Losing Royals series emphasizes Blue Jays problems

Leading by example is not good when performance is bad

The confident Blue Jays flew into Kansas City on Sunday, after winning 2-of-3 in San Diego. They then proceeded to win the first of a four-game set at Kauffman Stadium on Monday, moving three games over .500 and on a three-win streak. Even better, they had two aces, Kevin Gausman and Jose Berrios, plus impressive Cuban rookie, Yariel Rodriguez primed and ready to take the hill for the next three games. But, ahh, the best laid plans… So, what happened?

The Jays lost all three games to the Royals, all by one-run, which could have meant they were either tremendously competitive but unlucky in glove, or else they simply squandered three chances for victory and had nothing to show, exposing some hidden flaws and weaknesses. Now they come home to face the surging Dodgers for three and then another shot at the Royals for three. Here are the gory details of the three jarring losses in Missouri.

April 23, L 2-3 WP-Stratton LP-Gausman: The Jays’ ace, Gausman, who missed most of spring training but is re-finding his groove after a late start, cruised into the bottom of the fifth, with a 2-0 lead when disaster struck. With a runner on second and two out, Kyle Isbel bounced a ball to the left of Isiah Kiner-Falefa. The third-baseman glided over, gloved it and made a clean throw that Vlad Guerrero Jr deflected to the box seats and the inning continued with one run in and a frustrated Gausman back to the top of the order.

Guerrero has had so many similar problems at first-base that the question always asked is, “Did that go through the webbing?’ But in this case, it was simply a whiff helped by the fact that he often stretches to meet the throw too early and if the toss is slightly off line then it can flummox the former Gold Glover. Rawlings is thinking of sending tape to cover their logo.

Back at the top of the Royals order, Mikael Garcia singled and Bobby Witt Jr. pulled a hard groundball double down the line for two runs and the lead.

Sure, you can always say that even after the error Gausman should have been able to escape with his 2-1 lead, but Witt Jr is an MVP candidate and he came through. Meanwhile, Vlad’s tough year at the plate continued as he was 0-for-5 with two Ks and a grounded-into-DP.

April 24, L 2-3 WP: Schreiber LP: Y-Rodriguez: The free-agent Cuban righthander, Y-Rod was making his third start and remains impressive even as he is being managed carefully with an innings and pitch limit for the year, in consideration of his year off from pro leagues.

The question, maybe in hindsight, yeah definitely in hindsight, is “why was Addison Barger starting the game in left field?” In the second inning, with two outs and Isbel hitting, the Royals centre fielder launched a high drive to left that landed on the warning track. Barger’s route took him towards left-centre, then corrected him back towards the track, looking over his head and then turning around the other way as the ball sliced away. He fielded it, high hop, off the wall, dropped it. Isbel reached third on a double and error, scoring on a Garcia single.

This lends itself to more question marks than the Mysterions. Should Barger have been starting in left. He had never played left field in his pro career and, in fact, had only been moved to the outfield during the 2023 season, splitting time at third base. Yes, centre fielder Kevin Kiermaier was just been placed on the IL (left hip flexor inflammation) and Daulton Varsho is acknowledged as his primary replacement. But if you are going to start the 24-year-old Barger, maybe his MLB debut should have been in right field, with Varsho staying in left and George Springer moving to centre field, a position at which he has played 976 major-league games. In Game 1 of the Dodgers series, Barger handles left field once again.  

Should Barger have been playing on Wednesday, at all, after being notified in Buffalo the night before, basically breaking back into Sahlen Field after everyone had gone home, to pack his own equipment, then catching an early morning flight to Kansas City, operating on what he estimated as 20-minutes of sleep. In the past, the Jays have played Davis Schneider against the occasional righthander and, certainly, Davis broke camp as the choice ahead of Barger. So why was Barger on this night the choice ahead of Schneider given he was running primarily on adrenaline. Sure, his family had made the trip to K.C. but it’s not like it was a one-day promotion. There would be other, more well-rested chances for his MLB debut.

Also on Wednesday, what about the lefty-swinging DH Daniel Vogelbach and his key sixth-inning at-bat against hard-throwing lefthander Angel Zerpa, with two men on, nobody out. It was Vogelbach’s first at-bat vs. a lefty in 2024 and just his fourth plate appearance in the past week. He struck out as the Jays later scored on a grounder to short with the infield conceding a run. They entered late innings trailing by a run. The righthand bats of Justin Turner and Schneider remained on the bench. Turner hit for Clement in the ninth with two out and nobody on, collecting an infield single.

April 25, L 1-2 (5), WP: Ragans LP: Berrios: The field turned into a quagmire and lightning flashed  constantly in the distance over the centre field fence at Kauffman Stadium, as the early innings unfolded, but this is a brave new world of gambling sponsorships and the need to have an outcome, so one can no longer revert back to what they would have or should have done in the good old days, with regard to throwing a tarp on the infield before it became too soupy to be saved. As soon as there was standing water on the infield, the umpires should have called for the tarps.

Once they actually did cover the field at the end of five, they waited almost four hours before calling the game heading to the top of the sixth. But anyone who has coached youth baseball anywhere can tell you that once a torrential rain has soaked your field, throwing a tarp on it is not going to save the game. It’s over. Such was the case Thursday as a first-inning two-run homer that Jose Berrios allowed to Sal Perez remained the difference in a 2-1 game, dropping the Jays back to .500 heading home for six against the Dodgers and Royals.

Now that MLB is running the show in terms of when to stop play and when to call games, it’s anybody’s guess the logic behind the new guideline. But it seems to me if some fan had bet Sal Perez over 1.5 bases and also bet that Perez would hit a homer and then the Royals had covered the field in the fourth (which they should have) and the game had to be replayed with stats not counting, there are fans out there who would think of suing.

All that being said and given manager John Schneider’s post-flood criticism of the process that led to the shortened game and the five-inning final score, it should be noted that lefty Cole Ragans needed just 76 pitches to get through his five innings, including innings in the monsoon, and that Bichette in the fourth and Springer in the fifth, each put the first-pitch they saw in play to unintentionally help speed up the Royals-win-in-five-frames process. Once they got the five innings in, everyone in the park knew it was going to be ended.

MORE JAYS PROBLEMS POP UP:

1-The key hitters in the Blue Jays lineup need to step up. The glass-half-full crowd will suggest that it’s pretty good to be 13-13 despite the fact Bichette, Guerrero Jr and Springer have not started to hit like they will. They will suggest that the injuries to Jordan Romano and Erik Swanson were a blessing in disguise, allowing them to see Yimi Garcia and Chad Green as being capable of filling that setup/closer void should it happen again. But the truth is that losses suffered in April are going to haunt them as they battle for one of three wildcard spots in September. Here are some of the other failures that currently haunt them.

2-The camera in K.C. often showed a dugout lacking in life and hope. There’s such a thing as leading by example, so you don’t need to be a rah-rah guy in order to show the way. But when the example you lead by is mostly bad, then there may be a need for a vocal leader, but one that can back up his words with deeds on the field. At the moment, that would be Justin Turner. On Wednesday, trailing by just a run into the seventh, cameras showed Turner glum and alone, Vlad pensive and alone, Bo frustrated and alone, John Schneider, alone. It’s as if they were waiting for the next guy to step up to lead the comeback, but had no idea who that might be. Those scenes only are notable if by comparison to dugout scenes in 2022, when the offence was in high gear and leadership was effortlessly contagious.

3-Then there’s the inability to deter an opponent’s running game. That is disturbing and will become more of a problem as the season goes on. The Jays’ opposition is 22-for-27 in steals (18.5% CS), with all five caught stealing coming with Alejandro Kirk behind the plate.

Two of the caught stealing came on great one-hop tags at second base by Biggio and Bichette which had to be reviewed. Another came when an Astros pinch runner Jake Meyers stumbled and fell on his face halfway to second. One came when Jose Altuve wanted to steal home on a throwback to the pitcher counting on scouting-report inattentiveness and Kirk nailed him getting back to third. One was normal of Trent Grisham.

But the Jays are 13-13 and Ohtani is in town. They have won all three home series played thus far and all could easily become right with the world.