Jays keep drifting the wrong way offensively

David Lough missed time this week before coming back in a big way, smacking a walk-off single in the 12th to give the O's win over Toronto, which got a tying homer from Colby Rasmus in the ninth.

BALTIMORE – The challenge a team faces when its lineup is mired in a collective rut is not only in finding ways to win when offence is scarce, but also in finding ways to get its hitters right.

The Toronto Blue Jays keep drifting the wrong way on that front, the latest example being Saturday night’s painful 2-1 loss in 12 innings to the Baltimore Orioles. Down to their last strike in the ninth, Colby Rasmus turned around a 98 mph Tommy Hunter fastball and drove it to the right-field seats to unexpectedly knot things up, but that was all the thunder they could muster.

By night’s end, the numbers were difficult to fathom.

The Blue Jays are batting a collective .209, a figure that dips to .157 (13-for-83) with men in scoring position. They went 0-for-7 plus a walk to Jose Bautista on that front in this one, none of their seven hits coming with a chance to punch someone in.

That helps explain why of the 41 runs they’ve scored over their first 12 games, 19 of them have come via 13 home runs. Too often if a Blue Jays hitter isn’t driving himself in, they’ve got no chance.


“The pitcher is the guy that’s in the jam,” manager John Gibbons said before the game. “It comes down to a confidence thing. If you’re feeling good in the box, you’ve got a pretty good shot at it. If you’re struggling, that confidence wavers a little bit, I don’t care how good you’ve been in your career. You’re not quite as selective, you look to get something done early (in the count), I don’t want to say it’s panic, but there’s anxiety.

“And when most of the guys on your team are cold, one guy is trying to pick everybody up.”


The problem is nobody is able to do that right now, and with only two hitters in the Blue Jays lineup the opposition really needs to worry about – Melky Cabrera who extended his hit streak to 12 games and Bautista, who walked three more times for 16 on the season – it’s easy to pitch around them.

Cleanup hitter Edwin Encarnacion is still looking for his first RBI and squandered a chance to knock in Cabrera in the 10th against Darren O’Day. He finished 1-for-5 and until he gets going, Bautista will see very few good pitches to hit.

“Right now, my guess, they’re going to make Eddie beat them,” said Gibbons. “The mentality of a pitcher definitely changes when a guy’s really struggling, hey let’s go get him, he’s off. Once the guy gets going it’s a little bit different, you’ve got to fear those guys, be a little bit more careful, and that leads to walks for those guys. And even a guy who’s not in the middle of the lineup, when they’re on and things are going well they get treated a little differently. They throw them more breaking balls and things like that, and that leads to walks if they can’t command it.”

So far the Orioles have been able to command it, and save for a three-run outburst in the ninth inning of a 6-4 loss to the Houston Astros on Thursday night, eking out runs has been like digging for water in the desert for the Blue Jays over the past three nights.

Their 2-0 win Friday wouldn’t have happened if three Orioles errors hadn’t gifted them both runs, and opposing pitchers can sense they’re a team in some trouble right now.

“Absolutely,” said Orioles starter Bud Norris, who allowed five hits and three walks over seven shutout innings. “Those guys, they know what they’re doing, that’s a good offensive ball club, but look at the numbers, they haven’t been off to the hottest start. That being said, in certain counts they might be doing something out of the norm to try and break that stride. I just wanted to work out there on my game plan and compete and throw the pitches I’m going to throw to give us the best chance to win.”

A slump-in-a-nutshell moment came in the seventh inning, with Dioner Navarro standing on second base, two out and pinch-hitter Erik Kratz at the plate. Norris threw a pitch up in that hit Kratz on the finger as he checked his swing, but home-plate umpire Paul Emmel ruled that he went around and called him out, without even looking to first base umpire Chris Conroy for help.

Still, more often than not they authored the misfortune on their own, a Maicer Izturis popper to short left with runners on the corners and one out in the third serving as Exhibit A. Bautista, expanding the zone to try and make something happen, struck out right after to end the frame.

Rasmus’s blast in the ninth looked like it might turn the tide, coming after Hunter had him 1-2 on three straight curveballs.

“He got on top of a pretty hard fastball,” said Hunter. “You get beat with your best stuff, tip your cap.”

The Blue Jays haven’t made many pitchers say that lately, and on this night Hunter was the only one.

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