The homestand wraps up with the Guardians in town.
So it was Wednesday evening, and I'd just watched Yariel Rodriguez stumble through the top of the first. The Jays were down 2-0 before they even came to bat for the first time. I sighed, and started flipping channels. Could Tampa Bay extend the Battle of Florida, and give the Leafs a little help? (They could not.) Could the Habs live to fight another day before their inevitable defeat? (They could not.) Could those old Warriors dispatch the Rockets and possibly give us one last Steph-LeBron showdown? (They could not, and an extremely tall Frenchman made the entire question moot a couple of hours later.)
I checked in on the Jays, who were now trailing 4-0. Chad Green entered the game and gave up his customary home run. So now it was 6-0. I repaired to the back yard to smoke a pipe and listen to some tunes. And lo, there was a text from Eephus. He was at work and wondered how the Jays were doing. "Have a guess" I replied. (He went with "Down 4-1," which was reasonably close.)
And then... and then... he sends this:
Are we at a point where we can compare April to the very worst offensive months in team history?
The wicked, wicked boy. He knows me well. How could I possibly resist pursuing such a dismal line of inquiry? No chance whatsoever, and for a brief moment I grimly contemplated the heavy lifting that would be required, poring through the monthly records for 49 seasons. And then - I remembered! I've done this already!
Well, not all of it. But certainly up to 2015, as I had previously embarked on a quest to determine whether August 2015 was the most dominant month in franchise history. (Long story short - you bet it was.) I don't delete those old spreadsheets - experience has taught me I may need them again some day. It only took about ten minutes to bring this one up to date, and I can now respond to this enquiry with facts and numbers and - wait for it - a Data Table.
It was not the worst offensive month in franchise history. Not quite. But it was really, really bad.
Let's eliminate all the partial months, the handful of games played in March or October. I suppose I could attach them to their neighbouring month, but that's a messy procedure and much more work than I feel like doing. The Blue Jays played 25 games this April. That's enough! It's a normal month. I don't need the five they played in March, which is well on its way to becoming a Baseball Month of its own. And in fact, the schedule pages on bb-ref do treat March and October as separate months, and that's where I pulled the data. (The problems come later, because when it comes to monthly splits - for players, teams, and leagues - bb-ref does attach March to April and October to September. A little consistency, if you don't mind!)
Well, for starters, the Jays had traded away their best hitter in mid-August. That was their 38 year old DH, Rico Carty. We can't blame them for that. An old DH, and especially one with the knees of a senior citizen, is of little use to a team about to lose 100 games. If someone else wants him - and the Oakland A's did - you take whatever you can get. Which turned out to be a pitching prospect (Phil Huffman) and the old, slow DH that Carty would replace in the Oakland lineup (Willie Horton.)
This wasn't 1968 or anything like that. It was a normal enough year. The American League batted .261 that year. The league OnBase was .326, the league Slugging was .385.
In just one other month in team history have the Blue Jays failed to average a measly 3 runs per game. That was also back in the Bad Old Days - it was September 1981, and I was expecting to see that 1981 squad turn up at some point, as I have always regarded it as the most putrid lineup in team history. The 1981 team managed to go 11-15 that September anyway, mostly because Dave Stieb started seven games and went 4-1, 2.09 (he lost a 1-0 game, because that was his life back then.)
So those two teams, okay. But... through five innings on Wednesday, the 2025 Blue Jays had scored 74 runs in their 25 April games. You can do the math - had Lucas Giolito and the Red Sox bullpen been able to hold on for another 12 outs, we would have had a third Blue Jay team achieving this extremely dubious feat. The sudden homer barrage spared them that distinction, but it wasn't enough to get them out of the Bottom 10. Which I will now reverse, and present as the Top 10 Months of Blue Jays Offensive Futility.
Fri 2 May - Allen (1-2, 4.21) vs Bassitt (2-2, 2.62)
Sat 3 May - Williams (2-2, 5.14) vs Gausman (2-3, 4.50)
Sun 4 May - Bibee (2-2, 4.36) vs Francis (2-4, 5.28)
So it was Wednesday evening, and I'd just watched Yariel Rodriguez stumble through the top of the first. The Jays were down 2-0 before they even came to bat for the first time. I sighed, and started flipping channels. Could Tampa Bay extend the Battle of Florida, and give the Leafs a little help? (They could not.) Could the Habs live to fight another day before their inevitable defeat? (They could not.) Could those old Warriors dispatch the Rockets and possibly give us one last Steph-LeBron showdown? (They could not, and an extremely tall Frenchman made the entire question moot a couple of hours later.)
I checked in on the Jays, who were now trailing 4-0. Chad Green entered the game and gave up his customary home run. So now it was 6-0. I repaired to the back yard to smoke a pipe and listen to some tunes. And lo, there was a text from Eephus. He was at work and wondered how the Jays were doing. "Have a guess" I replied. (He went with "Down 4-1," which was reasonably close.)
And then... and then... he sends this:
Are we at a point where we can compare April to the very worst offensive months in team history?
The wicked, wicked boy. He knows me well. How could I possibly resist pursuing such a dismal line of inquiry? No chance whatsoever, and for a brief moment I grimly contemplated the heavy lifting that would be required, poring through the monthly records for 49 seasons. And then - I remembered! I've done this already!
Well, not all of it. But certainly up to 2015, as I had previously embarked on a quest to determine whether August 2015 was the most dominant month in franchise history. (Long story short - you bet it was.) I don't delete those old spreadsheets - experience has taught me I may need them again some day. It only took about ten minutes to bring this one up to date, and I can now respond to this enquiry with facts and numbers and - wait for it - a Data Table.
It was not the worst offensive month in franchise history. Not quite. But it was really, really bad.
Let's eliminate all the partial months, the handful of games played in March or October. I suppose I could attach them to their neighbouring month, but that's a messy procedure and much more work than I feel like doing. The Blue Jays played 25 games this April. That's enough! It's a normal month. I don't need the five they played in March, which is well on its way to becoming a Baseball Month of its own. And in fact, the schedule pages on bb-ref do treat March and October as separate months, and that's where I pulled the data. (The problems come later, because when it comes to monthly splits - for players, teams, and leagues - bb-ref does attach March to April and October to September. A little consistency, if you don't mind!)
So for now I'm setting the bar at 15 games to constitute a month. This also eliminates June 1981 and August 1994, the two partial months created when the players went on strike. And we're left with 280 months of Blue Jays baseball. And the worst offensive performance came way back in the expansion days, and dear reader, you may want to Avert Your Eyes. The 1978 Blue Jays scored a pitiful 62 runs in 25 September games - that's 2.48 Runs Per Game - while posting a grisly 4-21 record to conclude - almost - their second season. Just as August 2015 was the only time in franchise history that the team scored twice as many as they allowed (170 to 83), September 1978 was the one time the team allowed twice as many as they scored (126 to 62). I'm sure no one noticed - after all, the Yankees and Red Sox were engaged in one of the most famous and memorable pennant races of all time while this was going on.
It's one of those masterpieces that needs some time and distance to truly be understood. How did such a thing happen?
Well, for starters, the Jays had traded away their best hitter in mid-August. That was their 38 year old DH, Rico Carty. We can't blame them for that. An old DH, and especially one with the knees of a senior citizen, is of little use to a team about to lose 100 games. If someone else wants him - and the Oakland A's did - you take whatever you can get. Which turned out to be a pitching prospect (Phil Huffman) and the old, slow DH that Carty would replace in the Oakland lineup (Willie Horton.)
So that didn't help. But it was mostly a case of the regular lineup being really, really bad. This is the September batting line for everyone who appeared in the starting lineup for the 1978 Blue Jays during those awful 25 games. You'll notice, if you're really looking closely, that McKay and Gomez appeared in 26 games. That's bb-ref including October games in their September splits. The 1978 Jays played one game in October. Of course, they lost. Luis Tiant tossed a two-hit shutout. No Blue Jay even made it as far as second base. It was an important game, by the way. Boston needed the win along with a New York loss to Cleveland to force a playoff for the AL East title. These things came to pass, and there was indeed a playoff. You've probably heard about it. I may even write a Game Story about it some day, because it was a doozy.
But back to our main subject, and in the immortal words of Tim the Enchanter, if ye be not Men of
Valour, go no further. Consider yourselves warned. Because it's time to step out on the Bridge of
Death over the Gorge of Eternal Peril and gaze deep, deep into the abyss.
Player G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BAVG OBP SLG OPS
Rick Bosetti 25 111 106 6 22 4 1 1 5 1 0 4 18 .208 .243 .293 .536
Dave McKay 26 95 89 10 20 3 1 2 4 0 1 6 12 .225 .274 .348 .622
Bob Bailor 23 92 84 10 19 4 3 0 4 0 0 5 3 .226 .294 .345 .639
John Mayberry 22 80 76 3 13 2 0 1 6 0 0 4 8 .171 .213 .237 .449
Roy Howell 16 69 60 9 15 0 0 3 4 0 0 8 6 .250 .338 .400 .738
Otto Velez 18 68 58 4 13 2 1 2 5 1 0 9 10 .224 .324 .397 .720
Alvis Woods 19 68 65 3 12 2 1 0 1 1 1 3 6 .185 .221 .246 .467
Luis Gomez 26 67 62 1 12 1 0 0 6 0 1 2 4 .194 .219 .210 .429
Willie Horton 16 56 54 5 10 3 0 2 9 0 0 2 19 .185 .214 .352 .566
Alan Ashby 15 51 44 2 6 3 0 0 2 1 0 7 5 .136 .255 .205 .459
Rick Cerone 11 41 39 2 7 1 0 1 5 0 0 1 5 .180 .200 .282 .482
Willie Upshaw 11 34 31 1 7 0 0 0 3 1 0 3 2 .226 .294 .226 .520
Doug Ault 10 28 24 2 7 0 0 2 3 0 0 4 2 .292 .393 .542 .935
Butch Alberts 6 18 18 1 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .278 .278 .333 .611
Sam Ewing 10 14 12 2 2 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 3 .167 .214 .417 .631
Tim Johnson 15 6 6 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .167 .167 .167 .333
This wasn't 1968 or anything like that. It was a normal enough year. The American League batted .261 that year. The league OnBase was .326, the league Slugging was .385.
In just one other month in team history have the Blue Jays failed to average a measly 3 runs per game. That was also back in the Bad Old Days - it was September 1981, and I was expecting to see that 1981 squad turn up at some point, as I have always regarded it as the most putrid lineup in team history. The 1981 team managed to go 11-15 that September anyway, mostly because Dave Stieb started seven games and went 4-1, 2.09 (he lost a 1-0 game, because that was his life back then.)
So those two teams, okay. But... through five innings on Wednesday, the 2025 Blue Jays had scored 74 runs in their 25 April games. You can do the math - had Lucas Giolito and the Red Sox bullpen been able to hold on for another 12 outs, we would have had a third Blue Jay team achieving this extremely dubious feat. The sudden homer barrage spared them that distinction, but it wasn't enough to get them out of the Bottom 10. Which I will now reverse, and present as the Top 10 Months of Blue Jays Offensive Futility.
Month Year GP W L RS R/G
September 1978 25 4 21 62 2.48
September 1981 26 11 15 75 2.88
June 1979 30 12 18 90 3.00
June 2010 26 9 17 80 3.08
September 1977 30 8 22 93 3.10
August 2012 28 9 19 89 3.18
August 1981 19 9 10 61 3.21
April 2025 25 11 14 81 3.24
May 1979 28 5 23 91 3.25
August 2014 26 9 17 86 3.31
None of these teams were bound for glory. Six of the ten teams are from the early expansion era, before Bobby Cox came to town, so you can depend on them being awful. But not all of the ten were terrible teams, and those other three - 2010, 2012, 2014 - weren't even terrible hitting teams. They all ended up scoring about as many runs as the average AL team. If not more. The 2010 club finished up at 85-77 in Cito Gaston's last ride around the park. That team actually had a pretty good offence, based on the tested and true formula of hitting lots and lots of home runs. Lots of home runs. The 2010 Blue Jays hit 257 of them, which led the major leagues, the minor leagues, and probably most fantasy leagues by a considerable margin. Jose Bautista was driving that bus, with a team record 54. Bautista's one slump that season (.179/.324/.369) happened to come in June, and the offense shrivelled up and died without him. It wasn't a great offense - that team really didn't do anything besides hitting home runs, but they hit enough of them to be a little above league average in scoring runs. There just weren't enough people on base. They had just one player who was significantly above average in that part of the game, and that was.... yup, it was the same guy suffering through that June slump.
Something similar happened in 2012. That team was puttering along at .500 (45-45) when Bautista injured his hand (checking his swing against the Yankees, if I remember rightly.) He played in just two more games the rest of the way. But even that team scored 677 runs (league average was 688.)
The 2014 team looked for a while to be a contender. They were 60-50 when the trading deadline came and went at the end of July, and were just a game and a half back of the first place Orioles. But Edwin Encarnacion was in the middle of a six week absence with a quad injury and the team - to the surprise of many, especially in the clubhouse - didn't make any upgrades at the deadline. They promptly stopped hitting, and stopped pitching and fielding while they were at it. After losing 16 of their next 22 games, they were 10 games back of the division lead by the time September came along. Even so, August notwithstanding, this was actually a good offensive team. They would end up scoring 723 runs, and only three AL teams scored more often. They just didn't score any in August.
So that's my somewhat surprising takeaway from all of this. Of the ten worst hitting months in franchise history, six came from the early expansion days. But the others were all the work of decent (or better) lineups simply having a random bad month.
So let us hope this is what we will tell our grandchildren about April 2025. Not that I have any, I'm much too young and pretty.
Oh, right. Cleveland. Well, I got matchups!
Fri 2 May - Allen (1-2, 4.21) vs Bassitt (2-2, 2.62)
Sat 3 May - Williams (2-2, 5.14) vs Gausman (2-3, 4.50)
Sun 4 May - Bibee (2-2, 4.36) vs Francis (2-4, 5.28)
