going to have to improve for them to do more than just hang with the pack at the top of the wild card race.
Having Devon Travis back should help, along with a healthy Troy Tulowitzki, who was finally starting to come around offensively just before he got hurt and who has posted a .949 OPS since returning from the disabled list. Bautista’s return — though it likely won’t come until after the all-star break — will provide a shot in the arm, as well.
Shots in the arm are needed in the bullpen, too, and having Brett Cecil back is kind of huge. Cecil came off the disabled list Thursday and worked a perfect eighth inning (11 pitches/10 strikes) — he’ll be thrust into high-leverage action right away and should give the Blue Jays a third reliable relief arm to go with Jason Grilli and Roberto Osuna. Bo Schultz, who gave up a run in a hard-luck ninth against Cleveland, could be another solid arm in the back of the bullpen. He, Cecil and Osuna were the Jays’ best relievers in June and July of last year, with Schultz’s performance slipping in August when he hurt his hip, which has since been surgically repaired.
And of course, eventually adding Aaron Sanchez to that bullpen will be a big help, too.
That means Sanchez will have to be replaced in the rotation, which is the heavy lifting that Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins have to do before the Aug. 1 trade deadline. This season, Sanchez has lived up to every inch of the hype that has been attached to him ever since the Jays made him a first-round pick back in 2010. He and Marco Estrada have been the anchors of a very good starting rotation.
I believe it’s more than reasonable to expect the Blue Jays to post more wins in the second half than the 43 they did in the first, and if they do, they’ll find themselves in the post-season for a second straight season after spending 21 years on the outside looking in.