Post-mortems

Jays have almost 48 hours to wonder what is going wrong with the team.

Notwithstanding Rick Romero’s words of truth a few days ago. But today several readers of this blog have been sending me positive messages which we need to remind ourselves.
This team is in a re-building mode and was never considered to beat such heavyweights as Atlanta, Phillies, Boston and the Yankees, this season. Alex A. made it very clear that 2012 was the year to compete.

They have over the last couple of seasons lost Halladay, Burnett, Marcum, Downs (and very surprising, Seattle closer with 20 saves Brandon League?). That is a lot of pitching quality. Every Jays fan would want those five back in the pitching staff, well maybe not Burnett. But buying in to “the plan”, their replacements are young, will be around for many years (barring injury) and three of the starting rotation are in Vegas or rehab half way through the season.

On the other side the hitters apart from Jose who is a league of his own and Lind, very little has been offered. Hill, Arencibia, Encarnacion, Rivera, Davis, Nix, Molina, Patterson, McDonald, McCoy is not a very intimidating line-up against any team.
They have lost against the worst, the Astros, they have been hammered by the best the Red Sox. They have been swept by the NL best Atlanta, and may well do so against the Phillies next weekend.

But it is definitely not all gloom. Brett Lawrie on the verge of making the team, Snider will be back, Bautista and Lind have given us lots of hope for the heart of the order. Escobar with his glove at least has been very good; his leadoff hitting has been suspect too many times. For me Rajai Davis is a key part of this team. We tend to forget that exciting period at the beginning of the season when it seemed that he was always on base, and stealing second and third. That was an exciting glimpse of the speed future of this team. Jays fans will love watching Anthony Gose when he arrives with his speed, Lawrie is a rocket. Cooper, Loewen, Thames and Heccaverria. The minor league teams for the Jays are full of great talent.

Cecil should be back soon, and amazingly we may yet see Dustin McGowan in Toronto this season even if it is September. Maybe Litsch and Drabek will get back and Villanueva can go back to long relief. Along with Lopez these two have been a positive pitching experience. Yes the gaps still remain in closer, but again Francisco recently has shown signs of showing why he was brought to Toronto. The bullpen for the most part has been excellent Apart from one stretch where they were clearly overworked because the starters could not give them a break. The last week has been a turnaround and the starters are all going deep which has given the bullpen a break. Now the hitting has gone south and with a vengeance but we know it will come back. Bautista home run yesterday, followed three hard hit balls to the track and walls. Lind has shown that he has his 2009 form despite his recent slump.

But for the others ??? 3 runs in the last 36 innings is really sad. Encarnacion, last night’s game had three opportunities at third base. Two of which he messed up. Hill, is totally confused out there, unable to get his pitch selection correct and going to the opposite field and centre and ignoring his strength to left.

Catching is another story, more than one correspondent has mentioned this. Two nights ago Zach Stewart throwing five consecutive fast balls to McCann before he hit the last one into right for two runs. This has to be Molina responsibility. Stewart is a rookie and needs Molina experience in calling the game.
Passed balls ad nauseam this season with both Arencibia and Molina guilty. Arencibia now his hitting has gone. He is unable as with Hill to and one of the biggest offenders with first pitch outs. He seemed to be adjusting a few weeks ago but has reverted to his early season confusion. We have to hope that he will make the adjustments and use this season to improve.

But many emailers are saying that the wild swinging at first pitches, poor pitch selection, and pitching, does not hurt as much as the lack of aggressive play by the Jays that they showed earlier in the season and made them so attractive to watch.

As long Jays fan Carole tells me “the Jays are boring to watch” right now and she has hit it on the head. So please Mr. Farrell, bring back that great aggressive play and please, please, please sit Edwin….. It is agony to watch him out there. The dropped pop up in the bullpen yesterday was capped by his request to get a bigger glove… Oh boy.

We know they are not going to win the World Series this season but you can make them attractive to watch. If the hitting goes south, improvise, and use that NL small ball approach you had earlier in the season.