Jays need to ‘just win games’
MIAMI — In this, the best year of his career, Justin Smoak vows he will return to the Blue Jays with the intent to “keep the ride going.”
First things first for Smoak was a trip home to Charleston, S.C., for a quick bass-hunting outing and visit with family on Wednesday and Thursday.
And then, Smoak and fellow American League all star Roberto Osuna will return to a Jays team teetering closer to pretender than contender.
The prevailing issue, of course, is whether enough of their nonAll-Star Toronto teammates will hop on for the post-All-Star break journey, which begins with a ninegame road trip.
On deck is the latest “crucial” bit of business for a Toronto group that has lacked any meaningful momentum for all of June and July. The team will resume its schedule sitting 8.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox and, if they falter badly in a four-game set at Fenway Park next week, they may as well kiss the AL East goodbye.
The consolation carrot remains the AL wild card and the Jays are “only” five games out of the second of those spots. Is it attainable? Not if the team doesn’t summon one of those massive winning streaks that propelled them to the 2015 post-season.
“Bottom line is to just win games,” said Smoak. “We feel we definitely have a team that is capable of doing that.
“We’ve got a lot of guys on this team who have accomplished a lot of different things in the game and are really good players. Once you start winning games and you get on a roll, things can happen. We haven’t got on one of those rolls to really feel like that.” Indeed, it has been a while. The Jays haven’t won a series at home since May and, for much of the time since, just getting to .500 is a challenge. A 4-6 mark in their past 10 games is pretty typical of the Jays’ current form.
Sure, they had won four of their past five, but wobbled into the four-day all-star break after getting thrashed 19-1 by the Houston Astros.
As simple as it sounds, the Jays need more to contribute as consistently as Smoak and Osuna, who has been brilliant as the emerging superstar young closer in the game. Former All-Stars, such as Jose Bautista and Josh Donaldson, need to heat up — and soon — though the latter has been showing signs of late.
With Aaron Sanchez back from dealing with blister issues, the team has an opportunity right out of the gate. Sanchez will get the start in Friday’s opener of a threegame series against the Tigers in Detroit, one of only three teams in the AL with a worse record.
“Everybody knows that when we are healthy what we can do,” said Osuna, who pitched a scoreless seventh inning for the AL on Tuesday. “We were almost in a similar situation in 2015. Those were my teammates then and I believe in them. I don’t have any doubt about making the playoffs this year.
“Hopefully we can stay healthy in the second half.”
The run of bad luck in the injury ward was overpowering in the first half, as the Jays sent a total of 21 players to the DL. Early on, anyway, it was a serious hindrance to building momentum.
It’s obvious the Jays have to play better and do it soon if they are going to load up for some meaningful baseball in August and September. And there are several reasons for the potential urgency.
The buzz around Miami the past few days has suggested that the Jays will be sellers in advance of the July 31 trade deadline. Management has strongly suggested there won’t be a total teardown, but if the team falls further out of the race over the next two weeks, there’s a good chance general manager Ross Atkins won’t be as loose pushing his chips to the centre of the table.
The other issue is keeping frustration from seeping into the mindset of the veteran-heavy clubhouse. In their last nine games, the Jays have suffered soul-sucking defeats of 19-1 and 12-2 to the Astros and 15-1 and 7-1 to the Red Sox. That’s a combined 53-5 for the opposition.
It’s never easy to gauge what is going on behind closed clubhouse doors, but Smoak says his teammates have remained upbeat even if through 88 games it has been a clear underachievement for a team that made the playoffs the past two years.
“I don’t think it’s frustration,” Smoak said. “I think (success) is just something we expect. Honestly, we didn’t think we would be where we are right now.”