TORONTO – The suddenly injury-depleted Toronto Blue Jays are becoming increasingly reminiscent of the Black Knight from Monty Python and The Holy Grail, the brave warrior who gamely fights on as limb after limb gets lopped off in a duel with King Arthur.
Losing Brett Lawrie for probably a month or so due to a broken right index finger and having Jose Bautista in limbo with left hamstring tightness is certainly akin to losing an arm and a leg, and brave protestations aside, this is definitely more than just a flesh wound.
The Blue Jays are going to be a much different offensive team without Lawrie and the change will be far more substantial if there’s a prolonged absence for Bautista, whose presence and production simply can’t be replaced. He’s due to undergo an MRI on Monday to determine the severity of his injury.
To survive, they’ll need to adapt, and not continue to fight with the same approach as the Black Knight did after he had his arms sliced off, and later his legs, too.
Assuming that outfielders Anthony Gose and Kevin Pillar are recalled from triple-A Buffalo on Monday – those were the unconfirmed rumblings – the Blue Jays for now appear intent on running with Juan Francisco at third base in Lawrie’s absence and a Munenori Kawasaki/Steve Tolleson platoon at second base. Gose and Pillar, presumably, would share duties in right field in place of Bautista.
Such an alignment would leave the Blue Jays with a batting order that could potentially look like this: Jose Reyes SS; Melky Cabrera LF; Edwin Encarnacion 1B; Adam Lind DH; Dioner Navarro C; Colby Rasmus CF; Francisco 3B; Pillar/Gose RF; and Kawasaki/Tolleson 2B.
They could do some damage with that top six, but would need to tolerate plenty of strikeouts with Francisco and hope to create some offence with the final two spots. It’s far from an ideal set-up.
Another possibility is that the Blue Jays try to accelerate trade talks.
GM Alex Anthopoulos indicated last week that picking up a position player – read, second or third baseman – might be just as much of a priority as adding a starter, and addressing one of those two areas would allow Lawrie to slip back into the other whenever he’s ready.
Worth keeping an eye on are the San Diego Padres, who on Sunday fired GM Josh Byrnes and installed a three-headed monster of Omar Minaya, A.J. Hinch and Fred Uhlman Jr., to jointly fill the role on an interim basis. They may end up turning over the roster once the dust settles, with free-agency bound third baseman Chase Headley, whom the Blue Jays pursued unsuccessfully last year, being an ideal fit (the Padres have other nice pieces too like outfielder Chris Denorfia and relievers Huston Street and Joaquin Benoit, not to mention starters like Ian Kennedy and Andrew Cashner).
Andy Martino of the New York Daily News suggested that the Blue Jays have been watching second baseman Daniel Murphy, although he’s not sure if the Mets end up moving him. During the winter meetings last December, one source told me the Mets had little interest in trading Murphy.
Then there are more complicated targets like Seattle’s Nick Franklin, or perhaps one of Didi Gregorious or Chris Owings of the Arizona Diamonbacks.
The price on all those fronts is no doubt rising for the Blue Jays, who open a three-game series with the New York Yankees at home Monday night after a 3-7 road trip that included a sweep in the Bronx. But things will also keep getting tougher for them, too, especially if like the Black Knight they don’t have a leg to stand on.