Blue Jays' quest for cohesion thwarted with offensive skid on the road

New York Times

6 days ago

ARLINGTON, Texas — Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider has likened his team to a four-wheeled cart many times this season. When Schneider pulls out the metaphor, he mentions the cart's three round wheels before describing the fourth — a square. It's that one wheel that holds the entire operation back from really rolling.
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On the Blue Jays' six-game trip to Tampa Bay and Texas, the square wheel was obvious. As Toronto's pitching flourished, the Jays scored four total runs in five games before Wednesday's series finale against the Rangers, the team's fewest in a five-game stretch since 1990. The Blue Jays went 22 consecutive innings without pushing a runner across home and stranded 28-consecutive runners on base.
Bo Bichette found a way to push Toronto's cart to a victory in the Texas finale, launching a ninth-inning, pinch hit homer to lift the Jays to a 2-0 victory. It earned Toronto a series win, ending a trip that encapsulated the team's search for cohesion. Separately, the Blue Jays have flashed every piece of the winning puzzle. But if they really want to roll, it'll take all four wheels.
The Jays waited all month for the type of pitching they got in Tampa Bay and Texas. In five of the trip's six games, Blue Jays pitchers allowed three or fewer runs. Despite an evaporated offence, Toronto remained in every game late, except a scorching Sunday at George M. Steinbrenner Field.
'You give up two,' Schneider said. 'You got a chance to win, most nights.'
Kevin Gausman had his best start of the season in Monday's win in Texas and Bowden Francis followed it with his top outing a day later. With Paxton Schultz and Eric Lauer manning most of a bullpen game on Wednesday, the Blue Jays allowed just one hit. The collective brilliance came against a struggling Rangers lineup, but it was still the Blue Jays' best three-game pitching stretch all year.
In early May, Toronto's rotation insisted it must be better. The pitchers were the square wheel. Before the trip, the Blue Jays' 4.11 rotation ERA ranked 20th in baseball. Against the Rangers, Toronto's starters posted a 0.57 ERA.
'We have the ability to do that,' Schneider said. 'I think it's just a matter of putting it together a couple times through the rotation to kind of get them going a little bit.'
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But the Blue Jays' square wheel didn't go away with improved pitching. It just altered form. Toronto's offence averaged just one run a game on the trip. The Blue Jays went 4-of-45 with runners in scoring position across the six games. They left 48 runners on base. For a team that ranks 26th in homers, scratching those runs across is a prerequisite for sustained offence. If timely hits don't fall — and you're not hitting homers — teams get lengthy scoreless stretches.
'When teams are not scoring runs, it becomes a thing,' Bichette said. 'It's a thing, trying to get runs across, and the more you don't, it becomes bigger.'
In the Blue Jays' final three games before the trip south, they outscored the San Diego Padres 24 to 6 in a sweep. It was a brief look at the cohesion Toronto lacked — for a series, all four wheels were circles. Then, the square anchor reappeared.
At different times, even just this month, the Blue Jays have had every element of a real postseason contender. In the first two weeks of May, the Blue Jays scored the eighth-most runs in baseball with the fifth-best OPS. In the last two weeks, Toronto has had the league's fourth-best ERA. It just hasn't come at the same time.
It'll probably take a belt sander, but if the Blue Jays want to rattle off wins, they have to find a way to circle that square wheel.
(Photo of Bo Bichette hitting a two-run pinch hit home run in the ninth inning against the Rangers: Kevin Jairaj / Imagn Images)