This Week in Blue Jays: “It’s Early” Works Both Ways

Regardless of whether or not you subscribe to the “it’s early” mantra that so many hopeful fans evoke when their team begins a season below expectations, there is likely little dissent amongst Blue Jays fans that the first fifty games have, as a whole, been both disappointing and frustrating.  With memories of bat flips all but faded and an objectively much deeper team to start this season compared to last, the Jays – last season’s best offense in baseball by a longshot – began the season with an 11-14 (.440) record in April and have hovered all season around the .500 mark due to an anemic offense and unreliable bullpen, prompting media hits and call-in shows to discuss how the Jays might proceed should they be out of the race a month from now, most of which centres around trading pending free agents Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista for prospects with an eye towards rebuilding. Such was the conversation just two weeks ago after the Jays had lost five straight.

What a difference a few weeks makes.

The Blue Jays returned home Friday after a very successful 5-2 road trip that included taking two of three from the Yankees in New York – a feat that has proved difficult in the past. They are in the midst of a twelve-game stretch against division rivals that may set the table with respect to the decisions that are made in the near future. With their win against the division-leading Boston Red Sox on Friday night – their fiftieth game of the season – the Jays once again found themselves at the .500 mark and had landed in third place, five games back of the Sox. For their part, the Red Sox have begun their 2016 campaign with a 29-20 record and will finish their first fifty games with a winning percentage close to, if not at, .600.

The beautiful thing about the fiftieth game mark of a baseball season is that it is simultaneously early and not early. The latter refers to the fact that 50 games is enough of a sample size to begin evaluating and addressing a team’s needs, likely not via trade, but through other changes such as line-up shake-ups and Triple-A call-ups. The former, however, is the reason why a team such as the Blue Jays and its fans still have so much to look forward to: with two-thirds of the season remaining, literally anything can happen. The fate of the season rests not only with how the Jays respond the rest of their season (they are currently riding a four-game win streak and have won seven of their last ten), but also how other teams fare.

This very issue was addressed by Steven Goldman in Vice Sports this past week when he wrote that “even in May, and even for teams that race out to hot starts, it is indeed later than it seems. Every club comes down to earth in some fashion, even ones playing at a historic pace.” While many teams appear destined for the post-season in May, a hot start can quickly turn cold despite the summer weather. The 2002 Red Sox began their season at a scorching hot .700 win percentage, going 35-15 through May only to play 58-54 the remainder of the season, finishing second to the Yankees who posted a .626 win percentage over the same period.

The Minnesota Twins went 34-16 to begin their 2001 season, yet were surpassed by the Cleveland Indians after winning just 51 of their remaining 110 games. Some of this downfall can be attributed to what Goldman refers to as “standard baseball entropy”, such as the injuries that inevitably accumulate over the course of a season, or a key player on a tear eventually coming back down to earth. In other cases, teams simply fall apart because their early success blinds them with respect to their inherent weaknesses that inevitably go unaddressed and ultimately lead to the team’s demise.

We have already begun to see the toll that a baseball season can take on a team. The reigning World Series champions have lost third baseman Mike Moustakas for the season with a torn ACL, while the Baltimore Orioles, who led the AL East until recently, were swept by the Houston Astros in historic fashion, racking up more strike outs in a three-game series than any other team in history. Then, of course, there are the Red Sox, who have an elite offense but less-than-reliable pitching despite having added David Price to their rotation, which has the ninth highest ERA (4.70) in the league. The past two games have demonstrated that, although they may score a ton of runs, they are vulnerable to poor pitching performances and defensive miscues.

The flip side of the coin is that teams with lackluster starts can, assuming they have the necessary talent, at any point make a run for it. The 2003 Florida Marlins began the season 40-41 and were 12 games back of the Atlanta Braves before going on a 51-30 tear to claim the National League wild card spot and, ultimately, went on to win the World Series.  The 2010 Atlanta Braves stumbled out of the gate with a 9-14 April record only to finish the season 91-71, good enough for the NL wild card. And while this and other similar feats stand out as an anomalies, they serve as a reminder that there is more than enough baseball left to play for the Jays to get right back in it.

While playoff odds mean next to nothing at this point, the Jays have the second-highest percent chance of making the playoffs according to Baseball Prospectus (39.7% – up 11.3% over a week ago) with an expected win percentage of .517, which means they need to go 58-51 the remainder of the season. Given the strength of their lineup that has finally begun to show signs of life, the exceptional pitching of their starting rotation (who have pitched more innings than any rotation in baseball and have the fifth lowest ERA), and the fact that Roberto Osuna is one of the best closers in baseball (he’s top 10 in WAR amongst relievers), there is no compelling reason why the Jays can’t play .532 ball the rest of the way.

For their part, the Jays are committed to their brand of unabashed baseball. In his piece for USA Today Sports, Bob Nightengale declared the Blue Jays the “bad boys of baseball – loud, emotional, passionate and really not giving a damn what you think of them.” While R.A. Dickey notes that “the only problem with passion is that it can work the other way, too” when a struggling team becomes too hard on itself, for this particular team, it is a part of their identity. Marcus Stroman says that the team has “kind of embodied the whole Toronto mantra, that it’s Toronto against the world in all sports….We’re not scared. We’re not worried. We know what we’re capable of. We’re just going to keep being ourselves. Hopefully the tide will turn shortly for us.”

It’s only been two weeks, but the tide is showing signs of turning. And, if there is any team that knows what it means come from behind in the standings to make the playoffs, it’s this team.

Quick Hits:

• About an hour prior to the Jays’ matinee against the Red Sox on Saturday it was announced that short-stop Troy Tulowitzki had been placed on the 15-day disabled list with a right quadriceps strain. The injury was suffered Tuesday while stealing second base against the Yankees and subsequently missed the next two games. He was back in the lineup Friday night (a game in which he went 0-4 at the plate with an error in the field) but tweaked the quad and underwent an MRI Saturday morning, revealing a low-grade strain. His spot on the roster was filled with the return of reliever Aaron Loup, who will provide John Gibbons with a much-needed lefty option out of the bullpen.
• Major League Baseball heard Jose Bautista’s appeal of his one-game suspension on Thursday and announced Friday that they were upholding their decision. One wonders what exactly it was that he was suspended for – his hard slide into second is governed by its own rule, and regardless of what his intent may have been, he was not the one who threw a punch.
• And, finally. After watching Devon Travis walk-off the Boston Red Sox in the Jays’ epic 10-9 victory on Saturday, it’s difficult to believe that at one point during his recovery from shoulder surgery he seriously wondered if he would ever be able to swing the bat again. Travis was called up from his rehab stint in Buffalo a week ahead of schedule due to Tulo’s quad injury, and since his return,  the Jays have won four straight. Perhaps he’s the spark that was needed to ignite this offense. If true, look out.

Lead Photo: Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports