Going deep into the great unknown
When the Blue Jays — extended version — convened on the field a few hours before game time on Wednesday for a team photo, it was tempting to imagine which faces might be crossed out, come next season.
“X” marks the spot of those who won’t be back. But what about the “Y” factor? In algebra, “Y” — or “y” — stands for an unknown number. And unknown would largely describe the number of current Jays who may or may not have sold themselves as keepers to the front office in this predominantly wretched season. At least, beyond the hardcore cadre of youngsters who’ve clearly passed muster in 2018: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio.
Add Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to the list, a revelation in left field, and who’d seen that coming? Probably a combination of Danny Jansen and Reese McGuire behind the plate. After that, hmmm.
These waning summer weeks provide an audition platform, particularly for September call-ups getting a good gander. Though, baseball rule of thumb: Never fall in love with a September sensation. Or a spring training Roman candle either.
A couple of ponderables, however, in Teoscar Hernandez and Rowdy Tellez. Both under team control, neither getting a whole lotta team love on the balance of the season. Each a home run contributor in Toronto’s 8-0 stomp of the Red Sox — on a night when the MLB record was broken. For Tellez, back-to-back jacks on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Still. Is this the middle of the batting order Toronto can live with through another likely outlier year, with Tellez as a full-time first baseman and Hernandez as the centre fielder of record — the former dragging a .223 batting average into Wednesday night, the latter hitting .215? Not a whole lot of punch there, even after Hernandez tied his career high of 22 round-trippers, Tellez close behind with 19.
Except, between the two of them, a whopping 237 strikeouts in 698 at-bats to start the evening.
Neither is an eye-popper defensively. Hernandez saw considerable improvement, shunted from adventure left to centre this year — minus-6 defensive runs saved at centre this year, as per FanGraphs, compared to a minus-11 in left last year. But he’s recently reverted
to shocking ineptness afield while struggling at the dish, 0-for-12 until a single and 405-foot crank over the wall Wednesday.
(At this point, we’d like to note that Hernandez’s most joyful knock came a couple of weeks ago, with hardly anyone in the park, when he hit a ball tossed by his wife, which immediately exploded into a shower of blue smoke and confetti — the couple’s gender “reveal” of their pending baby.)
Anyway, there’s no overwhelming urgency. But the Jays do have to decide whether either Hernandez or Tellez are pieces to be going on with. For Tellez, there is also the further complication of Guerrero being moved diagonally across the field at some juncture. Further quandary: Would the Jays, in any case, hand their DH spot over to either of two guys who don’t hit for average, with 100 RBIs between them, entering Wednesday?
It’s fair to say both have something to prove to their manager and the brass in what’s left of this woebegone campaign. And both, remember, had been demoted to the minors earlier in the season, which was particularly humbling for 26-yearold Hernandez. Tellez, up for a memorable September in ’18 — seven doubles in his first seven MLB games — is still, at 24, a rookie.
“A lot of people don’t recognize how young I actually am,’’ Tellez was saying before he went out and ripped the skin off the ball. “It’s my first full season.” The triple-A relegation was intended for Tellez to fix his hitting regression, stop chasing balls out of the zone, come to the plate with a better approach. Seemed to work for a time, but way too many strikeouts still.
“I would love to see (from him) what he did last September,’’ says manager Charlie Montoyo, who wasn’t actually here to witness it. “Because he’s got the big-time power. I want him to be that guy, my first baseman next year. He’s got the tools. So he’s going to get a chance over the next two weeks.’’
Which, pronto, Tellez made his manager a happy man.
“Just try to hit balls and not try to hit home runs” is Tellez’s message to self. “Not trying to chase hits but just swinging at good pitches and hit balls hard. Everybody’s going to swing out of the zone, everybody’s going to chase. I just need to minimize that and be a little more consistent in the box.”
The gonzo whacks, going yard, seem to come easily to the powerfully built Tellez. When he can barrel the ball. In fact, Tellez claims he’s not trying to crunch homers. “No, because I know I can do that without trying to put in all the effort. That’s what I mean when I say being consistent. I need to do that a little more — not trying to hit the ball so far.
“There’s times when you hit balls a mile in the air and a mile far and there’s times when you just hit a low line drive and it squeaks over the fence. More often than not, I’d rather just hit low line drives all over the ballpark. And when you’re a better hitter, you get more mistakes (from pitchers). And that’s where the home runs come.”
Even more than Tellez, Toronto had counted on Hernandez for home run offence. Which he’s delivered in a streaky fashion, though it’s difficult to project whether he’ll ever be a 30-homer guy. As well, the defensive offset, just when critics had started to forget, has turned a late summer sour. A fistful of gaffes – weird routes to the ball, bouncers over his head or outstretched glove on fly balls that should have been caught — cost the Jays a dozen runs in Atlanta and Tampa last week.
Maybe even more aggravating was how Hernandez failed to back up Derek Fisher in left on a ball to the wall — didn’t budge an inch — which resulted in a pair of runs scored by the Braves in their earlier visit to Toronto.
“The play against Atlanta, off the wall, and he didn’t move,’’ Montoyo recalls with a shake of the head. “Omigod. Brain cramp. He’s been talked to about that play.”
Streaky hitting, big hitting, that’s the quantum factor for Hernandez, historically.
“It’s not about the pitching (he faces), it’s about me,” he says. “I’ve been missing a lot of pitches in the zone.’’
Which was not the case on the Travis Lakins fastball he turned on in Toronto’s six-run fifth frame.
“In the big leagues, you cannot have that happen. That’s when your mind gets a little crazy and you start thinking too much. I’ve been missing a lot of pitches that I should be doing a lot of damage on.’’
Have the Jays run out of patience with Hernandez?
“I’m trying to prove to them every day that I do deserve that spot. I have to prove to them that I deserve to be in there every day and a part of this team next year.”