Bad or unlucky? Jays will find out
Team never overcame its slow start
Amid what was generally an upbeat visitors clubhouse at Yankee Stadium on Sunday afternoon, there emerged some gallows humour.
Generally relieved that this lost season was finally over, the players wearing Toronto Blue Jays colours were shaking their head in disbelief that after Game 162, they had finally escaped the AL East basement for the one and only time this season.
In reality, whether they were a last- place team or not, the 2017 Jays flirted at times but were never really in any meaningful playoff contention. They got within a game of the .500 mark no fewer than nine times, but were never able to get over the hump.
Ultimately, a poor start in April crippled a team that couldn’t muster anything longer than a five-game winning streak this season.
“We just never got hot — not once,” Jays general manager Ross Atkins told Postmedia. “Every time we seemed to put it together, something significant happened. It was hard to get any rhythm to our lineup, to our rotation. The only place that we had consistent rhythm was our ’pen.’’
Because of t he crazy amount of injuries — and f rom so many key players — Jays management is trying to sound cautiously optimistic that the team can rebound and be a playoff contender based around the current core.
“We’re going to complement and supplement … it’s not dissimilar to where we were a year ago coming off a very good season,” Atkins said. “The odds of us missing a whole year of Aaron Sanchez, half a year of Troy Tulowitzki and a quarter of a year of Josh Donaldson, Russell Martin and J. A. Happ, the odds of that happening again aren’t great.”
The lack of momentum from the rough start proved lethal. After an ugly April in which the Jays won just two of their first 13 starts, they were never able to put together the kinds of runs that highlighted the previous two seasons.
In 2015, the Blue Jays ran off a couple of 11- game winning streaks in a second-half surge that got them into the playoffs.
“You fall behind so early, you expend a lot just to get back into it,” manager John Gibbons said. “You keep waiting for it to happen and the position we were in, it was going to take something like that and we just never could do it for whatever reason.”
Gibbons points specifically to a weekend in mid-August at Wrigley Field. Facing the World Series champion Chicago Cubs, the Jays were in contention in all three games but couldn’t get a win.
The worst was an extrainnings loss in the third and final game. Closer Roberto Osuna, who had 10 blown saves on the season, imploded yet again.
“We were actually playing pretty good ball at the time,” Gibbons said. “We got swept and that killed us, especially that last game. We felt we could have won all three of them and we didn’t win any of them.
“We really were in the wild card hunt then. That hurt us.”
Whether they were truly in the wild card hunt at that point is up for debate, but they never got to within shouting distance again. Other than some red- hot play by Donaldson and the enthusiasm from some September call-ups, the remainder of the season was basically a writeoff.
“It’s a good core,” Gibbons said. “I’m sure there will be some adjustments to it — there needs to be. The overall core is pretty solid, no doubt.”
Solid perhaps, but also aging. While Atkins shares the opinion that the core is decent, he leaves no doubt that changes are coming.
The issue is whether there will be big changes and whether Atkins and team president Mark Shapiro tilt a little more toward rebuilding than re-tooling.
“It’s a pretty decent core to start with,” Atkins said. “Beyond that, we feel that we have decent depth now offensively and defensively at triple- A with the potential of Teoscar Hernandez, Dalton Pompey, Anthony Alford, Dwight Smith, Rowdy Tellez (and) Lourdes Gurriel, among others.
“And with pitching, we feel we already have four very good options in our starting rotation. The progress of Joe Biagini … what has occurred and what does occur for him this off-season will be very telling.”
You can also debate whether t he Jays have enough of a quality nucleus to re- emerge as contenders, but you can certainly build a case they are not 17 games worse than the Boston Red Sox, who won the American League East with a record of 93- 69.
“I think it was just one of those years,” Gibbons said. “I’m banking on that. Next year we’ll find out.”
WE JUST NEVER GOT HOT — NOT ONCE.