TORONTO — One month into the new season, Ross Atkins’ main concern about the Toronto Blue Jays thus far is an all too familiar one.
“We’ve just got to score more,” the general manager said Friday afternoon before a 5-3 win over the Cleveland Guardians. “I feel like we’re going to be able to prevent runs with our defence and the starting pitching options and relief options that we have. … I feel like we’re capable of scoring more and we will. But we need to.”
While backfilling the fifth starter’s spot vacancy would also have been a valid answer — and we’ll get to that — the offence remains among the least productive in the majors, even after the consecutive, home-run driven comeback wins against the Boston Red Sox that preceded their latest late-inning victory, sealed on Nathan Lukes’ tiebreaking two-run single in the eighth inning.
The Blue Jays entered Friday’s play 19th in both average and OBP; 27th in each of runs and slugging percentage; and 29th in home runs, still awaiting steady dividends from the addition of free-agent slugger Anthony Santander, a notorious slow starter who’s seemingly turned the corner, among other changes.
Why the Blue Jays haven’t yet hit to expectations is a moving target — “If I knew the answer, then I would have a better solution to that,” said Atkins — but he expressed faith in the work of new hitting coach David Popkins and assistant Lou Iannotti, who “tap into resources, speak all of the languages, have incredible content and connect with our players.
“I know we have guys that hit the ball hard,” Atkins added, suggesting that “getting the ball in the air a little bit more and getting guys into better counts in situations to do more damage,” were priorities. “We’ve seen damage. We just haven’t seen it go over the wall as much.”
The Blue Jays began the day 15th in groundball percentage at 42.2 while their fly ball rate of 35.7 per cent was seventh lowest in the majors. Their line-drive percentage of 22.1 was tied with Miami for highest in the show, counterbalanced by an infield fly rate of 11.7 per cent that was tied with Washington for fifth. At 89.2 m.p.h., their average exit velocity was tied with Minnesota for 16th.
A low-point came during a trying stretch of eight losses in nine games, when they scored just 18 runs while batting .193/.261/.280, but they’ve looked far better since rallying from a 6-0 deficit in Wednesday’s 7-6, 10-inning win, and with George Springer’s solo shot in the fifth inning Friday, they have homers in five straight games, matching a season-high.
There was a diversity of offence in beating the Guardians, too, as Alejandro Kirk’s two-run single in the third put the Blue Jays up 2-1, and it was a Springer walk and stolen base and Kirk base hit in the eighth that set the stage for Lukes’ line-drive to right-centre.
“Five runs, homer, big knock, ran the bases well, that kind of stuff, that’s what we’re shooting for,” said manager John Schneider. “It’s nice that it seems to be a different guy. That’s a huge knock from Nate. You want to be as consistent as you can. The big swings are great, but I think all the little things you do there, on a nightly basis sustain it.”
Added Lukes: “Today was the definition of baseball. We had George’s homer, which is huge, but then it’s just stringing some hits, some quality at-bats together and that’s the game that everyone should love. That was baseball. It was awesome.”
More damage like that would help take some heat off the pitching staff, which remains without a fifth starter amid the ongoing absence of Max Scherzer, who threw what manager John Schneider described as “a heavy bullpen” Friday that simulated two innings of work.
He remains without a timeline and said Thursday that “I’m not out of the woods until I’m actually in games and I’m getting past that 50-pitch threshold and then to the 75- and 90-pitch thresholds, coming out of those starts and my thumb is recovering out of those starts. I can’t be optimistic until that happens.”
Atkins struck a more hopeful tone Friday, saying “we’re definitely talking about weeks,” rather than months, but that won’t help in the interim, with the Blue Jays next needing a fifth starter Tuesday for the opener of a three-game set at the Los Angeles Angels and again the following Sunday in the series finale at the Seattle Mariners.
Lefty Eric Lauer, who pitched four innings behind opener Yariel Rodriguez after being added to the 40-man roster Wednesday and having a pro-rated portion of his $2.2 million locked in, is an option, although the Blue Jays haven’t yet committed to him for the start.
Atkins said the Blue Jays “can work around (the lack of a defined fifth starter) for a period of time, for sure,” thanks the steadiness of Jose Berrios, Kevin Gausman, Chris Bassitt and Bowden Francis, along with the “ability to option guys out and bring guys in like Easton Lucas and Lauer and (Jake) Bloss. … but it’s not something we can do for the whole season.”
For that reason “we also need to consider external alternatives and we have a couple of things in the works there that are more on the depth front via free agency.”
Casey Lawrence, a Jay for a day Tuesday who cleared waivers and elected free agency on Friday, is believed to be one of those options, although he has offers from other clubs as well.
There was also some speculation around Spencer Turnbull, as well, the free-agent righty who appeared in 17 games, seven of them starts, for the Phillies last year, striking out 58 in 54.1 innings with a 2.65 ERA. He finished the season on the injured list with a lat strain and elected free agency on Oct. 31.
Bloss, the centre-piece of the return from Houston for Yusei Kikuchi at last year’s trade deadline, would be a cleaner option, but the Blue Jays are also trying to balance his development after he was rushed to the majors by the Astros a year ago.
The 23-year-old, a third-round pick in 2023, still has only 144 professional innings under his belt and after three shaky outings to open the season at triple-A Buffalo, he’s thrown back-to-back solid outings, striking out 12 over nine innings while allowing only two unearned runs.
“I think Bloss is an option right now, we’d just like to see more consistency out of him,” said Atkins. “His last two outings have been very effective. If he can repeat that another time or two, then he’s a very real option for us.”
As that gets sorted, the Blue Jays are trying to balance the needs of the rest of the rotation, which is why they’re staying on turn next week, rather than using Monday’s off-day to skip the fifth spot. Covering for the flux in the fifth spot requires buy in from everyone.
“The four of us have an understanding of what it is — unfortunately, we’ve done this the last two years kind of thing,” said Chris Bassitt, who allowed three earned runs over 5.1 frames Friday. “It’s not a huge deal, especially with the amount of off-days we have. But it’s more so the front office and Schneids putting together a good gameplan to keep us fresh if we can’t have an off-day, so to speak.
“Unfortunately, we’re in the time of year where a lot of injuries pop up and just keeping us healthy is the No. 1 thing. Sometimes, sure, people are mad (being pulled) at 86, 87 pitches, but they have a game-plan based on where the bullpen is at, who is available and then it’s just trusting that gameplan, understanding the long-term health us four is a little bit bigger than I would say most.”
Especially for a Blue Jays team sorting through a vacancy in the rotation while finding itself at the plate, too.
