Playoff loss only fuels Jays’ desire
Getting back to the post-season was fun, but this team is focused on the World Series
ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. — The 2015 baseball season ended, as it always does, with one team bathed in champagne and 29 others bathed in tears.
For the Toronto Blue Jays, it mattered little in those minutes and hours that followed their Game 6 loss to Kansas City in the American League Championship Series that, after 22 empty Octobers, they had finally awakened the sleeping giant of their fan base by making the playoffs. Losing is still losing.
But as the Jays prepared to begin their quest anew these past two months, those 16 crazy days of October baseball couldn’t be ignored. Quite the opposite. As a team, the Jays have embraced the entire spectrum of emotions — from that thrilling Game 5 win over Texas to that crushing final out against Kansas City — as they set out on their 162game odyssey they expect to lead them above and beyond in 2016.
Sunday afternoon at Tropicana Field, it all begins again. Marcus Stroman will go to the mound, opposing Chris Archer, one of his best friends in baseball, taking the first steps on that long march to October.
“That (playoff ) experience has done a lot to motivate us,” says pitcher R.A. Dickey, who made it to the post-season last year for the first time since breaking into the big leagues in 2001.
“When Mark DeRosa was with us in 2014 he would talk to us about what it is like in the post-season. We would get excited hearing about it, but you couldn’t really relate to it until you’ve been exposed to it. It motivates you to try to get back in ways that you couldn’t necessarily have if you hadn’t experienced it once before. You hear about it a lot and people talk about it a lot and you see it on TV, but it doesn’t really kick in until you’ve experienced it.”
The Jays are on a mission not unlike the one the Royals embarked upon when they lost to San Francisco in the 2014 World Series.
“The whole dynamic, the character of the team is completely different from last spring,” said Stroman this week. “You could see those changes as last year progressed. The clubhouse is to the point now where every single guy is comfortable with every other guy. It’s more a family than a team. We’re always learning, always getting better by picking each other’s brains every day.”
As strong as the Jays were in winning the American League East title last year, they are a more wellrounded outfit as they begin defence of their division crown.
The offence that bludgeoned opponents into submission last year is not only back more or less intact, but it has been enhanced. Michael Saunders is healthy and will play every day in left field, which for the first four months of the season was a wasteland of fill-ins until Ben Revere arrived at the trade deadline. Most importantly, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, now healthy, settled and comfortable in his new surroundings, will add even more potency to the attack which totalled 891 runs last year, a full 127 runs more than the Yankees, who had the second most runs in baseball.
On the pitching side, there is more stability. The 2015 Toronto rotation, rocked by the loss of Stroman to a torn ACL in spring training, featured two rookies in Daniel Norris and Aaron Sanchez, to go along with Dickey, Mark Buehrle and Drew Hutchison.
Stroman is now the centrepiece of a 2016 rotation that is composed of Dickey, looking fitter and stronger at the age of 41, free agents J.A. Happ and Marco Estrada and a beefed up version of Aaron Sanchez who appears ready to fulfil the promise so long predicted for him.
“Our hope is consistency,” said Dickey. “We had a great finish but we didn’t start very well. We broke camp last year — and no disrespect to anybody — we broke camp with six guys 21 or younger. This year we don’t have that question mark floating out there. We have more or less established guys who you know what to expect from.”
The bullpen, which struggled through the early months of 2015, is stronger and more stable. Where the 2015 team opened the season without a bona fide closer, it now has two in Roberto Osuna and Drew Storen. They are supported by lefty Brett Cecil, swingman Jesse Chavez, former starter Gavin Floyd, Ryan Tepera, Arnold Leon and Rule 5er Joe Biagini.
It’s clear that manager John Gibbons has a greater comfort level with his current roster than the one that broke camp last year and he, too, thinks the breakthroughs that brought October baseball back to Toronto will be a springboard for the 2016 version.
“Our first goal was to get to the playoffs,” said Gibbons. “It had been so long and every year we were staring at that (drought). We always thought we could get there, we hoped we could get there but ... we didn’t get there. Now we’re over that hump. Now we need to go one step further.”
Stroman will have plenty to say and do about that. His recovery from what was supposed to be a seasonending injury last summer to be a key starter in the playoffs is the stuff of legend. This winter, both he and Sanchez put in hours and hours of workouts to improve their fitness levels to be able to handle 30-plus starts.
“We’re ready for that,” said Stroman, although he knows management will be taking care to make sure either or both of he and Sanchez don’t get overworked.
“We killed ourselves this off-season so we could be in position to do everything we can for our team. Obviously, the innings limit is a thing. It’s the team doing what’s in our best interests, to protect their players but when it comes to being prepared, we’re ready to go nine every five. That’s our mentality and our motto.”