TORONTO – The problem for the Toronto Blue Jays lies not only in what happened this weekend against the Chicago White Sox, but in what their pitiful showing against three left-handed starters in three consecutive losses means for them in the days to come.
There’s no shame in losing to Chris Sale. Jose Quintana, who threw seven shutout innings for the South Siders in Sunday’s 4-0 victory, is a very good pitcher, too. John Danks, Friday’s winner, is OK but beatable.
Still, the results are only part of the story.
The Blue Jays simply don’t have enough weapons in their lineup right now to effectively counter southpaws, even if Jose Bautista and his 1.307 OPS against left-handed pitchers return to the lineup Tuesday against the Milwaukee Brewers.
“Overall, before this stretch right here, we were pretty good against lefties,” said manager John Gibbons. “You can’t just keep turning over your roster every time you face somebody.”
“This kid today, he had some power, but most lefties try spot the fastball and they’ve got good off-speed pitches, that’s generally what big-league lefties do. You’ve got to make sure you stay on the ball and think middle of the field, otherwise they tear you up with their off-speed stuff.”
Bautista, who hit into a fielder’s choice on a grounder to short as a pinch-hitter for Dioner Navarro with two on and two out in the sixth — his first at-bat since suffering a hamstring injury June 22 — makes a big difference, no doubt.
But the injury to Brett Lawrie, whose .595 OPS against lefties is by no means world beating, set off a chain of events that led to the optioning of Erik Kratz (.810 OPS versus left-handers) to triple-A Buffalo, while forcing manager John Gibbons to use two of Munenori Kawasaki (.481 OPS vs LHP entering play Sunday), Adam Lind (.259) or Juan Francisco (.356).
Combine that with Brad Glenn, the recent call-up who went hitless in nine at-bats helping to cover for Bautista, and that’s a Blue Jays lineup with plenty of outs in it.
Factor in also that aside from Edwin Encarnacion (.976 OPS), Steve Tolleson (.956) and Melky Cabrera (.807), the Blue Jays don’t hit lefties well at all. Jose Reyes’ OPS against them is .631 while Navarro’s is .623. Colby Rasmus has a .681 OPS but just a .189 average. That’s not a recipe for building or sustaining rallies, and save for Kratz, who can’t be recalled until Thursday unless there’s an injury, there’s no real help waiting at Buffalo.
Barring a trade – “You can’t snap your fingers and all of a sudden this guy appears,” Gibbons told one questioner wondering about a shakeup – the Blue Jays must make do with what they have.
“I’m working my absolute butt off with that,” said hitting coach Kevin Seitzer. “The number one this is when you’ve struggled in the past, there’s a lack of confidence and that’s the first thing you’ve got to get past. You have to brainwash yourself and just clean the slate and you’ve got to feel as good about yourself against a lefty as you do about righties and then carry out the same plan and approach.”
Easier said than done, especially with the Blue Jays scheduled to face three more lefties in Oakland next weekend – Tommy Millone, Scott Kazmir and Brad Mills – and two more likely in Anaheim immediately after in Hector Santiago and C.J. Wilson of the Angels, at least the way things currently line up.
“When they don’t face lefties that much, you’ve got to get to that place where you’re more comfortable seeing the ball come out from the other side, and it takes ABs to do that,” said Seitzer. “We don’t really have time for practise sessions and so there’s no way to really simulate it except for at-bats.”
In other words, it’s like the Blue Jays are asking Lind, Kawasaki and Co. to ace an exam in a course they don’t take.
At least they face two righties in Marco Estrada and Wily Peralta of the Brewers plus another in Sonny Gray during the opener of a four-game set versus the Athletics, so they’ll have a chance to try do some damage at full strength in those ones.
The sad part for the Blue Jays – who went 12-15 in June and still sit atop the AL East at 45-39 – is that they wasted strong outings by Marcus Stroman on Saturday and Mark Buehrle on Sunday, when he delivered eight innings of two-run ball against his former team.
Buehrle actually had a great month squandered, as he pitched to a 2.79 ERA over 42 innings in six June starts, with the Blue Jays winning just two of them and the veteran lefty collecting just one victory.
“It is a little bit of adversity right now, hopefully Bautista comes back on Tuesday and gives us a jump-start,” said Buehrle. “We’re facing good pitching, we’re not going to beat good pitching all the time, we’ve got to battle to put some innings together, get a few base hits at a time instead of relying on that home run.
He obviously deserved better but against left-handed pitchers right now, the Blue Jays simply aren’t able to make it happen.
