DINGERS FROM THE 6IX
With the Toronto Blue Jays down 2-0 in the ALCS to the Cleveland Indians, it has been incredible frustrating to simply watch the team hit. The Jays have managed to score only 1 run in these 2 games, and it is down 2-0 as a result despite receiving stellar pitching in the first two games. The Jays offence has been subpar, as could be explained by this tweet:
The result has been a lack of scoring, and a subsequent pair of losses. But what is the reason for there inability to produce runs? It's simple; the team is taking huge hacks, and coming up empty instead of putting the ball in play.
The biggest culprit of this has been Jose Bautista, who seems to be swinging for the fences every chance he gets. Most notable is his first at bat of the ALCS. With 2 runners in scoring position, and 1 out, I considered it essentially inevitable that Bautista would drive in a run. Instead, Bautista swung and missed at 2 off speed pitches well outside the zone, and he struck out, in a spot where a ground ball of sacrifice fly would have scored a run. It hasn't been that one at bat on its own. Throughout the postseason, Bautista is 3 for 21 with 10 strikeouts. Bautista also hasn't recorded a hit since game 1 of the ALDS. The reason; he insists on trying to hit the ball 500 feet instead of doing whatever he can to simply get hits. But Bautista is far from the only problem. On twitter, several Jays fans have been annoied by Russell Martin inabi;lity to drive runners in. His issues are best summarized by this:
So, Martin has not been able to drive in runs. This led him to be moved down the order, since he has cost the Jays runs on several occasions. The reason for his struggles are similar to Bautista. Instead of trying hit the ball in play, he has tries to pull the ball and hit it over the fence, and the results have been as expected.
Bautista and Martin have not been the only players to struggle lately. But there struggles are far more magnifies than Ezequiel Carrera, and Kevin Pillar, and Michael Saunders. Bautista and Martin's poor performance in a result of an inability to even put the ball in play, and becomes ever more frustrating when you know how that they are much better hitters than the results they are putting up. So Bautista and Martin are struggling badly, and the reason is way to many home run hacks, and empty results. If the Jays are going to come back to win the ALCS, they need these 2 to perform way, way, way bettwer. Otherwise, the Jays could find themselves knocked out of the ALCS for the second season in a row. Thanks for reading. Be sure to follow me on twitter for in game thoughts and updates as well as random stats or thoughts on the Blue Jays. You can find my twitter here: https://twitter.com/QSweetzir17 |
Photo used under Creative Commons from Keith Allison