TORONTO – At 3:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, the Toronto Blue Jays’ position players gathered with some of their coaches to talk hitting.
This lineup has been scuffling of late and after getting shut out on three hits Monday, manager Charlie Montoyo wanted to see a change in approach.
“We’re chasing a lot of bad pitches,” Montoyo said Tuesday afternoon. “We need to make an adjustment on that.”
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. gets more scrutiny than anyone else because of his status as baseball’s top prospect, and there’s no doubt he’s expanding the strike zone at times, but this issue extends up and down the batting order. Danny Jansen, Teoscar Hernandez, Billy McKinney and Brandon Drury are all off to slow starts, too.
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With that in mind, hitting coach Guillermo Martinez and bench coach Dave Hudgens addressed the group as a whole, urging them to eliminate bad chases. As the meeting progressed, veterans such as Justin Smoak, Freddy Galvis and Luke Maile spoke up, offering their perspective on an offence that now ranks 13th among the 15 American League teams.
“It was organic,” Martinez said. “As a hitting coach, I have a message, Dave has a message and it’s the same message, we’re on the same page. But it’s cool to (hear from) someone playing and grinding it out and knowing how hard this game is–because it is hard.”
Especially when you’re facing an all-star. Thanks to Jose Berrios, the offensive breakout the Blue Jays hoped for will have to wait another day. The Blue Jays collected just six hits in a 3-0 loss, wasting a strong start from Aaron Sanchez.
Berrios, a 2018 all-star who arrived in Toronto with a 2.91 ERA, was at his best over seven scoreless innings, especially against Guerrero Jr.
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Facing the 20-year-old third baseman in the second inning, Berrios induced a swinging strike on a breaking ball away before earning a called strike three on a fastball painting the outside corner.
“He did a good job,” Guerrero Jr. later acknowledged through interpreter Hector Lebron. “He was hitting those corners.”
Next time up, Berrios returned to the outside corner for two more called strikes. Down 0-2, Guerrero Jr. laid off a tough slider and fouled off a high heater to stay alive, but when Berrios let a fastball catch too much of the plate, he got away with it, inducing a fly ball to right.
It’ll go down as a missed opportunity for Guerrero Jr., who hasn’t seen many mistake pitches since arriving in the majors a week and a half ago.
“Sometimes I try to hit the ball too hard,” he said. “I’ve got to control my emotion and just try to hit the ball up the middle.”
In the ninth inning, he did just that, hitting an opposite-field single through the right side to end an 0-for-12 drought. It wasn’t a highlight reel homer, yet Guerrero Jr. still delivered when the situation demanded baserunners.
Pitchers are clearly avoiding the middle of the plate when facing Guerrero Jr., who has expanded the zone against a few too many outside breaking balls. Berrios offered an impressive roadmap on how to pitch to Guerrero Jr. Tuesday.
At the same time, not everyone has Berrios’ stuff or control. Locating plus pitches on the edges is far easier said than done, so pitchers will eventually miss more often. Once more pitches leak over the plate, Guerrero Jr. will have the chance to remind everyone why he’s considered the sport’s top hitting prospect.
“Even in the minor-leagues, they were pitching me that way. I’m just trying to look for my pitch and keep making my adjustments so I can square those pitches up,” Guerrero Jr. said. “They’re pitching good. I just need to make better adjustments.”
On the mound, Sanchez allowed just three runs on six hits over seven innings while striking out six and walking three. He worked into the seventh inning for the first time this year on a day he topped out at 96.4 m.p.h.
“To go seven innings and give the bullpen a much-needed rest was my job to do and that’s what the focus was,” Sanchez said. “It’s what I’m here to do.”
After his last start, Sanchez described the Blue Jays’ play as embarrassing, but Montoyo said the right-hander resolved any issues surrounding those comments by speaking to his teammates directly.
“Heat of the moment,” Montoyo said. “That’s what I saw. But we already dealt with that … he’s not the first guy who’s done that and he’s not going to be the last. It’s an everyday game. It’s a grind. You get upset and sometimes you say stuff.”
Since that outing, the Blue Jays have won just once, so the frustration apparent in Anaheim hasn’t disappeared completely. That will take time, more work behind the scenes, maybe some more meetings. In the course of a long season, the best teams and players tend to distinguish themselves from the rest.
“It’s never easy,” Guerrero Jr. said. “You’ve just got to keep working hard. I know that sooner or later it’s going to come.”
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