Blue Jays look to Kirk to provide offensive boost for injury depleted roster

TORONTO – No matter how convincing the playoff odds may currently look for the Toronto Blue Jays, they have plenty to clean up and several roster adjustments to make over these final two-plus weeks of the 60-game season.

The personnel changes began Friday when closer Ken Giles was activated from the injured list, Jacob Waguespack was recalled and catching prospect Alejandro Kirk was added in search of more offence. Veteran catcher Caleb Joseph, who has generously poured himself into all parts of the roster, was questionably designated for assignment, as was outfielder Billy McKinney.

With Bo Bichette (right knee sprain) rejoining the team after seven innings of rehab work at shortstop in nearby Rochester, Teoscar Hernandez (left oblique strain) beginning pivotal rotational exercises which will dictate his path forward, reliever Jordan Romano (finger pulley strain) playing catch, and both Nate Pearson and Matt Shoemaker moving toward facing hitters, lots more turnover is coming, a talent infusion with the potential to really propel the club.

The Blue Jays aren’t discounting the possibility that Rowdy Tellez (tendon strain in his right knee) returns at some point, either. Whether he does or not, they’re about to get a whole lot deeper.

Still, the loose play at the beginning of this pandemic-shortened campaign that threatened to collapse their lofty ambitions resurfaced again in Friday’s 18-1 beatdown from the New York Mets. In the third, outfielders Cavan Biggio and Randal Grichuk lost Jeff McNeil’s routine flyball in the twilight, allowing it to fall in for an RBI double that made it 4-1, while a 10-run fourth was fuelled, rather than negated, when Danny Jansen dropped a relay from Santiago Espinal on a potential J.D. Davis double-play grounder.

While one was a fluke and the other an aberration, sloppy play and questionable baserunning have been constants.

Defensive metrics are imperfect, but Defensive Runs Saved offers a pretty reasonable snapshot of a team’s play in the field, and the Blue Jays headed into Friday’s action second-worst in the majors at minus-30 runs, which means their defenders have saved 30 runs less than the average.

Combine that with their big-league leading 22 outs on the bases, a measure that does not include their five pickoffs and five caught stealings, and there are some critical areas to stabilize if they’re going to both make the playoffs and succeed if qualified.

“Our whole year has been such a collective effort,” GM Ross Atkins, speaking before the club’s player moves had been made, replied when asked which areas the team needs to shore up for the home-stretch. “There’ve been times that our bullpen has carried us. There’ve been times that our offence has carried us. There’ve been times that our defence has been good. And there’ve been times that we've struggled fundamentally.

“So I think it’s really a matter of us just putting things together for us to be a very good team. If we were to make a playoff run and then be in the playoffs, it would be a matter of us scoring when we are also preventing. We haven’t synced that up that well this year.”

No, they haven’t, as in the 11 games they’ve scored seven or more runs, four have been decided by one run, two have been settled by two runs, and another by three runs. That’s partly why they’ve been in leverage so often this season, and paired with the club’s strategic reluctance to allow their starters to work a third time through the lineup, leads to the constant fatigue that could eventually undermine the bullpen’s steadying strength.

Chase Anderson’s inability to get through three innings Friday, for instance, led to the use of four relievers plus Espinal, the shortstop, pitching the ninth, despite 16 pitchers on the roster.

For the majority of a 19-9 run through their recent stretch of 28 games in 27 days, the Blue Jays managed to outslug flaws, although with the lineup depleted, that’s tougher to do.

Bichette may return this weekend and he’ll lengthen the batting order, for sure, but expecting him to hit the ground running after a month off is probably unfair. Hernandez performed at an MVP calibre prior to straining his oblique on a swing last Saturday, and if he completes the rotational exercises without issue, he’ll move on to baseball activities.

Without issues on that front, “he’ll have missed such a short amount of time that the progression could be very quick,” said Atkins. “The fact that we’re moving to rotational work is a very good thing.”

Tellez’s return is less certain, while Pearson and Shoemaker won’t be stretched out enough to return to a starting rotation, but will be able to offer some bulk from the bullpen if they’re not being used in shorter leverage spots.

More immediate is the intriguing addition of Kirk, an offensive force who finished last season at single-A Dunedin. Putting him on the roster makes sense because of his high-contact profile, but designating Joseph, an integral part of the clubhouse leadership group on a young team with few grownups carries some risk.

“We think offence,” manager Charlie Montoyo replied when asked what they’re hoping Kirk adds that Joseph didn’t. “With so many guys hurt from our team, we felt like we need some kind of offence, and we think Kirk can give us that. That’s the main reason he got activated. We think that’s one thing he can do.”

Kirk has been building toward this.

Back at the original spring training, Atkins praised the 21-year-old for taking major-league quality at-bats while he’s focused on shoring up his defensive work at the club’s alternate training site in Rochester.

The Blue Jays added him to their taxi squad after the trade deadline – the Pittsburgh Pirates wanted him as the centrepiece of a trade built around Joe Musgrove – setting him up for the promotion.

“One of my goals since spring training was to improve my catching,” Kirk said in comments interpreted by Hector Lebron. “I want to be more focused on catching, how to call games, have great communications with pitchers and I think I did a lot better at that. That was the part I was missing and why I believe I’m here now.”

The Blue Jays have plenty riding on how it all comes together.

Atkins said any additions the club makes now “will only be from within,” and that’s the talented group of players working back from injury. The Blue Jays need to successfully reintegrate them, tidy up their sloppy play and secure a post-season berth over the remaining 16 games.

Buckle up.

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