Rosie DiManno: The Blue Jays know what went wrong this season, and how lucky they still are - Toronto Star
It’s crazy that the Jays are still in contention when you look at the numbers and missed opportunities.
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. reviews video of an at-bat between innings of Friday night’s Blue Jays loss to the Baltimore Orioles at the Rogers Centre.
Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno.
It will be an edge-of-your-seat roustabout to the end of the regular season for the Blue Jays.
At least, that’s just about the best-case scenario for this moody, broody, blowing hot-and-cold outfit. Fate possibly not determined until a climatic close-out series against the insignificant Cincinnati Reds two weeks hence.
That’s actually baseball at its most heart-racing. After a syncopation year for Toronto that has played out in a rhythm of downbeat, upbeat and offbeat. Definitely downbeat and off-putting — as in offed 7-4 by the Baltimore Orioles on Friday night at the Rogers Centre.
Another shabby effort, primarily off the mound from starter Max Scherzer, and Toronto’s fourth loss in five games. Which isn’t exactly cooking with Crisco amidst a potential flame-out for a playoff wild card.
Futile looking backward to a past that’s come and gone. But man, so many games and series that jump out in retrospect as the one that got away, that could end up costing everything. In fact, look in the rear-view mirror no farther than this week and a mess of a pas de deux with the woebegone A’s.
“A couple of series that hurt — the White Sox coming off the all-star break,” muses Spencer Miles. Launched that series in Toronto with a 12-4 loss and Miles, as quasi-opener (four innings), ate the L. “You can’t focus too much on that,” he continues. “You’ve got to do your best to stay in the present.”
A present featuring Baltimore (six times the Jays will see them in under a fortnight) and no adversary with a record above .500 across their concluding games. Of course the Jays aren’t above .500, either, again doing a backward somersault when attaining that watermark. Their record against sub-.500 teams is nothing to write home about: 37-31 heading into Friday evening. Inducing, for fans anyway, a kind of exquisite stress.
Revisiting Wednesday’s listless 2-0 defeat in Sacramento, Miles gives it a serious think: “I try to view it in the light of, it’s just a game. Obviously it’s everyone’s livelihood in here and it’s more than a game, but at the end of the day you’re just a big boy playing a kid’s game.”
Pitcher and reporter blink at each other. Isn’t there an echo of a famous line in there somewhere? Miles lands on it first: “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” The Julia Roberts character to the Hugh Grant character in the movie “Notting Hill.”
Of course there must still be laughter and clubhouse nonsense, particular with the Jays in a four-way wrangle for that final wild card. But flipping through the pages of my BBWAA score book, too many smack-your-head occasions: That Chicago series, losing two out of three to those same White Sox in April (Jeff Hoffman’s blown save No. 2), swept in Tampa in May, walking 11 Orioles later that month in a 6-5 defeat at Camden Yards, blown save by Connor Seabold (who?) in a season where Toronto has cartwheeled through 38 pitchers, not counting outfielder Myles Straw and departed catcher Tyler Heineman, sent to the mound with a blindfold and a cigarette.
Swept in Atlanta. Swept by the Rangers in Toronto. Texas a game behind Toronto, Toronto a game behind Cleveland in the wild-card tortoise race at first pitch. Andrés Giménez’s wasted home run to tie the A’s 5-5 in the top of the ninth Monday, only to have bulwark Louis Varland, he of just one blown save, lose it in the ninth.
“What’s the point of looking back?” Varland asked rhetorically. “Can’t change it, not in sports and not in life.”
George Springer: “Obviously we would want to be in a much different situation, but at the end of the day you’re playing meaningful games in September, and that’s all you could want.”
Well, no. Meaningless games in September with playoffs assured would be preferable.
Manager John Schneider repines over games and series that got away: “I do that a lot sitting at home. A couple of games in Chicago, a couple of games here against Houston … So much has happened to get us arriving here. You just focus on that. Focus on being a little bit fortunate with what our record is, and the fact that the league is where it is right now, too.”
A shocking amount of crappy baseball in the American League, he means, which has kept Toronto bobbing up along the other wild-card corks. Strafed by injuries to their starter cadre, down to just three healthy arms — although Trey Yesavage threw a two-up Thursday: 30 pitches, 93-m.p.h. fastball. Meanwhile, Shane Bieber will likely throw off the mound during this homestand.
Gosh, even Anthony Santander was playing in the Triple-A outfield Friday. “Well rested,” smiled Schneider with just a hint of snark.
Really, it’s crazy that the Jays are still in contention after hitting into 110 double plays heading into Friday, 28th in home runs, 29th in RBIs, 29th in runs, 27th in OPS.
Toronto did part company with error-prone outfielder Jesús Sánchez, which is to say they threw in the towel, exiting stage DFA.
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Opinion articles are based on the author’s interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
Rosie DiManno is a Toronto-based columnist covering sports and current affairs for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: @rdimanno.
