Well, that sure didn’t end well.
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!
