Blue Jays are in the dirt

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Earlier, I spoke about Canada’s basketball team, the Toronto Raptors, but now I will be talking to you about Canada’s baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays. I have been a Blue Jays ever since I could remember, mainly since both of my parents were born there and would live there for the majority of their life, so I have always had a soft spot for Toronto sports teams, especially the Blue Jays. From Jose Bautista’s amazing bat flip after smashing a home run in the playoffs, or seeing Edwin Encarccion circle the bases with his patented ed-wing celebration, I was there for it all and breathed the Blue Jays.

During the offseason, we let some people go and I wondered how we would do without them. If you are a Blue Jays fan like myself, then you were probably sad to see the departure of both Matt Chapman and Jordan Hicks, as they suited up and went over to California to both play with the San Francisco Giants. Those losses hurt a big team, I won’t lie, but we also added some gritty veterans to the squad, in former World Series Champion Justin Turner, who I assumed would be a great addition, despite his age. The same goes with the addition of another veteran, Joey Votto from the Reds, who once made some hateful comments on Canadian baseball.

“I don’t care almost at all about Canadian baseball, I wasn’t raised inside of Canadian baseball really. I’m coming up on half of my life being in the United States working and being supported by American baseball. As far as Toronto, and Canadian baseball, and the country of Canada… I don’t care at all. The Jays, or Canada in general, may disagree with that, but I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass about that.” said Former National League MVP Joey Votto. He would go on to apologize for those comments, but it made me really question the decision to sign him after all that.

Toronto Blue Jays fans have been in utter disbelief with how big of a let down the season has been so far, and the reason I started this story with telling you about the offseason, is because that is where the downfall of disappointment began. The Blue Jays were a consensus top ten team throughout the league before the season began, and the standard for Toronto was set. The offseason is when the true struggles began, as the Blue Jays were rumoured to be targeting the Japanese baseball star, Shohei Ohtani, but the Blue Jays would fall short of a deal, and that was the theme of the offseason. You think they would be able to land some big names, but they were only able to grab Turner and Votto, the two veterans. The Blue Jays had fallen flat on their face, after every deal negotiation would dissolve, things were not looking good.

The club is basically running it back with the same roster as last year, which got them all the way to the wild card series, but they unfortunately fell short if you didn’t know. That is nothing new to Toronto at all though, as they have been swept in the last three of four wild card appearances, with the Blue Jays not having a playoff win under their belt since 2016. Change was needed, but excitement was in store, said Blue Jays manager John Schneider. “The mindset is just more excitement, excitement for guys to get back to their norms a little bit offensively. Excitement for the pitching staff to do what they’ve done and find out ways to get better.” said Schneider 

Now getting into the season, let me just tell you how in the dirt the Toronto Blue Jays really are, and it is really bad… like real bad. This is one of the worst offensive starts the team has seen, ever, as they were only averaging 3.8 runs a game through their first five games, and if you aren’t a baseball fan, let me just let you know how abysmal that is. We have a team full of power hitting batters but all the Blue Jays find themself doing is swinging and missing. Don’t be shocked that with this start, it is the sixth fewest runs scored in the first 25 games, in franchise history, yikes. The same story repeats itself, as if you didn’t know, back in 2022, the same stat was recorded and h=it ended up with former manager, Charlie Montoyo, being fired. So let’s just hope that the same thing doesn’t happen to my boy John Schneider as he is the last to blame with the team’s performance. The team did go on to make the wild card series that year thanks to Interim Manager John Schneider who turned the team around. Even in a recent game versus the Royals, the Blue Jays had seven chances to score with many on base, and were not able to even send one run into home plate, now you don’t have to know baseball to know how bad that is.

The bullpen has been actually doing pretty well this season, despite the departures of fan favourites, Jordan Hicks and Hyun Jin Ryu, who were two diamonds on the mound for us last season. With those departures, the Blue Jays didn’t bounce back by signing or trading for a talented pitcher whatsoever, leaving us with the same bullpen as last year just with two less stars. Behind starting pitcher Jose Berrios, the squad has  been able to get it done pitching wise at times, as on the season they currently hold an average 4.30 ERA which is so bad that it is the 22nd worst in the league but doesn’t reflect the Blue Jays bullpen at all. Star pitcher, Chris Bassitt came out of the gates slow but has been slowly able to pick it up during his third start of the season, but he still takes accountability for his teams and his own performance.

“To be honest with you, I’ve been pretty disappointed in our starters so far. Obviously, this is my third start and two of my starts were terrible, in my opinion. I’m no help to the problem.The biggest thing for us is getting our starters going. I’m so confident in all the guys we have. The first 10-11 games have been pretty rough for us outside of Berrios.” said Bassitt.

The Toronto Blue Jays have been having a less than ideal start, but the season is nowhere near over. Star batters, Vladdy and Bo Bichette have not been successful though lately, as they are both swinging under .300 which you don’t typically see from those all star calibre players. The young duo combined for five total all star game nods, but with how they are playing this season, I don’t expect it at all. The only Blue Jays player I can see maybe getting the nod is Jose Berrios who has truly been carrying us hard with dominant outings on the mound, and even Justin Turner has been a great acquisition, as he has the highest batting average on the team with .306 and also leads the crew with his on base percentage, with .390. Give the Blue Jays some time and some better training and they could easily turn their boat around with the talented roster they hold.

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