The pre-all-star break portion of the Toronto Blue Jays’ 2013 season came to its merciful conclusion Sunday afternoon in Baltimore, with the Jays falling behind 6-0 through three innings and dropping their 13th out of 20 since the seemingly long past 11-game win streak.
The Jays fought back, and had the tying run at the plate in the top of the ninth, but the hole they’d dug early was too deep and they couldn’t scrap all the way back.
That may well wind up being the story of the Jays’ season once all is said and done — that’s still to be written over the final 68 games — but with every lost series, every losing road trip, every break-evenish home stand, the chances of a serious shot at the post-season grow ever dimmer.
The Blue Jays are 45-49 at the all-star break, their worst record as the game pauses for the midsummer classic in the last 10 years. In 2004, they were 39-49. Since then, they’ve never had a winning record at the break, but until this season, neither had they been more than two games under .500.
It’s only fitting, though in a cruel way, that the main reason for their disappointing finish to the “first half” was the man who has been the most disappointing of all the Blue Jays’ disappointments so far this year. Josh Johnson gave up four runs in the very first inning on the way to a performance that saw him allow a total of seven runs on seven hits over six innings of work.
He hits the all-star break with all of one win and an ERA over 5.00
Johnson was the impetus for the Blue Jays’ big trade with the Miami Marlins last November, the one that put them back on the major-league map. It was universally hailed at the time, but so far only Mark Buehrle has given the Jays what they expected out of the deal.
Emilio Bonifacio was supposed to be the “secret weapon” 25th man with whom all Blue Jays fans would fall in love. They weren’t really counting on him to be a key cog, more of a helpful piece, but they were certainly hoping he’d be hitting better than .207/.248/.304 by this point. Last year, Bonifacio played 64 games and stole 30 bases in 33 tries, owing to the fact that he was on-base enough to do so. This year, in 79 games, he has 11 steals and has been caught five times.
Jose Reyes hasn’t disappointed when he’s been in the lineup, hitting .322/.368/.461. The problem is that he hasn’t been in the lineup much, having played only 28 of the Blue Jays’ 94 games because of a badly sprained ankle.
It’s tempting at this point, and many will do so, to go player by player and assign a grade to everyone for their first-half performance. I prefer to just talk about them.
On the offensive side, only four Blue Jays have an on-base percentage over .335: Reyes (.368), Adam Lind (.360), Edwin Encarnacion (.353) and Jose Bautista (.351).
Encarnacion is easily the Blue Jays’ first-half MVP from a position-player standpoint, and he’s being rewarded with a trip to the all-star game. His 25 home runs lead the club – 25 per cent more than Jose Bautista’s next-best total of 20 — and he’s the only Blue Jay to have driven in more than 55 runs, with 71 RBIs. Encarnacion also tops the club in OPS at .905.
Bautista has had more of a roller-coastery season than usual. Awful in April, tremendous in May, his overall numbers in June were quite good, but he didn’t contribute to the 11-game win streak outside a couple of hits, though they were both awfully big.
Lind’s resurgence has been well documented, but he’s had great half-seasons before. The test will be to see if he can carry his production through for a full season.
Colby Rasmus remains an underrated star on this team, going into the break hitting .263/.332/.484 and at or near the top of the league in all offensive categories among centre fielders. For all the love Adam Jones gets around the game — voted into the all-star game, praised to the heavens for his power bat and great glove — Rasmus’s OPS for the season is just nine points lower than Jones’. The unreliable defensive metrics also seem to like Rasmus better in centre field than they do Jones, which would lead one to believe that the Blue Jays have themselves a hidden gem.
For all of J.P. Arencibia’s faults, and there are many, he’s the best slugging catcher in the bigs, and there’s nothing wrong with having that at the bottom of your batting order.
It’s safe to say that the Blue Jays expected more from Melky Cabrera than .278/.321/.362 with 18 extra-base hits. They also expected him to be able to play defence and run the bases without looking as though he’s recently had a hip replaced. The jury’s still out on whether or not a clean Melky is an asset; hopefully we find out more in the second half.
Brett Lawrie remains a work in progress. Rushed to the team after missing spring training because they were desperate to get his glove in the lineup, he struggled through 36 games before his ankle went blooey, though not to the same extent as Reyes’. He’s back now — as the second baseman — and his ground single in the ninth inning Sunday brought his season numbers up to .204/.261/.361.
Maicer Izturis has woken up after a brutal start, and is hitting over .400 for the month of July. Rajai Davis remains ever-useful. A strong bat against left-handed pitching, a solid defender in the outfield and one of the game’s greatest threats on the bases — if not the greatest.
On the mound, that great starting five we all dreamed on at the beginning of April simply hasn’t done the job. I’m not a big proponent of using wins and losses to measure a pitcher’s effectiveness, not at all, but it’s tough to just bad-luck your way to 10 losses at the break, which R.A. Dickey has, or just the one win that’s in Johnson’s column.
Dickey hasn’t been as bad as most people seem to believe, but he hasn’t been anywhere close to as good as we thought he would be. His numbers have been steadily improving throughout the season, and he could well be poised for a big second half.
Esmil Rogers is the “where would we be without him” member of the rotation. An absolute revelation since the Blue Jays decided that he would be the latest in a long string of emergency airlift starters, he has been exceptional in six of his eight starts, solid in another and bad in only one. One hopes he winds up being a diamond-in-the-rough discovery that can make a real impact on the team now and in the future.
As for the bullpen, it’s easy. Everyone gets an A-plus. The eight guys currently working the back end of ballgames for the Blue Jays seem to routinely pitch three, four five shutout innings a game, and when they falter, the next guy is there to pick them up.
There’s a reason why the Blue Jays are the only team in the majors that hasn’t lost a game it’s been leading after seven innings (they’re 34-0), and that reason is named CaseyBrettSteveAaronDarrenNeilJuanDustin JanssenCecilDelabarLoupOliverWagnerPerezMcGowan.
The first half is done, and many Blue Jays fans would have loved to have seen it finished a lot sooner. But maybe this season can be the mirror image of last. The Blue Jays were .500 at the all-star break last season and playing well, then everybody got hurt and they wound up losing 89 games. This year they’re four under and not playing well, but guys are coming back — like Brandon Morrow, J.A. Happ, Ricky Romero, Sergio Santos, Lawrie and Cabrera. Maybe this year the second half is a chance for a resurgence, only time will tell (though time is getting short). It sure would be nice, and it starts with a 10-game homestand against the Rays, Dodgers and Astros that begins Friday night.