TORONTO – Welcome to Toronto, Luke Maile.
Get into the Blue Jays clubhouse, find out you’re the starting catcher working with Marcus Stroman against your former team.
You get a first-inning pop-up near the camera well beside the visitors’ dugout – only the toughest nook in the park to make a play in – that you can’t make without the requisite local knowledge. Then you catch a bullpen that seems able to hiccup home runs on demand and hear boos from the crowd as your new team takes a step closer to its worst first month ever.
It’s like stowing away on a train going over the cliff, right?
Nah. It’s the Major Leagues.
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“I mean, it’s a blast,” the newest member of the Blue Jays said Friday night when he was asked about his new physical environment. (There will time to talk about the psychological environment down the road.)
“This is the Major Leagues,” he added. “It’s what we all play for, right?”
Call it a timely reminder as the Blue Jays dropped the first game of their three-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays. A defeat Saturday would guarantee the Blue Jays an eighth consecutive series loss to start a season. But that’s not a club record. That was already achieved when they dropped that double-header to the St. Louis Cardinals.
A bad day in Toronto beats a great day at Triple-A – no disrespect to our friends in Buffalo – even if a loss Saturday would be the Blue Jays’ 18th this month.
Maile is more than Russell Martin’s new backup catcher. He is likely the only “something” president and CEO Mark Shapiro and GM Ross Atkins can do at this point in time. The next “something” will likely be more of the incremental same, because making a deal of any significance in June is tough, let alone in May.
Not that Shapiro’s averse to an early call. He did, after all, trade Bartolo Colon and Tim Drew to the Montreal Expos on June 27, 2002, for prospects Grady Sizemore, Cliff Lee and Brandon Phillips as well as chattel Lee Stevens. It was deal that raised the white flag for the 2002 Cleveland Indians but also set the stage for a period of sustained, youthful, excellence.
But Shapiro has been clear that this market and this team and this ownership is different. The expectations that come with running the Blue Jays aren’t the same as running the Indians. Besides, April 29 isn’t June 27.
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Here’s the thing: baseball teams generally don’t make deals this early, even when they’re in the process of cratering out of the post-season. Even with the new wrinkle provided by a collective bargaining agreement that makes it more beneficial to move a potential free agent than wait for an off-season draft pick, the dynamics remain mostly the same.
Front offices are fixated on the June draft right now. Adding a big salary at this point in the season effectively means picking up more than 80 per cent of the remaining money pro-rated, and many general managers follow a kind of unofficial calendar. The first two months of the season are to get a read on the team you left spring training with and also your division. The next six weeks to a month are to address its shortcomings. The rest of the way is simply letting it all play out.
So, yeah, barring a complete surprise, Maile or a Maile-type move is the “something.” The team’s top position prospect, Rowdy Tellez, isn’t hitting squat at Triple-A, but the organization wouldn’t bring him up into this bad situation even if he was.
The Blue Jays’ most tradable commodities (Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman) would likely bring back great, young talent, but are precisely the pitchers they don’t want to trade. Nobody much wants the contracts of Troy Tulowitzki or Russell Martin. J.A. Happ would be a tantalizing chip if he was healthy (he’s under contract for another year) as would Liriano, although the Blue Jays would be well-advised to suss out his interest in re-signing, first. Josh Donaldson … uh, yeah. That’s for another day.
Somebody asked manager John Gibbons on Friday night what he can do to get some better bullpen work. This season has been mostly a story of squandered offensive opportunities. But make no mistake: this bullpen has exacerbated the situation by giving up 13 home runs and ranking statistically among the worst relief corps in baseball. It is responsible for the two body-blow losses suffered this week.
At some point, there will be a come-to-Jesus moment for this organization and the way it views relief pitching. So many teams are adding emphasis on quality power arms at the back end of the bullpen – two, maybe even three. They’re developing those arms internally or doing other oddities such as plotting a strategy that could see a team like the Cincinnati Reds end up with two in-their-prime arms toss 100 innings each as relievers.
Everything is on the table when it comes to relievers.
“They’re our guys,” Gibbons said of his bullpen. “Just keep running them out …”
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And that’s pretty much all the skipper can do with his lineup, too – not that losing to the Rays is anything out of the ordinary. The Rays have won eight of the last nine series between these teams, including last season when they were the only team in the American League East with a winning record against the Blue Jays.
They own the Blue Jays. They flat-out own them.
Hey, Luke Maile? You played for the Rays? Got any insight?
“I don’t want to speak for what’s gone on here this year,” Maile said. “I know last year when I was with Tampa we had a little bit of success. I don’t think there’s anything to it except they’ve happened to make some better plays than we have, a couple more clutch hits than we have, and that’s really all you can chalk it up to.”
Full credit to Maile after a trying night. He got his pronouns right. Small victory that – maybe even the only one.
