If the Jays are to stop this free fall some tough decisions are going to have to be made.
Friday night's series opener at a frigid Kauffman Stadium had all the earmarks of a season altering game for the suddenly reeling Blue Jays. Unfortunately, when the dust settled, the visitors walked from the field with their heads bowed, losers of five straight and eight of their last ten.
For those who constantly look for signs, everything appeared positive for the first seven and a half innings. Lyle Overbay, who hadn't hit a home run since last August, broke his slump with a solo blast to the green grass below the fountains in right. An inning later, Scott Rolen, finally making his Blue Jays regular season debut in the 24th game of the season, showed why he's been missed. As if penned by a script writer, Rolen stepped to the plate in the top of the eighth with runners on the corners, two out and the game tied at two.
As has been the case on this road trip, where the team went a pitiful 2-for-21 with runners in scoring position in Orlando, they were an obnoxious 0-for-5 in similar situations before Rolen strode to the plate. And as if it was a sign from the baseball Gods that things were about to change, Rolen rocked a double up the gap in left-centre to cash a pair of runs and give the Jays their first lead of the night with just six outs to go.
Another good sign was the fact that A.J. Burnett was having his best start if the season. At 90 pitches through seven innings Burnett trumped his early season trend of running his pitch count up and causing manager John Gibbons to hook him in the middle innings. After getting Royals sophomore slugger Alex Gordon to pop out feebly to start the eighth, the wheels came off. Single, walk, and another single made it 4-3 and Burnett was finished. Then, the Jays normally solid defence went all wonky with David Eckstein dropping a perfect, chest high double play throw from Downs, his second error of the game. When things finally settled down, six runs scored thanks to 11 Royals coming to the plate and the losing streak reached a season-high five.
If the Jays are to stop this free fall some tough decisions are going to have to be made. Like bringing up Adam Lind to start a platoon in left with Shannon Stewart, who registered an 0-for-4 in Friday's game to see his average fall to .212. (The opposition is also running at will on Stewart's weak arm, costing the Jays extra bases on defence and ultimately runs.)
Not that Lind is going to remind anyone of Jesse Barfield, but he's a better defender than Stewart. I found it kind of ironic that when I got to the hotel in Kansas City after the game that ESPN was showing, over and over, the best defensive highlight of the first month, a 'circus' catch by Reed Johnson, fast becoming a fan favourite in Chicago. Why anyone believed that bringing in Stewart and casting away Johnson would make the Jays a better team is a mystery to me.
Another move that needs to be made is bringing John McDonald into the game as a defensive replacement for Eckstein when the team is in front in the latter innings. I know some of you will claim that I'm making this call in hindsight, but not true. I've made this claim since the start of the year. McDonald is a vastly superior defender and is unlikely to make any game saving plays sitting on the bench.
A decision is also going to have to be made on a change in the offensive philosophy of this team. General Manager J.P. Ricciardi likes his team to work the count, like the Red Sox and Yankees do, but there's a major difference: Those teams let it fly on a 2-0 fastball down the pipe, while the Jays are more apt to let that pitch go. From what I've observed, this style has taken away the teams' aggressiveness and is giving the advantage back to the opposition pitchers. This team has too many good hitters to be failing so often with runners in scoring position. They get more than enough walks, but it's all for not. That is started to weigh on the team as a whole, who are looking more and more frustrated by their inability to put games away.
And it's becoming increasingly evident that a decision must be made on manager John Gibbons. Not that I believe that he has anything to do with their inability to hit in the clutch or cut down on their pitch counts, but it appears that the team slips into sleepwalk mode far too easily and nobody looks like they are afraid for their jobs. This is what happens when young players are rewarded with vast contracts well before they normally would, something that has become the Blue Jay way under the current regime. Rattling some cages is not necessarily a bad thing, but I guess his past confrontations with players may have left him a little hesitant.
It's just an observation, and I may be off base, but to sit back and let this malaise continue is something that a lot fans that have contacted me are tired of.
I'm sure most of the people involved are also tired of seeing them lose to teams that, on paper, are not as talented as the Blue Jays.
Enough already.
