Stars are dim as break nears
Guerrero talk is a pleasant distraction from the summer crawl of black-and-blue Jays
If a picture was worth a thousand words, then the image of Blue Jays manager John Gibbons leaning helplessly over a rail in the dugout Thursday night at Fenway Park as all-star lefthander J.A. Happ tried to extricate himself from a messy fourth inning would be all that this column needed. Truly, managing this ragtag Jays group is like solving a Rubik’s Cube that has only seven blue squares.
Meanwhile, the good news. The crown jewel of the Jays’ prospects, 19-year-old third baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is completing the final steps of recovery from a left knee injury suffered in a baserunning incident at Double-A New Hampshire. Guerrero has turned heads all season, making a case at the age of 19 for already being in the majors. He is in Florida at the moment, on hold with a .407, average and a 1.124 OPS with 11 homers and 55 RBIs in 204 Fisher Cats at-bats.
A Jays source has confirmed that instead of going straight to Triple-A Buffalo after he is activated, the almost-healthy young Dominican slugger will play in a few league games at Class-A Dunedin and with the rookie-level Blue Jays in the Gulf Coast League.
Guerrero is being encouraged by the Jays to attend the July 27-29 Hall of Fame induction of his father, Vladimir Sr., at Cooperstown, a gem of a village that is coincidentally about a threehour drive from Buffalo.
The Bisons are on a road trip to Louisville and Indianapolis that week and return to Coca-Cola Field for a fourgame series July 30. But depending on how the Jays feel about Guerrero’s progress, his promotion may be earlier. The Bisons are on a homestand from July 16-22 as the MLB all-star game takes place in D.C.
Turning attention back to the Jays, the big-league club is crawling toward the break without starters Aaron Sanchez (bruised finger), Jaime Garcia (left shoulder) and Marco Estrada (glute), and minus closer Ryan Tepera (right elbow). On the position player side, they are still without Josh Donaldson (left calf ) and, of course, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki (double bone spurs), who is close to resuming baseball activities but not close to resuming baseball.
Happ remains the biggest trade chip for the Jays, but if the return in prospects or major-league players was simply based on “what have you done for me lately,” then GM Ross Atkins would be in trouble.
Happ needed 98 pitches to record 11 outs Thursday, leaving after a fabulous 13-pitch at-bat by leading MVP candidate Mookie Betts that turned a 2-1 lead into a 5-2 deficit.
In the month of July, in three starts surrounding his all-star nod, Happ has allowed 18 runs in 12 innings. He has given up 19 hits, eight walks and four home runs, with a 9.75 ERA and a 1.074 OPS. The all-star left-hander has thrown 279 pitches to record 36 outs, which works out to 7.8 pitches per out.
The Jays, in the situation in which they find themselves, need almost perfect defence in order to win and they are not getting it.
Facing a grinding Red Sox lineup in the fourth inning Thursday, Happ induced a groundball to short with one out, a runner on first base, and a two-run lead. Lourdes Gurriel Jr. shovelled the Brock Holt grounder to Devon Travis, but he rocked back on the relay and took his foot off the base with the ball still in the air.
The call was overturned on review.
From there it was all downhill for the Jays. Happ contributed by slow-playing a chopper in front of the plate that loaded the bases. After a forceout produced the first run, he had a chance to escape with the lead, but turned a two-strike advantage into a base on balls to Jackie Bradley Jr., setting up the Betts slam.
Could life get any worse for the Jays heading toward the break?
After Gibbons watched first baseman Justin Smoak clutch at his left hamstring legging out a double in the eighth, he was forced to pinch-run for him.
By the end of the game, trailing by just two runs, the Jays were left with a makeshift infield of Yangervis Solarte at first, Travis at second, Gurriel at shortstop and Russell Martin at third. What has happened? As a Jays fan, just take yourself back to the middle of spring training. The discussion at the time had the Jays as a top-five rotation in the AL. Three of those starters are on the shelf right now while righthander Marcus Stroman, three months into the regular season, is just now rebounding to form. His first win came on June 29.
Gibbons in March was counting on one of the best young closers in baseball and a setup man that had just come into his own in 2017. But Roberto Osuna has been suspended since May 8 and Tepera remains on the DL.
Back in March, there was the energy of Donaldson entering free agency at the end of the season, motivated by needing to prove he was healthy, with a hoped-for return to the production of 2015, a year in which he was AL MVP.
That scenario would have put him with the elite class of 2018 free agents like Manny Machado and Bryce Harper. That’s not even close to reality right now. Donaldson has been on the disabled list since May 29, will be difficult to trade by July 31 and impossible to trade in August, with competing teams surely prepared to block a deal with a waiver claim.
In terms of competing with the rest of the AL moving forward, consider that the Jays’ pitching staff has a better batting average (.278) than the position players (.237) and that the top 10 hitters, heading into Friday’s contest at Fenway, range in average between Martin at .179 and Teoscar Hernandez at .259.