CHICAGO – You can bet the thought of how good Jeff Samardzija would look in their uniform crossed the minds of more than a few Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday afternoon as the big right-hander sliced and diced his way through baseball’s best offence.
They barely managed a sniff against Shark, threatening meaningfully just once in a 2-0 setback to the Chicago White Sox that made it a disappointing three losses in four outings at U.S. Cellular Field, and five in seven contests so far on what’s becoming a miserable 10-game road trip.
The Blue Jays, at 44-44, also fell back to .500 for the first time since they were 30-30 on June 9, and while R.A. Dickey yet again deserved a better fate, he buckled ever so slightly on a day there was no margin to do so, ending up on the wrong side of the result.
“I can only control what I’m responsible for, and sometimes I haven’t, but today I felt like I did and it gave us a shot to win,” said Dickey. “Jeff pitched an incredible game, he was doing everything he could do to keep us off-balance, throwing strikes, weak contact – he just did a great job.”
While the Blue Jays did manage a 2-1 victory Tuesday behind Felix Doubront, and Mark Buehrle should have emerged from Monday’s 4-2 loss with a win, this swing through Detroit and Chicago has again exposed their need for a starter who can regularly win close games, plus some help in the bullpen.
Samardzija, a pending free agent on a White Sox team still deciding whether or not to pull the chute, is precisely that type of guy and is someone the Blue Jays have tried to acquire off and on since after the 2012 season. He walked one and struck out five in a four-hit shutout.
Given that he’s a rental player, Samardzija isn’t likely to be the prime target of general manager Alex Anthopoulos, whose track record shows he only deals away his blue-chip prospects for elite players with several years of club control (think Buehrle, Jose Reyes, Dickey and Josh Donaldson).
Anthopoulos’ preference is for a starter in a similar vein, and with Buehrle headed to free agency and Dickey under a club option for 2016, spending prospect capital on a longer-term piece makes bigger-picture sense.
The Blue Jays are believed to have roughly $5-$6 million in remaining payroll space, but Ken Rosenthal of Foxsports.com reported Thursday that according to his sources they “still will require cash back in deals.”
Since Anthopoulos has enough money to pull off one move, that suggests he’s thinking about making multiple transactions (a starter and a reliever, two starters, or a starter and an outfielder) to help his team.
However that plays out, the Blue Jays need to steady themselves on the field as they head into Kansas City for three games with the Royals before the all-star break. Their frustration level will be running high after dropping three in a series they could easily have swept.
“Nobody’s pretending that we’re going to coast into the playoffs,” said Dickey. “We’ve got our work cut out for us in Kansas City going into the break, I mean, it’s not getting any easier. But we have a good ball club, and I believe in it … and I feel like over the course of the next however many more games we have to play, I think we’re going to be in it.”
The reason for his faith?
“We’ve been a very resilient ball club, we’ve put 11-game win streaks together, we’ve fallen off the table a little bit, we’ve jumped back on – that’s one thing about this team I feel is a little bit different than the teams in the past,” said Dickey. “I don’t think it’s going to be a snowball kind of thing for us here. We’ve got an offence that won’t let that happen and our pitching is getting better. I feel good about that part of it.”
Their only opening against Samardzija came in the sixth when Ryan Goins singled to end his no-hit bid, and Devon Travis followed with an infield single that put men on the corners for Donaldson.
But he rolled over a pitch for a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning, Adam Eaton led off the bottom half with a triple, scored on a passed ball and then Melky Cabrera ripped a solo shot to right field for a 2-0 edge.
That was that, although Travis did also lead off the ninth with a single before another Donaldson double play erased him. Jose Bautista capped a 1-for-17 series with a strikeout to end the game.
“Against guys like him you get very few opportunities, and he got the groundball double play there (in the sixth),” said manager John Gibbons. “It was still a tight ballgame, then we got the leadoff hit in the ninth, then they got another double play.
“(Donaldson) has been our top hitter, he got him a couple of times, so tip your hat to him for that.”
Dickey threw seven innings of two-run ball that saved an overtaxed bullpen, allowing four hits and two walks with six strikeouts, to wrap up an uneven first half he finished 3-10 with a 4.87 ERA. Within that, he’s allowed three runs or less 10 times and he’s 2-5 in those outings, the team 4-6.
Regularly facing guys like Samardzija can do that to you, which is why, understandably, the Blue Jays sure would love a guy like that on their team.