Blue Jays Surprising With Offensive Outbursts
Looking at the AL standings this morning, only two things struck me as out of place. Seeing the Mariners in last is still a bit of a surprise, but one I’m growing accustomed to. The other, though, is seeing the Red Sox in fourth place. Heading into the season it looked like the AL East might host three of the best five teams in the league, if not the three best overall. Yet the Red Sox sit at .500, 3.5 games behind the third place Blue Jays. That, actually, makes three surprises.
I wasn’t the only person who thought that the Blue Jays would take their lumps this season. Their pitching became far weaker after trading Roy Halladay, and the main pitcher they received in return, Kyle Drabek, likely won’t be ready until next year at the earliest, and even then he’ll likely never reach Halladay’s status. Their offense also looked unimposing. Yet so far this season the Blue Jays have scored 5.17 runs per game, fourth in the AL. Their pitching staff has allowed 4.39 runs per game, a tick better than league average. These performances have propelled them to a 24-17 record, which is exactly in line with their Pythagorean mark.
The strangest aspect of the offensive explosion is where the Jays have received the production. Adam Lind has experienced a power outage, and has a .304 wOBA. Aaron Hill, who hit the DL after just two games, has barely hit since returning. Lyle Overbay, normally a solid contributor, hasn’t been driving the ball and has been largely unproductive. But still, the Blue Jays score. John Buck, Jose Bautista, and Alex Gonzalezhave essentially replaced the production, at least temporarily, that the team expected from Lind, Hill, and Overbay. Add in a Vernon Wells resurgence, and it’s a winning formula in the short-term.
In the long-term, the Jays will need Lind and Hill to start producing, since they can’t expect Buck, Bautista, and Gonzalez to maintain their current paces. Buck in particular has been the product of a hot May, in which he’s already produce a .513 wOBA. In April that was a more reasonable, for him, .320. The Alex Gonzalex honeymoon appears over after a wonderful April, in which he produced 6.4 wRAA on the strength of a .404 wOBA. In May he’s at -1.2 wRAA an a .305 wOBA, which is more reflective of his true talent.
What figures to hurt a lot is the absence of Travis Snider. After a slow start Snider has started to break out, posting a .477 wOBA in May before spraining his right wrist. That means certain playing time for Fred Lewis and Jose Bautista, both of whom are hot. Maybe Bautista is for real, too, as Dave examined earlier this week. It’s tough to say how well Snider will hit upon his return. His lack of experience in the league, combined with the power-sapping potential of a wrist injury, means they can’t expect he’ll continue his breakout. But maybe, as with the rest of the roster, they’ll receive an unexpected contribution from elsewhere. Just last night, for instance, Edwin Encarnacion, who swapped places with Snider on the DL, hit his second home run of the season. If he returns to his 2007 or 2008 production level, the Jays will more easily be able to weather the loss of Snider.
We’re only about a quarter of the way through the season, and plenty figures to change before we see Game 162. The Jays probably won’t stay in third place, as the top three in the AL East all feature better rosters. But given how well they’ve played this year, the Jays are one of the bigger surprises this year. Even when their best and most established hitters have slumped, others have produced in their steads. The first stage of the rebuilding plan, it seems, has gotten off on the right foot.
Joe also writes about the Yankees at River Ave. Blues.
Worth noting that the Blue Jays are 5-7 against the AL East (2-7 if you exclude Baltimore). They have fattened their record against the AL Central (11-5, mostly White Sox and Royals) and AL West (8-5). It does seem like they’ve had less success against some of the better teams in the AL.
If you’re going to note that, you might as well note that while they are 2-7 against Tampa and Boston, they’ve only lost 3 of them by more than 2 runs. They’re not as good as either team that’s for sure, but they’re staying more or less in there. Which is a moral victory for us Jays fans, kinda.
The same thing happened last year – they had an excellent start but their early season schedule was light on matchups against NYY, BOS, and TB. Their fortunes predictably turned when they got into the rougher part of their schedule.
Of course that’s not meant to detract from their nice start; I would rather see them go 23-16 in mostly winnable games against generally weaker competition than 13-26.
I wonder what will happen when we face better pitching, though. We’ve been taking big hacks at pitches out of the zone a lot and we’ve been fortunate to face a lot of pretty weak pitchers command-wise.
Shaun Marcum and Ricky Romero have been revelations. It’s a shame this team has to play in the AL East.
You know what I hate? When guys say, “but they haven’t played against the Yankees or Red Sox”. You know who else doesn’t, the AL West and AL Central and no one prefaces discussions of the Rangers with “they haven’t played against the yankees yet.”
Certainly, nobody prefaces the Yankees’ pitchers stat lines with, “But they haven’t pitched against Toronto’s murderer’s row yet.”
Can you have a “murderers row” with Lyle Overbay batting fifth? Although he *has* murdered lots of rallies and scoring opportunities this year…
Someone less interested in being defensive, and more interested in knowing what he was talking about, would realize that this is because the Rangers have 12 games remaining against those two teams. The Blue Jays have 30. You really don’t think that makes a difference?
Regardless of our competition so far as a Jays fan I am thrilled with the results so far… we are 5-1 vs Texas which is great… sure we are beating up on the other divisions but its what good teams do… Now if they can get Lind & Hill going to offset some regression from the “overachievers” and turn some of the AL East 1 run losses to wins then they might have a chance to continue to be a pleasant surprise this year
As a Torontonian, the Jays have opened up my eyes or at the very least, given me a set of bifocals. When examining hitters, I’ve almost always assumed that pitchers are perfect throwing machines. If a hitter is having trouble against low-and-outside fastballs, the pitcher will pound him with the low-and-outside fastball: situation solved.
The 2010 Blue Jays have taught me that even with glaring holes in your swing, you can just sit back and wait for a mistake that you’ll beat like a disobedient wife. If the pitcher throws perfect pitches for the entire AB, good for him; otherwise, it’s smash-kill time.
This is a team of frat-kids that’ll hit on anything and everything until they find success. They don’t care if they look like a fool getting shot down because when it’s bed-time, they’re not sleeping alone.
Interestingly, the road trip the Jays start tonight is the exact road trip where their season came off the rails last year–3 series, with a road interleague series in the middle.
I think it’s important to point out that the Jays (just) lead the AL in XFIP. If they keep that up until the end of the season it’ll be the 4th straight year they’ve done this. All the while dealing with serious injury problems to most of their young starters, losing Burnett and of course the god-king himself.
A critical factor going forward will be the starting pitching behind Marcum and Romero. If three of Morrow, Cecil, Eveland, Rzep, Litsch, Ray, Mills, Drabek and Stewart (mostly likely three of the first five names) can step up and pitch well, the team has a chance to do very well in 2010. Of course, their chances in the AL East are pretty slim, even if they keep playing .585 ball, but the team has been a lot of fun to watch.
Even though I don’t think this run will go on for much longer, as a Jays fan I must say that this is a pretty good start for a rebuild. It’s fun while it lasts.