MLB: Toronto Blue Jays at New York Yankees

How to Lose First Place in the AL East in 12 Days

Have you watched the Blue Jays play baseball recently? If so, you’ve probably had this uncontrollable desire to pick up whatever electronic device you were watching them on and throw it against something hard. On September 1st, the Blue Jays held a two game lead over the second place Boston Red Sox. Today it’s September 13th, and they find themselves two games back of those same Red Sox, current occupiers of first place in the American League East.

Not only do they have to contend with the Red Sox, but the Baltimore Orioles are just 1.0 game back from Toronto, and the Yankees, who were 6.5 games behind the Jays on September 1st, are now just 3.0 games behind them. Needless to say, it’s hasn’t been pretty in September. While generalizing a bit, the entire team is basically playing at their worst, and suddenly the Blue Jays are on the outside looking in. What happened? Let’s dissect it.

Pitching

The Blue Jays have played in three series in September, all against AL East opponents. They have lost all three, winning just two games in the process. They have scored 36 runs in the nine games they have played, but have given up 58. In July, when the team had their best nine game stretch of this season, going 8-1, they only allowed 22 runs. There are all types of statistics one can point to that demonstrate how awful the pitching has been, but one number that truly stuck out to me was the staff’s HR% on “soft” pitches in this nine game stretch. Defined as change ups, curves, sliders, and splitters, the Blue Jays pitchers have been giving up a home run on 3.5% of their soft pitches in 2016. In this nine game stretch, that number was 245% of the original, at 8.6% of soft pitches thrown.

As one would expect, the Blue Jays pitchers have also been worse at keeping runners off base via the walk during this streak, albeit at not such an extreme rate. Throughout the season, they have been walking batters at a rate of 7.4%, and during this streak, that number has risen to 8.1%, or a 0.7 percentage point increase. If you’re thinking, “Well, that doesn’t seem so bad”, you’re exactly right. It isn’t so bad. Which leads into the next point, of…

Defense

Everybody knows the Blue Jays are supposed to be amazing on the field, right? With Russell Martin, Troy Tulowitzki, Kevin Pillar, and Josh Donaldson leading the way, the Blue Jays saved a whopping 42 runs from being scored from game one in April until the end of August, which was good enough for fourth in all of Major League Baseball. That goes a long way in helping out a starting rotation that features a couple of extreme flyball pitchers, a couple of extreme groundball pitchers, and a knuckleballer. But, suddenly, the calendar turned to September, and whether it’s been fatigue, added pressure, or just bad luck, the Blue Jays are no longer fielding.

In just nine games this month, the Blue Jays defense has cost their pitchers 12 runs, after saving them 42 over the course of the first five months of the season! In less than two weeks, the Blue Jays have given back almost one third of the runs they had saved since April. That’s legitimately shocking.

A major factor in pitcher BABIP is the defense behind them every game. Over the course of the season, Blue Jays pitchers had a BABIP of .287. In the nine games during the month of September? It’s .330! A .043 point swing in BABIP! Blue Jays pitchers have allowed 215 balls in play in these nine games. 33% of 215 is 71 hits. 28.7% of 215 is 62. One extra baserunner per game has been allowed during this streak, likely because of their defense. That doesn’t seem like much, but combine that with the 15 home runs the staff has surrendered, and the 58 runs allowed doesn’t seem too ludicrous after all.

Offense

Edwin Encarnacion, Troy Tulowitzki, and Devon Travis have been tearing the cover off of the ball in September. Unfortunately, they are the only Jays hitters to do so. Russ Martin is batting .125.  Josh Donaldson, the man who is supposed to be solidifying his MVP case right now, is slashing .097/.300/.129. Michael Saunders has four hits this month. Kevin Pillar, aside from his newfound ability to walk, has been as lacklustre as usual, with a .653 OPS. This is not a recipe for success.

The Blue Jays have sat near the bottom of the league in batting average for the entire season. That isn’t their game. They don’t get a lot of hits. However, what has been their redeeming factor is that they always slug the ball well. It doesn’t matter if you get a lot of hits, as long as you make the hits you are able to get count. That has changed this month. They have slugged .320 this month, compared to .440 the rest of the season. What has caused this? From April through the end of August, the Blue Jays hit .165 on balls hit “well”. In September, that’s at .083. That points to some bad luck coming the Blue Jays way.

In conclusion, the Blue Jays have really done nothing well in the month of September so far. That, combined with bad luck, has resulted in a 2-7 start to the month. The Blue Jays aren’t this bad. They aren’t as good as the team that went 8-1 in a nine game period in July, either. There’s always a happy medium. Now, the Blue Jays just need to find that, and fast, before the two game hole that they dug themselves over the last 10 or so days becomes something bigger and less surmountable.

All Stats Accurate As of September 11th

Lead Photo: Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports

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