SAN FRANCISCO – The day after a loss that very much felt like a low point for the Toronto Blue Jays, manager John Schneider spoke to a few players individually to gauge their thoughts on the club’s recent struggles, and share a few thoughts of his own, too.
There’s a difference between losing and getting beat, he explained, and they’d done more of the former than the latter during this difficult stretch. Better fundamental baseball was needed, especially with an offensive dry spell magnifying any little slip. And they needed to get better from, rather than dwell on their struggles, as well as “really trying to kick it into gear a little bit.”
“The way I look at it is the most important thing right now is July 7th, not July 8th or July 6th – you have to approach it that way,” he said. “There are definitely things you talk about with some guys and say, we get it when you're struggling, but there are some things that need to be a little cleaner.”
Hours later, things were a lot cleaner for the Blue Jays, who exceeded their offensive output from the previous four games in the first three innings and took care of the baseball in an 9-3 thumping of the San Francisco Giants.
As grim as Monday’s 8-1 setback was, Tuesday’s turnaround was commensurately revitalizing. Hitting coach David Popkins preached the need to free up his hitters mentally while they were in “protective states, stressed states,” and how one moment could release the pressure during a fascinating breakdown of the lineup with media before the game.
A leadoff single by Ernie Clement and Nathan Lukes walk to open the game seemed to set the stage for just such an exhale. But they came up empty and it wasn’t until the second, after Brandon Valenzuela singled to open the inning and Sean Keys added a one-out base hit that it came, as Jonatan Clase hammered a 2-0 slider from Trevor McDonald over the wall in right, matching with one swing their run total of the four games previous.
They didn’t relent in the third, when RBI singles from Valenzuela and Andres Gimenez, a two-run single from Keys and a Clement sacrifice fly opened up an 8-1 lead. In recent days, Popkins said, the Blue Jays had been “similar to a fighter that is trying to defend eight different punches at once and just trying to react versus just throw a haymaker and see what happens, get a punch off.”
Clase, set for some opportunity after Yohendrick Pinango was optioned to make room for Chad Dallas, delivered that blow and for one night, the Blue Jays did a much better job of forcing Giants pitchers, especially McDonald, into the zone.
Simple as that may sound, staying committed to hunting a zone and not budging from that has been an ongoing challenge for the Blue Jays, one exacerbated by the recent struggles as “this game will have a grip on your throat, it will hold you down until you quit,” said Popkins. “But you've got to keep fighting.”
“Whenever you're seeing an offence that is chasing more and not slugging and not striking out, that’s typically an offence that's pressing, that's really going up there and almost feels like it's trying to get the bat over, versus like going up there having a plan, finding a pitch and taking your best swing and don't miss it,” he said. “So it's honestly more mental freedom and freeing them up that way is going to allow them to kind of get back in those flow states that we had. And that is contagious, just like we saw last year. The alternative is contagious this year when guys are a little stressed and pressing, they have that look on their face. It takes one small thing, one laugh, one good bonding moment and it breaks.”
Doing it consistently, over an extended stretch is key, and Adrian Houser followed McDonald with 5.1 hitless innings to quell the rally, although the Blue Jays continued to hunt better pitches in those at-bats.
Being a rally-good offence requires two key elements, explained Popkins: “One is scaring teams out of the zone and the second one is scaring teams into the zone.”
“You scare them out of the zone by punishing them and then you scare them back into the zone by having an approach and making sure you're not swinging at borderline pitches,” he continued. “Right now we're at the stage of scaring them back into the zone. Teams know that we're going to, right now, expand and they don't have to make perfect pitches, they just need to throw it close to the vicinity and they'll walk us out of the zone slowly. When a pitcher knows that, he can actually dot his pitches. looked at a lot of pitching charts and we've got guys that have absolutely been hitting their spots. And it's like, man, how is everyone hitting their spots? It's just because we haven't scared them back into the zone.”
In that way, the Blue Jays have a road map for their final four games before the all-star break, as they try to make up as much ground as they can on their 43-49 record and 3.5-game deficit in the wild-card standings.
They’ll have George Springer back in the lineup for Wednesday’s series finale against the Giants, when Dylan Cease starts against Logan Webb, and their approach will need to be on point in a matchup of all-star righties.
And much work remains. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., 1-for-5 with double-play balls in the first and ninth innings, is still working to line up his swing, which “is more like an orchestra, every instrument needs to play at the right time,” said Popkins. “It's been a little harder for him this year to get stacked on the backside fully, ride closes and turn behind the ball like he has in the past, really drive his legs down behind the ball into the ground. … Once he gets through this, it's going to be pretty violent.”
Daulton Varsho, 0-for-4, is still trying to find a workaround for his wrist soreness. Alejandro Kirk, who didn’t start Tuesday, said he’s starting to feel better at the plate, seeing longer pitches and having better at-bats.
The Blue Jays have the pieces to make days like this a more regular occurrence.
“I have the utmost belief in our group,” said Popkins. “We've seen what it looks like for a very long period of time. And this group has the ability, we have the talent to do it. Once we get through this, I think there's really nothing that can stop this group. But it's a tough challenge.”
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