ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Less than an inning into the 2014 season, the fatalism Toronto Blue Jays fans have come to know all too well over the past two playoff-free decades had already taken a firm hold.
Jose Reyes opened things up with a soft popper into centre, tweaked the left hamstring he mildly strained last week in spring training as he tried to accelerate en route to first, rounded the bag and headed to the dugout bound for the disabled list. Then, four at-bats after Ryan Goins took over at shortstop in the bottom of the first, R.A. Dickey surrendered the first of five two-out runs he would allow in this outing, and Twitter again became a grim, dark place to vent for Blue Jays fans.
To be fair, the fact that Monday felt like 2013 simply picked up right where it left off in a 9-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays isn’t good news for a team that needs a good start after last season’s 74-88 mess. Before the game manager John Gibbons talked about the confidence his players could draw from a strong opening and cautioned that in the American League East, "you bury yourself early, it’s over."
There are no definitive conclusions to be drawn from a one-game sample over the course of a full year, but with Dickey looking very ordinary in a place he’d been dominant (2-1 with a 2.79 ERA in seven career starts at Tropicana Field heading in) and Jonathan Diaz on his way up with Reyes’ out for at least two weeks, there was lots to legitimately worry about.
"We’re Game 1 of 162 here, so nobody is going to panic," said Dickey. "But at the same time, there are certain things we’re going to have to address, every team in a championship season has to work through adversity, we’re having to do that from Day 1 with Jose tweaking something … and I certainly need to right the ship. Look, it’s one game, we’ve got a long, long way to go."
True, but it’s like last April 2 and April 12 morphed into one Monday afternoon before a sellout crowd of 31,042 at Tropicana Field, the Blue Jays’ ongoing house of horrors. Drew Hutchison, returning from Tommy John surgery with all of 11 big-league starts under his belt, gets the ball Tuesday night against Alex Cobb and is charged with settling things down. Sink or swim, kid.
Still, the bigger issue is Reyes, who has an MRI scheduled for Tuesday. "Hopefully it doesn’t get any worse," he said of his hamstring. "If it gets any worse it’s going to be disappointing not just for me but for the whole team."
While Goins is a natural shortstop, Gibbons said the he’d "really like to" leave him at second base "because he’s settled in, he’s an above average second baseman. He can play short but that’s not where he excels."
To that end they settled on Diaz and his terrific defence instead of fan favourite Munenori Kawasaki. The Blue Jays had no extra infielders on their 40-man roster, but had a spot open for Diaz after Matt Tuaisosopo was outrighted to Buffalo.
Maicer Izturis can also play short, but the absence of Reyes is a blow the Blue Jays simply can’t afford.
When closer Casey Janssen hit the DL on Sunday, it subtracted from a place where the Blue Jays have depth, perhaps even excess depth – the bullpen. From a position player standpoint, however, they are painfully thin and all they can do is hope for a quick return from Reyes.
The 66 games he missed last year after spraining his left ankle on an awkward slide hurt the team badly, but the Blue Jays may have to acknowledge that this may be a fact of life with the all-star. His injury history reads like this: left ankle sprain in 2003; stress fracture in left fibula in 2004; right calf tendinitis and torn right hamstring in 2009; hyperactive thyroid in 2010; left ankle sprain in 2013; and this.
Reyes played in the two exhibition games in Montreal over the weekend – a decision being second-guessed now – and seemed ready to go. Also troubling, there’s no obvious or logical candidate to fill in at leadoff, either.
"It was good enough to play (in Montreal) but I didn’t really test my leg running anywhere there," said Reyes. "I didn’t get on base, I didn’t do anything. I just tried to play through the little soreness there in my hamstring but when you deal with that you have to be careful. …
"I thought I could play through it. Sometimes you’re not 100 per cent and you feel like you can play, but that wasn’t the case."
None of that will matter much if the Blue Jays don’t get better starting pitching than what Dickey gave them. His six walks over five innings were a career high and he also allowed five hits, including two-out knocks to Evan Longoria in the first, Wil Myers in the second and Matt Joyce in the fifth that brought home five runs. The fourth was his only three-up, three-down frame, a recipe for trouble against an excellent David Price.
"Around the second inning, I felt like I was trying to step on the gas like I normally do and for whatever reason today it wasn’t there," said Dickey, who fought through release point and velocity issues. "It’s one of those days where you’re really optimistic and you know that you have a pitch that can get guys out even if you’ve got runners in scoring position, runners on base … you’re always one pitch away. I just didn’t execute that one pitch.
"When you walk six, you’re not giving yourself a great chance to have success."
There were a small handful of bright spots – Colby Rasmus throwing out James Loney at home in the seventh; a tenacious 10-pitch at-bat by Brett Lawrie against Price in the fourth, even if it ended with a strikeout; and a pinch-hit, two-run blast to dead centre by Erik Kratz in the eighth – just nowhere near enough of them.
The rest felt painfully familiar. Take the eighth, when Jeremy Jeffress cut in front of Lawrie to field a high Myers chopper and threw the ball into right field for one error that allowed Brandon Guyer to score. Jose Bautista then picked up the ball and bounced a throw to third that let Myers come home.
Straight outta last April, for sure, but it is just one game, despite all the unwanted déjà vu. The test for the Blue Jays is to make sure they keep it that way.