The Lowly Jays

The past five days have not be good to the Toronto Blue Jays. After starting the season 8-5 and leading the AL East for a short period in that stretch, the Jays have lost their last five games. With some close games lost in the late innings by the bullpen, many people are putting the blame solely on the pitching staff while not much has been said about the hitting, or lack thereof.

The 2007 Blue Jays have been designed to be an offence minded team, with a mediocre pitching staff at best. With a few exceptions, the pitching has not been great but it has not been that bad either, it has been what was expected. What was not expected was the underachieving offence. During the recent slide, the offence has only generated 13 runs, which is only an average of 2.6 runs per game while the pitching staff has only given up 26 runs, an average of 5.2 runs per game. Out of those 26 runs, 19 were charged to the starters and out of those 19 runs, only 5 were inherited runs allowed to score by the bullpen. That still leaves 14 runs directly given up by the starters, one run more than the offence scored in that period.

Some may argue that by averaging out the five games like this, I am not taking into account of the situations the relievers faced. I fully admit that myself; however, general statistics also deal with performance over a period and do not take into account the situational aspects. My purpose here is to generally show that no one cog is solely responsible for the Jays recent performance and that the entire team is playing below expectations and ability.

When one looks at the numbers this way, it shows that the pitching has kept the Jays in a position to win these games; the offence is the hindrance to the team’s success. Scoring only 2.6 runs per game are not going to win too many games in the bigs. On the positive side, the Jays hitters are too good to be this bad for long. They will inevitably break out of this team slump and when they do, the rest of the league had better be ready. As long as the relievers ERA can remain at or below 4.00 (the relievers currently have a 3.48 ERA; 2.66 ERA with B.J. Ryan's stats omitted), the Jays still have a chance at the playoffs. If they do not make it to the postseason, they should at least be very entertaining to watch once the team turns things around.

As a side note: the Jays starters currently have a 4.49 ERA. I do not think it is the bullpen that is really hurting the Jays right now.

*All figures were calculated using information provided on mlb.com and bluejays.com