Jays powerless to end June slide
Cold bats waste shot at gaining ground vs. Central’s worst
Back-to-back home runs allowed for the fourth time this season.
Grounded into their 71st and 72nd double plays, second most in Major League Baseball. Committed three errors in a game for the third time. Almost totally befuddled by sinkers and splitters. A forensic examination of Toronto’s 5-2 loss to the White Sox on Saturday afternoon turns up plenty of DNA evidence for why the Blue Jays remain entrenched in the American League East basement. And why they’ll drop their 11th series — against a last-place Central division club — unable yet again to make hayway off a lousy opponent.
Josh Donaldson put his finger on it. “You mean teams that play below .500? Well, we’re below .500, too.”
In a weird respect, this has become a season of magi- cal — or at least mythical – thinking: The fallacy that these 2017 Jays are better than their record indicates.
Because June is turning into April redux and the team, apart from some hopeful spurts last month, has not really managed to shake itself out of the baseball doldrums.
An overtaxed bullpen has put up yeoman innings. Justin Smoak has been a dinger delight. Kendrys Morales has proven a better-than-adequate replacement for Edwin Encarnacion. But with Devon Travis back on the DL — frayed cartilage scoured out of his right knee last week, his return a long way off — the offence has collapsed into a sluggish mess because nobody else on this squad plays that kind of make-things-happen baseball, utilizing speed and sprayed-allover hitting.
They’re once more reduced to their slugging essence, a one-trick and one- dimensional talent. But there weren’t any of those at the Rogers Centre Saturday, except the trio that flew off Sox bats.
“They’ve come out and swung the bat pretty well against us,” said Donaldson of the two straight wins Chicago has taken off Toronto in this weekend set, Friday’s 11-4 pounding particularly ugly. “Got us down pretty early (today) and they’ve pitched pretty well so far.
“I’m not going to say they’re a bad team. I don’t know if there’s necessarily a bad team in the major leagues. Any given day, any team can come in here and beat you.’’
It’s frustrating, though, that the Jays so often have come up small, impotent, against opposition they should be feasting on — if, indeed, they’re the team they profess to be and not the mutant which has gone 0-for-7 when .500 dangles like lowhanging fruit.
And it won’t be long before the executive suite can righteously pull the plug on the blow-up grenade.
“We feel like we have a good team,” insists Donaldson. “We’re just not playing well as of late.” Or as of early. Falling to 6-8 in June is hardly a disaster. But everyone seems to be waiting for the old Jays, the 2015 and 2016 Jays, to reassert themselves and, a commendable May notwithstanding, it’s just not happening.
“Obviously we’re not playing great baseball on either side of the ball,” says Donaldson. “Some days we’re not pitching, some days we’re not playing defence, some days we’re not hitting. And for the last couple of days we haven’t done much of either.’’
The former MVP readily acknowledged his lapses Saturday — committing two of Toronto’s three errors. The first was inconsequential when starter Marcus Stroman induced a double play, leaping for an angry comebacker, pivoting deftly and tossing to Troy Tulowitzki to end the fifth inning. In the eighth, however, Toronto had scrabbled back within a run at 3-2, Donaldson dropped the ball on what would have been the third out and Alen Hanson scooted home.
Donaldson dropped his head to his chest, clearly dejected, then punched a fist into his glove.
“I made a couple of bad plays today, giving those guys extra outs. Any time you’re giving outs away, you’re looking for trouble.”
It was only the third multiple-error game of Donaldson’s career. But there was no solace at the plate either: 0-for-4 and a DP out.
Donaldson paid tribute to Chicago starter Mike Pelfrey’s bamboozling sinker. “First at-bat, he had some pitcher’s pitches go his way, then I get to 3-and-2 and I’m kind of trying to protect — it’s not necessarily a pitch that I want to swing on. But he located it and was able to get a strikeout. My second at-bat, he threw a good sinker, hit the ground. My third at-bat I got a great pitch to hit and didn’t do anything with it. And that’s kind of been the story for us, as of late.”
Jose Bautista went 0-for-4 also, 6-for-49 in June, his May-plumped batting average sinking to .225.
Manager John Gibbons rejected the suggestion his team has simply been too complacent against bottom-feeder teams, though it should be noted the White Sox have won five or their last six games.
“Not at all,” said the skipper, “because they approach it good every day. And I know the mentality in there. The thing about baseball is, it’s not a sport where you can just go out and overpower somebody. If they throw a good game against you, things are tough. Then, if they’re also swinging the bats … it’s not like that big physical sport where you get the bigger, faster guys who can dominate.’’
The errors — rounded off with reliever Aaron Loup airmailing a throw to first, as Chicago coaxed its final run off a pair of sacrifice bunts — weren’t mental lapses, Gibbons contended. “Those are physical errors. We booted a couple of balls. Loup’s ball, the ball’s running into the runner (Yolmer Sanchez, dashing to second), fast runner. That happens sometimes. You don’t like it, but you know …
“And Josh is one of the best at it, at third base. You spoil people sometimes, you know.”
But Gibbons never fingers a Jay. He even lauded Stroman who, while keeping his team in it through seven innings, nevertheless served up three homers on six hits — back-toback out-of-the-parks in the second frame. A bit rich for Gibbons to say of Stroman: “I thought it was a good outing for him.”
Typically, Stroman had precious little to say for himself afterwards, media scrums apparently a complete intrusion on his time.
“We’re good. I’m sure we’ll rattle 10 in a row soon. Nothing changes for the group. We realize that we’re going to go through stretches like this and that’s why we stay confident day in and day out.”
There was one small bright moment, call-up Dwight Smith Jr. jumping on a fastball over the plate from reliever Chris Beck for a single that scored Smoak — the rookie’s first big-league RBI.
“I just wanted to keep the train rolling in a positive way.”
Odd factoid: Through 26 innings playing the outfield for Toronto, Smith has made zero catches.
When that was pointed out, he cracked wry. “I don’t think I have caught a ball yet. I’m just a body out there.”