Suckage in other T-towns

Well, that sure didn’t end well.

When the Jays won the first game in Tampa, it felt like their fortunes might have turned, at least a little when playing at The Trop.

Yeah, not so much.

Then, there was Texas. It wasn’t pretty. Our offense started to look good, especially Colby Rasmus who seems to be coming around (yay!). On Friday and Saturday, it felt like the guys just couldn’t seem to catch a break and have one or two of the hard hit balls drop.

Sunday dawned with what looked like a decent chance for the Jays to avoid being swept. Shaking off what I’m sure was a disheartening loss the day before, the team seemed prepared to leave the Lone Star State on a winning note.  Then, the bottom fell out of the pitching.

I’m a firm believe that over the course of a season, hitting, pitching and defense will ebb and flow. They’ll be peaks and valleys, but the key is to keep either from being too great; in other words, consistency. Over 162 games, it’s irresponsible to believe that a pitcher, batter or defense isn’t going to have a bad game. What you can hope/plan for is for them not to have a bad game at the same time, and prepare for the other aspects of the game to support the one that’s sucking.

We saw that at the start of the season as the pitching carried the lack of offense. Now, the tide is turning back to other way. I don’t think anyone who has watched Morrow since he came to Toronto would have believed Friday was possible. But, anything’s possible especially in baseball.

Sometimes there are holes that are too deep to get out of in a particular game, even with the support of great pitching, hitting or defense. That’s what we saw Friday and the later innings on Sunday. Saturday was the abnormal game of the Texas series as the pitching was somewhat there. Alvarez wasn’t on his "A" game, but he was keeping the Jays in the game until being ejected on a bad call. I think the fact that the Jays kept it close for so long and the bullpen left so many Rangers stranded in the later innings shows the team’s resilience. Same with pulling to within 6 runs by the end of the game on Sunday.

Resilience is a strong factor for this Jays team. In part, I think it’s because they know they’re young and might still experience some growing pains. It’s also because they know how tough their division is. Luckily, we’re early enough in the season when resilience is still relevant and can be a silver lining to losing. There comes a point though, possibly as early as the All-Star Break, where cheering for the resilience of a team in frequent close/tough loses isn’t as comforting any more, even for us die-hards.

The team needs to shake it off and leave it that other time zone where it belongs. They’ve got a touch stretch against Baltimore and Boston this week. Congrats to Adam Jones for signing his contract today; well-deserved. He might play against us, but I’ve always enjoyed watching him play.

Real quick, something else the team needs to shake off is the latest additions to the Jays & umpires saga. Lots, and I mean LOTS, has been said/written/tweeted/blogged about this particular season story so far. All I’ll say is the guys need to take a deep breath and suck it up. I know it’s not easy, especially when in the heat of the moment, but it’ll go a long way to bringing back a professional rep with umpires, instead of the possibly uncomplimentary one the team has now.

Enjoy the week to come Jays' fans. I’ll be at the Dome 5/6 games this week. Excited doesn’t cover it.

JaysGirl5

P.S. Total ROCK ON to JP Arrencibia for becoming to the first Jays’ catcher to be name AL Player of the Week. He had a rockin’ couple of games at the plate last week, and truly deserved the honour. Go JPArriba!

One down, five to go…minus six days.

We are officially a whole month and six days removed from that Holy day known as Opening. And, as usual, I don’t think anyone would have been able to predict what has and hasn’t gone on in that time. (A healthy Pujols  needing  a month to hit a homerun? Really?) But such is the glory and beauty of baseball, as many, many lifelong lovers and observers will tell you.

From this blog’s beginning, I’ve been hesitant when dealing with expectations or potential, mainly because baseball is played by human beings. We’re not perfect, we don’t perform as expected or up to any perceived potential all the time.

Over a six month season, averages and histories may win out; things may level out after a while. Do I think the Orioles are going to win the AL East this year? Probably not, but there’s no real way to tell. There is never a way to tell what is going to happen on any given day of the baseball season, let alone multiple months from now.

It’s been interesting so far this season to see the reaction to the Jays. Our offense and the re-vamped bullpen were supposed to be the highlights that  help support our rotation as they learned and succeeded on the job. At least, that’s what it looked like on paper, right? Well, looks good on paper hardly ever looks good in person.

Over the first 32 games this season, the general impression I’ve gotten from a loud part of the Jays’ fan base is that Lind needs to be gone all together; Bautista has lost “it”; our bullpen is going to give someone a heart attack; Arencibia’s just a placeholder; and, Encarnacion is awesome. (As a side, I’ve leaned towards that last one since EE came to town.)

By no means do I think those opinions are indicative of what the whole fan base thinks, but they are by far the loudest impressions out there from fans about the state of the franchise and the possibility of playoffs in 2012 for the hometown team. Somehow, the main thing that seems to get lost here is that even if the more negative statements above have even a shred of truth, we’re still not out of the playoff hunt; no team has yet to run away with our or any other division. We’re not the only team that’s struggling one way or another, or the only team with a big bat that has yet to be sizeable this season.

The proverbial sky has not and is not fallen/ing. To a man I’m sure the Jays probably haven’t performed the way they would have liked to this point, but all hope for the post-season is not lost. We are still in the running; we still have the chance to challenge the top spot(s) in the AL East.

You know the old adage “You can’t win the division in April, but you can lose it”? There’s a reason the saying has stuck around.

With that in mind Jays fans, take heart. Maybe the team hasn’t performed to expectation or their “potential”, but they’re still finding ways to win. Do I think Lind, Bautista and Arencibia are going to start hitting? Yes, they’re too good not to. But I also know it might not necessarily be what we’ve come to expect from past performance, either good or bad. Great part of baseball – tomorrow is a new day, and you never know what can happen.

Enjoy the ride fellow fans, as I have a feeling it’s going to be pretty crazy.

JaysGirl5