Blue Jays defy low-expectations narrative in win over Tigers

The Toronto Blue Jays put a 6-0 beating on the Detroit Tigers to earn Charlie Montoyo's first win as an MLB manager. Freddy Galvis provided the offence with two hits and two RBIs.

TORONTO – Narrative can be a powerful thing around a sports team. Whether a group is contending, pretending or rebuilding, the labels can quickly turn corrosive within the insular clubhouse/locker-room bubble, impacting motivations and morale. For young groups like the Toronto Blue Jays, being inundated with talk of low expectations can be a dangerous thing.

“We’ve talked about it as a team,” Justin Smoak said Friday before Matt Shoemaker threw seven impressive shutout innings in a 6-0 victory over the Detroit Tigers. “Our goal is to play to win every day. There are definitely going to be ups and downs with a young team, but I feel like our ups will be more than the downs. I’m not going to say we’re going to win 100 games, but we’re going to have a chance to compete on a daily basis, and that’s all you can ask for.”

A veteran now at 32, Smoak has been on the other end of things, too, as a young player acquired in 2010 by the Seattle Mariners when they sold off assets like Cliff Lee to regroup around a younger core. He understands better than most what teammates like Teoscar Hernandez, Danny Jansen, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Billy McKinney, Brandon Drury and others are facing right now, and what’s coming for Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and, perhaps sooner than later, Bo Bichette.

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Regardless of the situation, losing sucks. If too much background noise ends up in the echo chamber, bad vibes can become amplified, and that can’t be allowed to erode competitive spirit.

“No doubt,” said Smoak. “But I keep saying it – our young guys can play, man. I feel like at times (in Seattle) maybe there weren’t as many (players) as a whole who are as good as our young guys, and the guys that are coming as well. It’s a little more exciting for me here because we’ve got a few guys who can really be superstars.”

What’s hard is getting there.

Manager Charlie Montoyo has deflected all talk of low expectations and a tough year with a consistent message of playing to win each day, regardless of circumstance. After his first big-league victory, the Blue Jays dragged him into the shower and doused him with a combination of beer, shampoo and frigid water, leaving him shivering at the podium as he addressed media.

“He needed a cold one – he got maybe 50, 60 cold ones at the same time,” said Shoemaker. “It was awesome.”

Montoyo also enjoyed a more low-key celebration with the coaching staff in the dugout once Javy Guerra recorded the final out, prompting him to quip: “I said, ‘I can retire now – I’ve got a win at every level.’”

To keep the wins coming, Montoyo keeps showing that he’ll seek out any little margin to exploit, with his handling of the batting order the latest example of his willingness to get creative.

While Brandon Drury was in the leadoff spot for a second straight day, Montoyo wouldn’t commit to him for an extended period, saying instead, “we’re going to go with matchups,” to determine what sticks.

“I want to have my guys in the right spot so it will depend on who’s pitching,” he continued. “I like to play everybody, too, so (Drury) is leading off for now, but he could be hitting second, could be hitting third tomorrow. We’ll see the matchups.”

Those matchups aren’t based on numbers alone. Rather, the analytics department regularly runs a far deeper analysis of how different players stack up versus opponents, taking into account pitch mixes and hitter tendencies. For example, if a pitcher’s breaking ball tends to move into a batter’s happy zone, well that’s probably a better predictor to use than if the batter is 2-for-6 in his career against a pitcher.

Such data is given to Montoyo, who pours through it with his coaches to determine how to best apply the information. Against Tigers lefty Matt Boyd on Friday, the report determined that it made more sense to bat Smoak third and Teoscar Hernandez fourth. Both followed Randal Grichuk’s leadoff walk in the third with consecutive singles that opened the scoring, each later coming around on a Freddy Galvis two-run single.

In the seventh, Smoak’s two-run single capped the scoring.

“That matchup deal worked out pretty good, today,” said Montoyo. “He came up with some big hits for us.”

Such attention to detail is one way to help silence the background noise, while another is more dominant performances like the one Shoemaker delivered in his Blue Jays debut, allowing two hits and two walks with seven strikeouts.

The outing was his longest since April 20, 2017 and if the forearm issues that dogged him the past two years are legitimately behind him, the right-hander has a chance to make a real impact for the Blue Jays.

Already his makeup is making a difference, as when he walked out to the bullpen to warm up pre-game, fellow starters Clayton Richard, Marcus Stroman, Aaron Sanchez and rookie Trent Thornton followed behind, watching him all the way through.

The reason? Team-building, plain and simple.

“We want to support each other, we want to pump each other up, do whatever it takes to have each of us go out there and do well,” said Shoemaker. “So it’s something we discussed, like hey, we want to do that, set that precedent, get out there. You’re facing all of us, not just one of us, including the starting staff and the bullpen.”

Thornton, all eyes and ears ahead of his big-league debut Sunday, hadn’t experienced anything like the group walkout before.

“I really like it,” he said. “It’s a good thing to have each other’s backs and it’s another method of support, as well. I know Clayton was one of the guys that brought that up and everybody was on board like that. It’s something that’s going to be beneficial for the whole staff.

“I watched Shoe warm up in the bullpen, saw what his gameplan is all about and I’m just trying to gather as much information and knowledge as I can.”

He’s far from alone on that front in a Blue Jays clubhouse that’s learning on the fly. For young and old alike, the bubble belongs to them, and they can decide what to make of it, narratives be damned.

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