So far this season the Blue Jays’ batting average with runners in scoring position is .189, and an anemic .171 in high-leverage situations (situations that have a major impact on win expectancy).
There are the usual reasons for why: Jose Reyes is out, Jose Bautista is out, and Brett Lawrie hasn’t caught back up with major league hitting just yet. Adam Lind is slumping and — though he’s starting to wake up — Edwin Encarnacion hasn’t been the same guy he was even before last year.
But it’s easy to look at the results and say, “those are bad, stop doing that.” It’s a different matter altogether to break down why exactly those results keep happening.
On Wednesday night, Munenori Kawasaki worked an 11-pitch walk against Carlos Quintana. Kawasaki saw the bulk of those pitches after falling behind in the count. The hitters that followed him all swung at the first pitch and saw less pitches — combined — than Kawasaki did in his at bat.
There are a lot of missing components to the Jays’ offence right now, which means they have to adapt, changing what they expect from their trips to the plate.
Those individuals who can get away with high strikeout totals because they have the power bat of Bautista, OPS of Reyes to draw fire, can’t come up to the plate swinging freely. They have to start thinking about manufacturing offence any way possible, even if it’s just running up the opposing pitchers pitch totals.
The best hitters change their approach when the situation demands it of them, and I just don’t see that happening with the Jays’ hitters right now. Same old approach of swinging freely, regardless of context, hoping the occasional home run feast will justify all situational hitting famine.
The amount of pitches seen by Jays’ hitters, on average, drops when there are runners in scoring position.
Without the big guns in the lineup, the little guns have to be more selective. This may require changing their approach at the dish, but that’s baseball— — a game of individual compromises made for the sake of helping the whole.
I know the Jays have the talent to win, but do they have the grit to bear down and change their individual preferences at the plate in order to help the team win with what it’s presently working with?