TORONTO – At this point, maybe the Toronto Blue Jays should sacrifice a chicken. Or perhaps offer Jobu a cigar and some rum. Really, why not? The hours they’ve spent in the cage deep into the night, the early on-field practice hitting sliders off the machine, and all the other work in recent days have yet to pull them out of a disturbing funk.
And even when something good happens, like Josh Donaldson ending an 18-inning run drought with a line drive double to right field, there’s a corresponding negative.
The Silver Slugger third baseman limped his way to second after re-aggravating his troublesome right calf on the play, called for the training staff and gingerly exited the game, a trip to the disabled list under serious discussion. So yeah, mired in a six-game losing streak with the worst start in franchise history extended to 1-8 after a 2-1 setback to the Baltimore Orioles on Thursday night, appealing to some higher powers isn’t a bad idea.
In the absence of divine intervention, however, the only alternative is steadfastness, the type the Blue Jays have shown over the past couple of seasons that both ended in trips to the American League Championship Series.
Devon Travis, trapped in an 0-for-26 pit, isn’t going to bat .088 all year and Russell Martin will climb well beyond an .042 average. The Blue Jays are going to hit plenty more home runs than the 72 they’re on pace for at the moment, and score lots more than the 2.67 runs they’ve averaged per game so far.
The moment calls for trust, and faith, and a willingness to grind.
"Guys are trying to stay as positive as they can. It’s the only thing we can do," Martin said when asked what kind of discussions he and his teammates were having. "We’re trying to pick each other up. I can’t really give you an example of a conversation. But guys care about each other here. That’s one thing we’ve got going for our team. I can’t say that for all the teams I’ve been on. We’re a tight group, family-like, we want to win together, and if we lose, we lose together. It’s going to be a lot of guys trying to encourage each other and trying to keep positive, even when it seems impossible."
Certainly each loss makes the road before them more difficult, especially if Donaldson is out for any extended period of time. Before the game manager John Gibbons expressed optimism his slugger would be ready to play in the field again in the next few days after his calf flared up Sunday.
The only update the team offered afterwards was his right calf was bothering him again and that they’d wait until Friday morning to know more, an ominous sign that they’re hoping for a rapid improvement that keeps him from missing 10 days on the DL.
Donaldson’s loss would be especially cruel given that he’s one of the few Blue Jays actually doing damage. His double followed a Jose Bautista two-bagger in the sixth that cut Baltimore’s lead to 2-1, but his exit sucked the life from a crowd of 32,957.
"Let’s hope he doesn’t (miss time), I’m going to try to be as optimistic as I can about that," said Bautista. "I haven’t talked to him so I don’t know exactly how he’s feeling, or what the direction on that is, but if we do miss him, it’s not going to make it any easier, but it’s not going to make it impossible.
"We have good players on this team, he’s definitely one of the biggest contributors, if not the biggest, but we have 12, 13 other guys in the room here that on any given day can contribute. Sometimes people have to step up, myself included."
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The Blue Jays gave themselves a chance in the ninth when Troy Tulowitzki led off with a single, Martin followed with a walk and a wild pitch by Zach Britton advanced them. But he recovered to get Kevin Pillar on a weak grounder to short – the Blue Jays didn’t want to run the contact play in that situation with the infield in and average speed on the bases – before Steve Pearce lined out to centre to end it.
As the offence flounders, meanwhile, the Blue Jays continue to waste some quality pitching.
Francisco Liriano shook off the third-of-an-inning mess he dropped in Tampa Bay last week with 6.2 boss innings, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks with 10 strikeouts, becoming the latest starter to take a hard-luck L.
"The other aspects of the game are doing outstanding, the pitching has been unbelievable, it’s just disappointing not to be able to support them with offence," said Bautista. "We’ve supported them with defence, but not with offence."
All the damage against Liriano came during a four-batter sequence in the fifth, with Jonathan Schoop’s RBI double and J.J. Hardy’s run-scoring single doing the damage. Trey Mancini cost the Orioles another run when he senselessly tried to score on Schoop’s double, getting easily thrown out at home by Tulowitzki, after a smart throw in from the outfield by Pillar.
With runs so hard to come by, each one really counts.
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Donaldson may have aggravated his calf in the fourth when he busted up the line on a weak chopper to the left side, appearing to beat the throw. He was called out, the Blue Jays challenged, and while there appeared to be a fairly clear replay showing safe, it was ruled inconclusive so the call stood.
But just like with the rest of his teammates, the effort is certainly there, while the results are not.
"I can only speak for myself, I’m not swinging the bat the way I want to," said Martin. "I’m getting opportunities to drive guys in and it seems like nothing is going to plan up there at the plate. Baseball is a grind. Right now we’re in a tough one, probably one of the toughest ones I’ve ever been in, but I’ve never been afraid of a challenge, I’m never going to back down, I’m going to keep working hard and hopefully things will turn for us."
Hope, and maybe a look to the heavens for some help, too.
