The “First Inning” of
the Toronto Blue Jays 2014 Season
Baseball has the longest season of any of the major professional sports- 162 games. So far the Toronto Blue Jays have played just 19 games; winning ten and losing nine. If we consider each 18 game segment of the season as an inning, the Blue Jays are barely in the top of the second inning of their season. What can we say about them at this early stage of the season?
So far, as befits their overall record, the Jays have shown both encouraging and discouraging signs. Their starting pitchers have thrown four shutouts, although knuckleballer R.J Dickey has been ineffective. Their defence has been positively outstanding and some of their key hitters- Melky Cabrera and Jose Bautista- appear to be in midseason form. The return of Jose Reyes at shortstop and as leadoff hitter following a hamstring injury should improve both the infield defence and the offense. On the other hand, the relief pitching has been woefully inconsistent, squandering late inning leads by putting on base-runners via walks and then giving up key hits. Key hitters like Canadian third basemen Brent Lawrie and first baseman Edwin Encarnacion are still struggling and left-handed DH, Adam Lind, who started well at the plate, is currently on the injury list.
Expectations were low for the Blue Jays coming into the season. They had 74 wins and 88 losses last year and were rated 24th among the 30 major league teams by Sports Illustrated in that magazine’s 2014 preview issue. It projected them to finish at 73-89 this year, placing last in the tough American League East division. Since they currently hold the second wild card spot in the American League, a fair judgement at this point is that they are exceeding expectations, although they need to get better hitting and relief pitching to be considered a contender to break their string of nineteen consecutive seasons outside the playoffs.