Slump? What Slump?

Tuesday, June 16 2009 @ 10:00 AM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

Gonna free fall out into nothing
Gonna leave this world for a while

It was just about this time last season when a three week death spiral cost John Gibbons his job. What's different about this one?

Two things, mainly. This one has gone on a little longer. The bad streak from last year covered 19 games. The team went 4-15, and Gibbons walked the plank when it reached 4-13. The 2009 team has just lost 17 of 24 games. That's the bad news.

The good news is that this year's slide has left the 2009 team just about where the 2008 team was when their bad stretch started. The 2008 squad was 31-26 when they plunged off the cliff, and woke up to find themselves at 35-41.

Anyway, what's gone wrong?

Pretty much everything. You don't play .292 ball for most of a month without a whole lot of players failing to contribute.

Here is what the hitters have done, ranked, as is my custom, by Runs Created:

          G   AB  R  H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS SH SF HBP GDP BAVG OBP   SLG  OPS  RC RC/27
                                                                                                   
Overbay  21   66 10 22  8  1  3  15 13 12  0  0  0  0   0   2 .333 .443 .621 1.064 19 10.74
Scutaro  24  100 12 32  9  0  0   9  8 13  3  2  1  1   0   2 .320 .367 .410  .777 15  5.45
Rios     23   95  9 28  8  0  4  10  4 16  7  2  0  0   2   4 .295 .337 .505  .842 15  5.61
Lind     24   95 12 25  8  0  5  10  4 18  1  1  0  0   2   4 .263 .307 .505  .812 13  4.70
Rolen    18   65 10 21  8  0  0   4  8  7  0  1  0  0   0   1 .323 .397 .446  .843 11  6.66
Hill     23   98  6 24  2  0  3  10  5 13  0  0  0  1   1   2 .245 .286 .357  .643 10  3.36
Wells    24   90 11 18  5  1  0   7  8 13  4  0  0  3   0   1 .200 .257 .278  .530  8  2.59
Millar   19   58  9 10  1  0  2   7  8 11  0  0  0  0   0   1 .172 .273 .293  .566  5  2.61
Barajas  22   70  5 14  1  0  1   8  3 16  1  0  0  0   0   0 .200 .233 .257  .490  4  2.05
Bautista 12   37  3  6  2  1  0   3  8 15  0  0  0  0   0   1 .162 .311 .270  .581  3  2.87
Chavez    7   18  1  5  0  0  1   2  0  2  0  0  0  0   0   1 .278 .278 .444  .722  2  3.49
Inglett  11   20  1  3  0  0  0   1  2  6  1  0  1  0   0   0 .150 .227 .150  .377  1  1.40
Snider    1    3  0  1  0  0  0   0  0  1  0  0  0  0   0   0 .333 .333 .333  .667  0  4.25
McDonald  8    5  0  1  0  0  0   0  0  1  0  0  0  0   0   0 .200 .200 .200  .400  0  1.28


Lyle Overbay has been great. Scott Rolen, Marco Scutaro, and Alex Rios have been just fine. Everybody else...

Vernon Wells makes the most money and therefore gets the most grief. Fair enough, but he's not alone. Adam Lind's production during this period is almost entirely confined to four games (two against the Angels and two in Texas) in which he went 12-18 with 3 HRs. He hasn't been streaky. He's been either explosive or inert. Aaron Hill was due for a slump, and he delivered a doozy. Rod Barajas has been even worse.

And the demotion of Travis Snider clearly seems to have hurt the offense. It's not that Snider was doing much himself. But with him gone, Kevin Millar and Jose Bautista have been asked to do more. They have responded by doing less, and using up many more outs while they were about it.

Over the first 41 games, the Jays averaged 5.71 runs per game; over these last 24 games, they've averaged 3.71 per game. Here are the team totals for these two periods (as well as the overall)

         G   AB   R   H   TB  2B 3B HR RBI  BB  SO SB CS SH SF HBP GDP BAVG  OBP SLG  OPS 
                                                                                                    
1st 41  41 1466 234 423  677  93  4 51 222 156 237 20  3 12 15   9  43 .289 .355 .462 .816 
2nd 24  24  820  89 210  325  52  3 19  86  71 144 17  6  2  5   5  19 .256 .317 .396 .713
TOTAL   65 2286 323 633 1002 145  7 70 308 227 381 37  9 14 20  14  62 .277 .341 .438 .780

Oh, what a fall was there my countrymen! So have the pitchers picked up the slack?

No.

          G GS GF CG  W  L SV  IP    H  R ER BB SO HR HBP  ERA   BF BAVG  OBP   SLG  OPS
                                                                                    
Tallet    6  6  0  0  2  3  0  35.1 32 20 20 14 27  3   1  5.09 149 .242 .315  .364  .679
Halladay  5  5  0  2  2  0  0  35   32  8  8  4 31  1   0  2.06 135 .250 .267  .289  .556
Janssen   5  5  0  0  2  3  0  26   40 19 18  7 11  4   2  6.23 123 .354 .398  .593  .991
Romero    4  4  0  0  1  3  0  22.2 27 14 14 10 19  7   0  5.56 102 .300 .366  .600  .966
Richmond  4  2  0  0  0  1  0  15.1 13  8  8  5 11  3   0  4.70  62 .228 .290  .474  .764
Cecil     1  1  0  0  0  1  0   4.2 11  8  8  2  3  5   0 15.43  24 .500 .542 1.167 1.709
Ray       1  1  0  0  0  1  0   4.1  6  5  4  1  4  1   0  8.31  21 .300 .333  .550  .883
Ryan     11  0  5  0  0  0  0   9.2  9  4  4  3  6  1   0  3.72  40 .250 .300  .444  .744
Carlson   9  0  1  0  0  1  0   8.1 14 11  9  3  7  0   1  9.72  43 .368 .419  .447  .866
League    8  0  3  0  0  2  0   9.1 13  9  9  1 10  2   1  8.68  42 .325 .357  .550  .907
Frasor    8  0  2  0  0  0  0   9.1  6  4  4  2 10  1   1  3.86  36 .194 .257  .323  .580
Downs     7  0  6  0  0  0  3   7    7  2  2  2  5  0   0  2.57  29 .269 .310  .346  .656
Camp      6  0  0  0  0  1  0  10.1 10  4  4  4 11  0   0  3.48  43 .256 .326  .410  .736
Wolfe     5  0  4  0  0  1  0   5.1 10  6  6  2  5  3   1 10.12  29 .417 .464  .875 1.339
Hayhurst  4  0  1  0  0  0  0   5.2  4  0  0  0  4  0   2  0.00  22 .211 .273  .263  .536

The pitching hasn't fallen off quite as dramatically as the bats - but while it's not as deep as a well nor as wide as a church door, 'tis enough. 'Twill do. Or not do, as in this case.

The rotation continues in a state of flux. Roy Halladay has been Roy Halladay, and Tallet has been okay. Tallet throws up a real stinker every now and then, which inflates his ERA - but he hasn't been the problem. I think Romero will be okay, but I'm not nearly so sanguine about Casey Janssen. No one is successful starting in the major leagues allowing hitters to put the ball in play this often. If he doesn't start to miss a few bats, I think it'll be time to summon David Purcey and see if Janssen can once again be effective as a reliever.

As for the bullpen, Downs, Frasor, and Camp have been fine. Carlson has been consistently awful. Brian Wolfe was worse. And what happens when Brandon League pitches has been quite a bit like what happens when Adam Lind has been hitting. Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens - which is good for League, bad for Lind. It's just that every once in a while balls just go ricocheting all over the yard. Which is very bad for League.

I was surprised to see that B.J. Ryan has made the most relief appearances during these 24 games. I was far more surprised to see that the only reliever who has been significantly better than Ryan is Scott Downs himself. I assume Gaston is attempting to do with Ryan what he did with Tom Henke in 1989 - slowly work his erstwhile bullpen ace back into the mix, letting him rebuild his game and his confidence. When Gaston took over in 1989, Henke had pitched himself out of the closer's role and there was serious speculation that he had simply lost it. At the time, Henke was 1-3, 7.84 - he had saved the first two games of the season and failed in every save opportunity afterwards. So Gaston used Henke in low pressure situations for more than a month before placing him in another save situation. Henke got his game back together - he finally got his 3rd save, on June 23 - and he pitched brilliantly for the rest of the season (all but three of his second half appearances were scoreless). And for pretty much the next six years, come to think of it.

Anyway, the staff posted a 3.85 ERA over the first 41 games, and that's shot up to 5.10 over the last 24. Here are the team totals:

          G  GF CG   W  L  SV   IP     H    R  ER  BB  SO HR HBP ERA    BF BAVG  OBP  SLG  OPS
                                                                            
1st 41   41  39  2  27 14   8  373.2  340 174 160 127 284 41  16 3.85 1565 .230 .309 .402 .710
2nd 24   24  22  2   7 17   3  208.1  234 122 118  60 164 31   9 5.10  900 .287 .337 .476 .813
TOTAL    65  61  4  34 31  11  582    574 296 278 187 448 72  25 4.30 2465 .258 .320 .429 .749

So that's where we are. We know what must be done.

 This far and no further! The line must be drawn here!

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