It Is Still Raining Shit On The Toronto Blue Jays
This is the third installment of the train wreck that the rest of the baseball world simply cannot look away from — the 2017 Toronto Blue Jays season.
Last week, we touched on how the Blue Jays were off to a 1-7 start for the first time in franchise history and that only three teams in history have made the postseason after starting off with that record. Then, the Blue Jays dropped to 1-8 and had to put their former MVP Josh Donaldson on the disabled list with a calf injury. They kept the ball rolling over the weekend, dropping to 2-10 and putting their ace Aaron Sanchez, who was last year’s ERA leader, on the disabled list with a blister.
If you think your team has problems, do NOT complain about them to a Blue Jays fan. I mean, my GOD has the start to their season been an absolute dumpster fire. You could pinpoint why they had gotten off to that 1-7 start, but it wasn’t because of Donaldson or Sanchez, who were pretty much the only two bright spots on the team at that point. But then they immediately ended up on the disabled list, leaving Toronto with one big group of underachievers. At least, for right now. Yes, it’s still early, but they’re EIGHT games under .500, and there aren’t many positives to even take out of most of these losses.
They’re still the worst hitting team in the majors by OPS (.592). For a team that’s supposed to mash, they have the second fewest homers in the majors (7). Their 4.49 team ERA ranks 12th out of 15 American League teams, and their mark of 2.83 runs per game is the lowest in the majors. They’re also striking out at the fifth highest rate in the MLB (23.6%). There’s no sugarcoating how bad they’ve been. It’s bad.
And when I say that Donaldson had been the lone bright spot in that Blue Jays lineup, I’m not exaggerating. Darwin Barney and Kevin Pillar have been okay, but Troy Tulowitzki, Justin Smoak, Kendrys Morales, Steve Pearce, Jose Bautista, Devon Travis, and Russell Martin are hitting a combined .177 with a .528 OPS. That’s 296 plate appearances between seven dudes, and they’re all collectively awful.
There have been some surprisingly bad starts to the 2017 season — the Cardinals (3-9), Rangers (4-8), Giants (5-9), Indians (5-7), and Cubs (6-6) — but you’ve gotta figure that this Toronto start has been both the most surprising, and the most awful.