The Blue Jays’ playoff hopes continue to fade after a “rock bottom” type series against the Tigers and a split with the White Sox, but Robbie Ray is a legit Cy Young contender, Alejandro Kirk is emerging as the catcher of the present, José Berríos can only get better, and there are still winnable games ahead of them.
The full on nosedive the Jays have taken is disheartening to say the least. I share your fatigue with the bashing of various players and Montoyo by fans. One thing that seems to be regularly overlooked with respect to our dear Charlie is that he's faced with a host of bad options. The weakness of the Blue Jays pitching staff was known from the outset of the season. There were no surprises in that it was known that the Jays had to be a juggernaut offensive team to succeed this year. On that front the performance of the rotation has actually been better than expected. The biggest weaknesses of the Jays overall is really composition, and the responsibility for that chiefly falls on the organization. Despite good pitching this rotation does suffer from pitchers that often work long pitch counts and produce few quick innings. Not a great match for a developing defensive team that is sitting on its heels a lot of the time. The other big factor for me isn't the buyers or sellers deadline argument, but how this season was constructed to begin with. To my mind this wasn't the year to be going for it, and should have been focused on how to repair team composition liabilities. That would seem like hindsight wisdom, but I've felt that way from the very beginning of the season.
The full on nosedive the Jays have taken is disheartening to say the least. I share your fatigue with the bashing of various players and Montoyo by fans. One thing that seems to be regularly overlooked with respect to our dear Charlie is that he's faced with a host of bad options. The weakness of the Blue Jays pitching staff was known from the outset of the season. There were no surprises in that it was known that the Jays had to be a juggernaut offensive team to succeed this year. On that front the performance of the rotation has actually been better than expected. The biggest weaknesses of the Jays overall is really composition, and the responsibility for that chiefly falls on the organization. Despite good pitching this rotation does suffer from pitchers that often work long pitch counts and produce few quick innings. Not a great match for a developing defensive team that is sitting on its heels a lot of the time. The other big factor for me isn't the buyers or sellers deadline argument, but how this season was constructed to begin with. To my mind this wasn't the year to be going for it, and should have been focused on how to repair team composition liabilities. That would seem like hindsight wisdom, but I've felt that way from the very beginning of the season.