Jays’ record hides strides they’ve made

If anyone has watched the Blue Jays play baseball over the past three weeks, they might be forgiven for believing that the team’s record should be far better than it actually is. But instead of being several games above .500 heading into a weekend series with the Houston Astros, the Jays sit a mediocre five games below, in the middle of the pack in the AL East. For optimists, there are reasons for hope in a bad division. Conversely, there are just as many reasons to despair.

Since May 16, the Toronto rotation has shown signs of life. Marco Estrada has demonstrated he belongs; Aaron Sanchez has begun to live up to his potential; R.A. Dickey has been betrayed by run support; and Mark Buehrle has shown leadership and resilience with three complete games in four starts. Offensively, Josh Donaldson seems to contribute a game-changing home run every other night and outfielder Chris Colabello has been a revelation, on a current MLB-high 14-game hitting streak.

The Jays are just 8-10 since May 16, but none of the 10 losses was by more than two runs. Toronto has outscored its opponents 90-68 over that stretch, holding a lead in 15 of those 18 games. Two others were tied in the late innings. That’s a lot of lost opportunities in trying to put a win streak together.

What, then, are the main factors contributing to this fan-unfriendly, gut-wrenching streak of inability to parlay opportunity into victory?

Defence

The Jays have at times been forced to start two infielders in the outfield, because of injuries to Jose Bautista and Michael Saunders and the demotion of Dalton Pompey to Triple-A Buffalo. While Chris Colabello’s bat has been a revelation, there have been several gamechanging defensive miscues that did not go down as errors, but had an effect on wins and losses. Toronto’s rotation, mostly pitching to contact, needs solid defence to win.

Injuries

The injury to Bautista has been the major factor. Unable to throw a baseball, he was restricted to being the Jays’ designated hitter until this week’s series in Washinton. This meant that Edwin Encarnacion was forced to play first-base every day, instead of splitting his time at DH. Jose Reyes’s bat was out of the lineup for much of that time and second baseman Devon Travis was playing with a badly bruised left collarbone before he landed on the disabled list.

Bullpen

The Jays have had five complete games in their last 18. In the other 13 games, the bullpen is 2-4, with no saves and four blown saves, although the numbers haven’t been all horrible. Relievers have combined for a 3.89 ERA, working 342⁄

3 innings, allowing 33 hits, with just four walks and 38 strikeouts. In five of the 13 games, though, the bullpen allowed multiple runs. And two of those were Jays wins.

Then what are the main factors in believing the Jays could be on the verge of a reviving run of victories that would seem better reflect their run differential for the last three weeks?

Leadership

Donaldson, the third baseman acquired from the A’s for Brett Lawrie and a package prospects, was magic in May. He had five homers in a four-game stretch during that streak, with four of the homers either tying a game or giving the Jays the lead. His passion for the game boiled over in a dugout incident across the field with the Angels, but he is an MVP candidate.

Rotation

It originally seemed that Daniel Norris was sent to Triple-A so that Sanchez and Estrada could go headto-head to see who remained in the rotation and who went to the pen after Norris worked out his issues for the Bisons. Instead, Estrada has ramped up his pitch counts and effectiveness, and Sanchez has started to effectively mix in a necessary third pitch. For any team to be a contender, it needs to have a couple of win streaks in the season, twice through the rotation. Earlier in the season with the inconsistency of the starters, it was only a dream.

Health

Bautista is back in right field. Encarnacion is slated to return to the lineup Friday after a minor hamstring strain. Reyes and Dioner Navarro are back on the roster. Travis is not yet ready to return to second base, but the Jays are closed to seeing their real batting order.

But the wild card for contending is the manager, John Gibbons. Sometimes TV does not do him a favour when it shows him head-scratching in the dugout, but Gibbons now ranks 132nd all-time in games managed and will move up to 123 by season’s end.

He will win his 500th game in the majors sometime this month and, truthfully, much of the blame for the first third of the Jays’ 2015 season could be transferred onto the shoulders of GM Alex Anthopoulos. There were times early in the season, with a young, overworked bullpen, when the manager could only shrug. That being said, he should never have been brought back in 2013.

But he’s here and the Jays finally have a chance to start winning.