To the amazement of all, the Toronto Blue Jays have come out of the gates with a big club swinging, and have ground up the elite collection of shitballers that the Tigers, Indians, and Twins call their starting rotations. Granted that they aren't exactly facing a cast of Cy Young contenders (except for Cliff Lee, who is doing everything possible to prove right the nay-sayers from last year who pointed out that his numbers were inflated by playing the bulk of his games against crappy hitting lineups), it is still nice to watch the kind of offense that was expected last year from the Jays finally catch up with them.
The Jays offense ranks first or second in the AL in seven offensive categories, powered by efforts up and down the lineup. Aaron Hill has come back from his shortened 2008 season to monster his way through the first ten games, while his Bosox counterpart and AL MVP Dustin Pedoria is hitting a ferocious OPS+ of 36. Lind came out of the gate with a big showing, racking up 12 RBIs and tying a Jays record, while Travis Snider, Scott Rolan, and Vernon Wells have been playing long ball against the AL Central.
Our pitching hasn't exactly been as stellar, now losing Jesse Litsch for at least four to six weeks. However, Ricky Romaro has put forward two excellent outings, Richmond made up for a walk filled disaster against the Indians by shutting the Twins down in his second start, only giving up a single earned run. Halladay is classically Halladay, save for one bad inning during Opening Day. Purcey has been touched, and has struggled with his control, but has also been punching out batters at the clip he's been expected to make. While the bullpen will certainly regress some this year, it has been relatively stable, and taking advantage of the offensive riches to work out the kinks.
After ten games, the Jays sit in first in the AL East. Hardly likely that they'll stay there, but cracks have been appearing the monsters of the East that may give us some hope. The Yankees are watching age finally start to cripple their favourite stars, and Nady is likely out for the season. It's sad when Nick Swisher is the reason to hope for a win for your ballclub. The Bosox have been similarly struck, with Mike Lowell and David Ortiz starting very slowly at the plate.
The general theme around Toronto is that this is unsustainable. Well, sure, an .800 winning percentage isn't likely to be carried into September, but I think people are missing the point when they are assuming that unsustainable means the Jays will regress back to 2008. As virtually every Jays blog has pointed out, and Mike Wilner seems ready to tattoo on the forehead of the next hockey douche that calls in with some ignorant rant, the Jays in 2008, even following Gaston's return, still hugely underperformed offensively from what should have been even average production. The Jays were so far below their career averages from virtually the entire team that you had to expect them to be stronger offensively just out of basic numbers. Unless the team as a whole went sharply into decline, we were due better hitting.
So certainly the Jays won't sustain this streak, but that doesn't mean they are going to suddenly start dropping series after series on the road. If anything has been proven in the first two weeks, it's that the celebrated big teams of the AL East are mortal, and that rather than looking at the Jays lineup in terms of talent, everyone who consigned them to 5th place focused on their performance in 2008 alone. As shaky as the Jays rotation is, most of their competition isn't looking particularly stable either. With our average offense, we should still be able to stay in games, even if it involves working the bullpen more. That will be what decides all those one run games that we lost last year in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment