Sportsnet 590 the FAN’s Mike Wilner sat down to answer all your most burning Toronto Blue Jays questions.
Below is a selection of some of the questions Wilner answered. Check back tomorrow for Part 2 of the FAQ.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS TEAM?
You may not want to hear this, but the truth is that the Blue Jays just had a bad week, and that’s all it was. After starting their road trip by winning two out of three in Baltimore, knocking the Orioles to four games out of first place, the Jays went down to St. Petersburg and stubbed their toe pretty hard before going up to New York and getting swept by the Yankees. The end result was a 3-6 road trip and a 1-5 September so far, which is pretty terrible.
But it really just was a bad week. In the five losses, the Blue Jays had two ferocious ninth-inning comebacks that fell just short, scored first in every game but one and only once trailed by more than two runs going into the eighth inning. The frustration is that much deeper because it feels like they should have won at least three or four of those games.
And I think that’s a big part of the frustration of the season in general. It’s been a great year for the Blue Jays – they have the fourth-best record in the league, they’re a game out of first place and, until very recently, they were leading the league in ERA (now second) and ranked second in the league in runs scored (now fourth – seven runs behind second-place Texas). It honestly has felt like pretty much every game they’ve played this season has been winnable. They’ve lost 23 times by one run and only 12 by five or more. When you feel as though winnable games are constantly slipping away, it’s easy to forget the fact that this is still one of the best teams in the majors.
But again, they’ve just had a bad week. Losing five out of their past six doesn’t mean any more than the fact that they won five out of the six games before that, except that it means they’re 1-5 in their last six, but 6-6 over their past dozen games.
Would a better road trip have been helpful? You bet. The Boston Red Sox gained three games on them in the standings and the Orioles picked up two, even though the Jays took two out of three in Baltimore to start the trip. But the old (and true) adage is that a team is never as good as it looks when it’s going well and never as bad as it looks when it’s going poorly.
If they come home and get beat up on the weekend by the Red Sox, that’s a problem. But there’s no reason to believe they won’t snap out of it and get things going again. The Blue Jays have had a couple of rough runs this season before this. There was a four-game losing streak in April that they came out of by going 6-3 in their next nine, a five-game losing streak in May that was followed immediately by a 20-8 run, and a 2-6 slump in June after which they went 9-2.
WHY DON’T THEY BUNT MORE?
Because sacrifice bunting is generally a bad idea, as far as helping win games. It’s been proven over the years that a team has a better chance of scoring more runs with a runner on first base and nobody out than it does with a runner on second base and one out. Run expectancy is also lower with men on second and third and one out than it is with runners on first and second and nobody out. So in general, by asking a hitter to get out on purpose in order to move a runner or runners up 90 feet, you’re reducing your chances of scoring.
Although, to be fair, bunting runners over from first and second with none out to second and third does increase your chances of scoring one run. So if you need one run, it’s not the worst idea in the world to have a poor hitter lay down a sacrifice bunt, since the odds are that a poor hitter is not likely to accomplish something positive by swinging away.
Asking a good hitter to sacrifice is never a good idea. There are so many ways to move runners over with a productive out while also trying to get a hit that a player like, say, Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion, Jose Bautista, Troy Tulowitzki, Devon Travis or Russell Martin (if his knee wasn’t hurting) should never ever be asked to sacrifice.
In Wednesday’s 2-0 loss to the Yankees, there was a great debate as to whether Travis should have sacrificed when he came up to bat with runners at first and second and none out in the third inning of a 0-0 game. The debate happened, I believe, for many reasons. A great portion of the fan base loves the idea of the sacrifice bunt, for one thing. For another, it feels as though by doing that instead of letting the hitter swing away, the team is “doing something” to try to win. For yet another reason, there was the thought that with the hitters slumping, it was time to try something new.
But asking your leadoff man, your best hitter for average, your hitter most likely to use the whole field, to get out on purpose in the third inning might be the worst idea of all-time. In a 0-0 game, you take the bat out of the hands of one of your better hitters and drastically reduce your chances of having a big inning with the meat of your order coming up, in order to marginally increase your chances of scoring one run. One run. In the third inning. After scoring first in seven straight games and losing five of them.
Yes, Travis wound up hitting into a double play (for the fifth time in 320 at-bats) and the Blue Jays wound up getting shut out, with only three hits from that point on, but it might be the falsest of false dichotomies to suggest that the likely result in that plate appearance, with no sac bunt, was a double play.
One thing, too, that’s often forgotten in the sac bunt debate is that a successful sacrifice is far from guaranteed. How many times have we seen players bunt the ball too hard, resulting in the lead runner getting thrown out or even bunt into a double play? Or a hitter popping up a bunt? Or fouling it off? Or bunting through a couple of pitches, winding up in an 0-2 hole and striking out meekly? Asking a hitter to sacrifice bunt does not assure that a bunt will be put down successfully, and even if it is, it reduces your chances of scoring runs and, therefore, of winning games.
BUT SMALL BALL WINS GAMES!
Of the top seven teams in home runs in the American League, four are currently in a playoff spot and another one is only one game out. Only one is under .500.
BUT SMALL BALL WINS GAMES IN THE PLAYOFFS!
In the 2015 American League Championship Series, the Kansas City Royals hit more home runs than the Blue Jays, stole fewer bases and did not lay down a single sacrifice bunt.