Let's Bitch About Our Stupid, Annoying Baseball Team: the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays Thread

Why they're no fun in a nutshell (trust this is accurate): "Dating back to last year's All-Star Break, the BlueJays are 0-37 in games they trailed by 3 or more runs. No other team has gone winless in that time."

a smaller nutshell: few home runs

Probably a good day to sneak Manoah in there with all the Leafs post-mortems dominating local media. Wish they'd saved yesterday's rare jump-start for today.

Not pretty, to put it mildly. Gave up a 6-1 lead, couldn't get to the 5th: 4 IP, 6 hits, 4 walks, 6 ER (and one unearned), 92 pitches. Manoah did strike out 6, the one positive. I didn't see it all, but he can't throw a strike when he needs to, and it all seems to flow from there.

It’s at the point where I’ve turned off notifications for this team. I’d rather follow teams that have starters going for my fantasy squad than this dismal shittrain.

The bet on Berríos was pretty much my last reason to pay attention, and that blew up tonight. (I guess I still have to, though, with five of them on my fantasy team.) In all honesty, I want them to be forced into a position to tear it down and start over, rather than limp into September five games out of a WC.

This isn't the bottom yet, the Phillies are a really good team. We have six games against the White Sox in the second half of the month. If they go 2-4 in those games, I will turn off notifications too.

But with games vs MIN, TBR, and BAL coming up before that, things could get ugly (well, uglier) in a hurry.

If this is somehow searchable, I think I have the perfect record for this team to pursue: worst team ever not to get swept all season. How many series does a team play during a year--about 50? Right now, the Jays are 3 games under .500, but 12/12 in not getting swept. They're an easy team to beat but a tough team to sweep.

I was close--Jays will play 52 series in 2024.

https://jaysjournal.com/posts/former-blue-jays-first-round-pick-all-star-begins-toronto-comeback-with-minor-league-deal

The Blue Jays have been turning over rocks looking for minor-league pitching depth in the past week...The latest rock turned up former Blue Jay first round pick and All-Star Aaron Sanchez, who appears to have signed a non-roster, minor-league deal to return to the organization.

"The latest rock"--I like that.

Nice article in the Athletic about Travis Snider and what he's up to these days. In short, he started an organization to provide emotional and psychological support to child athletes. Essentially he wants to make sure kids have the support that he didn't. I didn't know he experienced so much personal tragedy in his life even before breaking into MLB.

It's fun to revisit our old board posts about Snider, this one of mine is a personal fave:

Those "what if?" scenarios might be reasonable if we were dealing with an ordinary manager, but Cito Gaston has a long history of not knowing the first thing about breaking in young players. Longoria's age isn't the point -- he's just one example among plenty that if you've got a top prospect on the big club then you PLAY THEM and stick with them and that's how they become stars. The fact that the team is hitting well at the moment is also not the point -- this is about the big picture, and nobody thinks about that when the team can do no wrong because whatever they're doing now is presumably "working". But the Jays' management is supposed to be thinking about the big picture, which means this: Bautista shouldn't be playing in place of Snider. EVER.

The Jays have been hedging their bets with their young stars for the past 15 years and that's a big reason why the team has been mediocre for so long. They pulled exactly the same crap with Lind last year and they're doing it again with Snider.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 18 April 2009 01:03 (fifteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've never been so right *and* so wrong in the same post!

Switched back to the jays when they’d closed the gap to 8-6. Been a real fun two innings.

Only saw the first few innings, but Manoah looked sharp today. He gave up a 3-run HR later on, but it was preceded by an error and all the runs were unearned. At a team level, it doesn't matter--they're deader than dead. But promising for him.

was a very unexpectedly strong performance.

Also was not expecting a win tonight against that team. With that pitcher.

Thou will not be swept; thou will not sweep.

wild game.

I could not make sense of some of the umpires calls. And then that 9th inning. Think I’m going back to not watching their games for a while

I actually enjoy listening to "Jays Talk" when everything's falling apart. Instead of feeling silly over my own disgust, I get to vicariously experience that through the disgust of others.

It makes it so much worse!

The big topic today, of course, was the decision to put in Pearson. Hosts were livid.

Why on earth would they send Manoah out for the 7th? I haven't been watching, but it looks like he's pitched six dominant innings (1 walk, 1 hit, 5 strikeouts, 90 pitches). They're up 3-0. What good can come by extending that? He's already got the confidence-building start he needs.

Looks like he finished the seventh right around 100 pitches, with a one-hitter. Nice to see him maybe getting things sorted out.

I think it was a risk, but it worked out. He's a guy who thrives on confidence and swagger, so this feels like it could be a breakthrough.

Meanwhile, the Jays continue their streak of not sweeping and not being swept. They almost blew it the other day by sweeping the Orioles, but they came through again by squandering a 9th-inning lead.

Ah - I think Zack Pop’s 9th was a good example of why Schneider wanted to stick with a starter that was dealing.

I knew that was the consideration--their bullpen has been terrible lately--but to me that's an easy call. Maybe this is blasphemous, but between a win or a loss for a team going nowhere and getting Manoah back on track for next year, I'd risk the win.

(If that makes sense...I'd rather risk the bullpen blowing the game than risk Manoah blemishing a great start.)

I thinks it’s fair to say Manoah would have pushed back against getting pulled. Leaving him in was the obvious choice. “Letting the bullpen blow another game” would not have been good for anybody.

Next 13 games against the White Sox, Tigers, and Pirates. It will be a real challenge not to sweep the White Sox especially, but I believe the Jays are up--or down--to it.

I'm sure Ross Atkins saw some encouraging signs in tonight's shutout loss to the White Sox, but I'm hoping this gets us that much closer to the point where they turn the page and start over (whatever that might mean).

Justin Turner by the month:

https://i.postimg.cc/KYyNSKFn/turner.jpg

I wonder if he’s playing through something. I was really shocked at how much the Jays played him in the field. He was awful after days he played in the field last year. Wonder if he picked up an injury then.

Sickness seems to be part of it but not the whole story. Falling off a cliff at age 39 or thereabouts is not unusual--it's possible the one has hastened the other.

https://jaysjournal.com/posts/justin-turner-epic-collapse-proving-to-be-worst-case-scenario-for-blue-jays

Maybe. Hate to see it either way.

I have to laugh at one line in that Jays Journal link: "He had been dealing with a sickness that ran through the Blue Jays' clubhouse for over a week..."

Diagnosis: Offensiva Anemicosa, a complete inability to score runs.

RISPitis

Pretty accurate, I'd say:

I feel like Ross Atkins watches a lot of those disney movies where a sports team is shitty until an amazingly talented dog joins, or until they host a bake sale that gives them the ability to buy all new equipment, and then suddenly they become amazing and win the championship.

— female jays fan (@femalejaysfan) May 19, 2024

An amazingly talented dog--how did nobody else see this?

They couldn't find an amazingly talented dog, so--next best thing--they've brought the home-run jacket back. Sure enough, worked its magic on the White Sox tonight. Beware, league.

So bummed. I was supposed to be at the game but had a brutal migraine. It was so bad I didn’t even put on the tv or even radio - and then when I’m finally able to lift the phone to my face, they’ve scored 9 runs!!

Something I heard on the radio today that was so unbelievable I had to check it: Bo Bichette's home run yesterday, in the Jays' 48th game, was their first HR out of the clean-up spot this season.

It's true.

Ya. Heard about that a couple days ago.

This whole time, it's been that fucking jacket--that's all it took.

Was listening on the car radio--Manoah's line tonight looks worse than he actually pitched. Had a really messy 4th that involved some bad luck.

Yimi Hendrix is well ahead of mlb in %ge of the side-wind sinker or some such thing? haven’t heard of it, it’s increased spin rate of some kind

xxp that bo home run was the best moment so far. highest scoring in/updated home run jacket/rolling out the red carpet in the dugout?
moar pls

inning*

I hope today is the day they give up their dreams of the third wild-card and get going on whatever comes next.