CLEVELAND — Losers of three of their last four and staring down the barrel of an 18th game in as many days — not to mention 28th in the 29 days since MLB’s regular season began — the Toronto Blue Jays woke up Friday on a grey, drab, wet northeastern Ohio morning in need of an off-day.
And they’re getting it, with Friday night’s game between the Blue Jays and Cleveland Guardians postponed due to weather. The game will be made up Saturday as part of a traditional doubleheader beginning at 2:10pm ET. Kevin Gausman and Ross Stripling are scheduled to start for the Blue Jays.
Of course, Saturday now stands to be a challenging one with 18 innings to complete in an afternoon. But in exchange for a complete 36 hours of inactivity, it’s a trade-off the Blue Jays will happily make. Particularly with two off-days coming up on Monday and Thursday next week on either side of a two-game series against the New York Yankees in the Bronx.
On the heels of a truncated spring training, the amount of baseball many Blue Jays have logged early in the regular season has been immense. Five of MLB’s top 50 hitters in plate appearances are Blue Jays. Bo Bichette, Matt Chapman, Santiago Espinal, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. are all tied for the second-most games played across the league. George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. are only a game behind in third.
Bichette leads MLB in defensive innings played, with Chapman in fourth. Gausman, slated to start Friday’s postponed game, is 10th among starters in innings pitched. Jordan Romano, Trent Thornton, Trevor Richards, and Adam Cimber all rank among the top 26 relievers in the same category.
Romano’s tied for the lead in appearances with Houston’s Hector Neris. Richards ranks seventh among relievers in batters faced. In other words, they’ve all played a lot of baseball. A night of rest and recovery would do this group some good.
And it’s perhaps not a coincidence that Toronto’s play has been a little uneven of late. The Blue Jays offence has been scuffling and struggling to sequence all year, but its scored three runs or fewer in seven of its last nine games, and two runs or fewer in six of them.
Fatigue has materialized in the field as well, with three opposition hitters reaching on errors in Toronto’s last six contests. Prior to that, the Blue Jays allowed only three batters to reach on errors over their first 21 games of the season.
And it’s not only the volume of games played — it’s the intensity. Twenty of Toronto’s 27 games have been decided by three runs or less. And 14 of them by only a run. The Blue Jays have somewhat miraculously prevailed in 10 of those one-run contests, which is how a team with a -8 run differential sits five games above .500 on the season. But all of that heightened tension and emotion takes a toll.
“Yeah, it’s been a grind. It’s been a mental grind, too. Because we’re in every game and they’re all one-run games,” Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said Thursday. “And [players]all feel it. But it’s been a great job by our kids. It’s a tough schedule; we’re playing the toughest schedule in baseball. And we’re doing well.”
Per FanGraphs leverage index, Blue Jays pitchers have faced the highest average in-game leverage of any team in MLB. And its hitters have faced the fifth-highest.
The pressure has been particularly immense on Toronto’s bullpen. FanGraphs calculates Romano’s MLB-leading leverage index at 2.99, with 1.0 being the league average. Yimi Garcia (1.98) and Cimber (1.94) join him in the top-30 relievers league-wide.
You can paint a similar picture with Toronto’s rotation. Yusei Kikuchi ranks ninth among MLB starters with a 1.19 leverage index, with Jose Berrios’ 1.17 not far behind. Ross Stripling (1.07) and Alek Manoah (1.05) are also right there among MLB’s top-40.
Of course, if you’ve been watching on a nightly basis, you don’t need any of this objective evidence to demonstrate the constant stress of this Blue Jays season. You’ve seen it. You’ve felt it. The Blue Jays have yet to truly blow an opponent out and have only been on the wrong end of a lopsided outcome — let’s go with more than four runs — three times. Outside of those rare nights, the club has been facing constant, playoff-like pressure.
Strength of schedule contributes, too. The Blue Jays have already played 13 games against the New York Yankees and Houston Astros, two of the better teams in the American League. And although the Boston Red Sox are off to an underwhelming start, the division rival played the Blue Jays tough over a pair of series, scoring 19 runs to Toronto’s 24 over six games.
Yes, the Blue Jays have been through the thick of it. But they’ve come out the other side with a 16-11 record in MLB’s toughest division. If you knew all the above context but none of the results, would you have guessed that? Based on run differential, leverage, quality of opposition, and sheer offensive production, it’d be reasonable to expect this team to have — at best — treaded water through 15 per cent of its schedule. Being within a game or two of .500 would’ve seen reasonable.
But the Blue Jays have put themselves in a better position record-wise than they probably deserve. And the schedule is beginning to ease, with Friday’s unexpected off-day nicely timed ahead of three more scheduled ones over the next 13 days. The club is in a good position — as good as position as could be expected. Even if every Blue Jays player, coach, and staff member is currently feeling the weight of the club’s early-season schedule.
“Of course, we all do. But you know what? The reason we’re playing well is because we’re catching and we’re pitching. So, I’ll take that,” Montoyo said. “Like I always say, everybody talks about our hitting, but you win in the big leagues with pitching and defence. And that’s why we’re winning games — because we’re pitching and we’re catching it.”
