Rock bottom with little time to climb
SEPTEMBER SLUMP: Defending AL East champion Jays on downward trajectory, but still in playoff position
Russell Martin isn’t taking stock of everything going wrong and of his manager calling the place the Toronto Blue Jays find themselves in as rock bottom.
It isn’t how Martin chooses to view the current and troubling state of the Blue Jays or the state of any team he has played on in the past. Instead, he’s the ultimate pragmatist.
“If the season ended today, you know what? We’re in the post-season,” said Martin. “That’s what matters to me. That’s what I think about.
“I don’t really care about what anybody thinks or what anybody says about what’s going on. I know what people are feeling. It’s one game at a time from here to the end. There’s no time to feel sorry for yourself or whatever.
“I still believe in the talent we have on the team. I’m not worried about (all these) losses. It sucks that we lost today. It’s never fun. It’s always about tomorrow being better.”
Rock bottom looks and sounds different almost every day for the floundering Blue Jays. On Wednesday, they couldn’t hit in an 8-1 loss. The day before they couldn’t pitch. Earlier in the week, they couldn’t field. This has been an equal-opportunity slump. Just about everybody is joining in one way or the other.
Josh Donaldson didn’t play in the three games against Tampa Bay and there is no assurance he will play Thursday in Anaheim, Calif. He wasn’t hitting before a mystery hip injury kept him out three straight games. The combination of Donaldson, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion is hitting .196 in September. The Blue Jays have played four series this month and have lost all four series. They are 3-9 for the month. Little, if anything, is going their way.
This is what rock bottom looks like from here. A ball rolls down the third baseline and instead of curving foul, it stays fair and hits the bag. Base hit.
This is what rock bottom looks like. Manager John Gibbons makes the right call to replace Marco Estrada with young left-hander Matt Dermody to face Corey Dickerson. Dermody throws two pitches to Dickerson. The ball he hit on the second pitch for a home run may still be on the move.
This is what rock bottom looks like: A ground ball that skipped off pitcher Danny Barnes went for a base hit and a looping fly ball safely landed somewhere between second base and right field. Everything that looked wrong — and some that looked right — didn’t work for the Blue Jays Wednesday, the day before or the day before that.
“We have to find ways to win these games,” Encarnacion said.
“We have to relax a little bit, enjoy the game more, not be thinking of where we are. We’re too tight. We throw the ball good today. We don’t hit.
“I don’t know what’s going on right now. I still believe. I believe in this team.”
To a man, they believe. Slumping in baseball is different than slumping in other sports. There’s a game every day. There’s always tomorrow and a new day really is a new day. But in the back of your mind, you have to wonder.
Estrada had good stuff Wednesday. He struck out the first five batters he faced. But the Jays couldn’t hit Alex Cobb. Systematically they broke down when it mattered most just as they are doing on too many September nights, losing a third series to a team below them in the standings.
“I don’t care what people think of how we’ve played in the last week or more,” said Martin. “The goal is to prepare for a W every day. That’s how I have to look at it. I don’t let an 0-for-5 or an 0-for-10 or a couple of bad innings get to me. It’s get ready for next pitch, next game and start again.
“Our DNA is that our pitchers pitch well, we score some runs, we play good defence. Today we didn’t do that.”
The whole month they haven’t done that. Rock bottom, Gibbons calls it. A new day for a defiant Martin. Time to win a game, a series, something to show there is anything resembling life with the rather lifeless Blue Jays.