Six games on the road, and I'm gonna make it home....oh, never mind

I've always had the somewhat lazy notion that a good team should play .500 ball on the road. Well, the 2025 Blue Jays have not met that standard, taking a 20-22 road record into this last trip before the All-Star Break. 

I can see a path to get there, but there's many a slip between... however it goes. The Blue Jays have climbed to the top of the AL East by being extremely ungracious hosts (32-16 at home). But just three weeks ago, the White Sox came into the RC with their not very frightening team and took two of three from the home side. They won the opener by kicking Spencer Turnbull and Mason Fluharty around, to win a bullpen game 7-1; they won the finale behind a strong performance by Adrian Houser, who's kind of Chicago's own Eric Lauer (teammates in the Milwaukee rotation a few years back who had since fallen on the Hard Times.)

But we know what really happened. It was all my fault, of course. I was to blame. I admit it freely. In the run-up to that series, I spent several paragraphs gleefully detailing just how historically awful the White Sox had become. I found myself comparing them to some of the worst teams in baseball history. For no good reason. Just because I could. And before I had even finished I was beginning to dread the consequences:

now I'm reeling in horror at the thought of what I've done. Does this have Reverse Jinx written all over it? Have I unwittingly set the table for a sweep by the visitors this weekend? 

Happily, no, not that awful. But even so... Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I'm sorry. My bad. 

There are a few things about the 2025 Blue Jays that are... let's say different. As in, unlike anything we've seen from this team before. Let's scratch the surface of a couple of those things. First, the lineup. The other day I commented that awaiting each day's Blue Jays lineup is the Unfolding of a Mystery. Who's in the outfield today, and where? This is not how Bobby Cox, Cito Gaston, or John Gibbons liked to operate. Like most managers, they very much  preferred a set lineup. Cox, in particular, was practically rigid in his lineup selections. But in general, the players also prefer a set lineup. Players often perform better when they know exactly what is expected of them and when they're expected to provide it. The Blue Jays have been managed by one compulsive juggler (Jimy Williams) and hindsight hasn't made look us back fondly on his tenure.

With the 2025 Blue Jays, you can pretty much count on seeing Bo Bichette at shortstop (81 starts) and Vladimir Guerrero at first base (79 starts.) After that - well, Alejandro Kirk has started 64 games behind the plate, and I think that's more than enough, actually. It's a pace that would see him catch a career high 115 games, and the one other time Kirk played this much (2022) he fell off pretty dramatically in the second half of the season. And two stints on the IL have limited Andres Gimenez to 57 starts at second base.

And that's it. If we define "the regular" as the guy who starts at least half the games at a particular position - and that's how I'm defining it today, that's all, just half! - the Blue Jays do not have a regular third baseman. Or a regular left fielder, centre fielder, right fielder, or designated hitter. George Springer (77 starts) and Ernie Clement (75 starts) will likely be in the batting order, and Addison Barger (57 starts in 73 games since coming up) will probably join them. But where they're taking their gloves each day remains to be seen.  Jimy Williams may have changed his mind as to who was his starting second baseman every six weeks, but he didn't juggle the daily lineup this much. (But I'll tell you who did. Casey Stengel. And Joe Torre. When it works, it really works. And when it doesn't work, you get fired. As Casey and Joe could tell you.)

And then there's the bunting. Modern baseball analytics has generally come down on the Earl Weaver side of the argument. Weaver had some thoughts on the subject, and Earl was never one to keep his thoughts to himself if he could shout them from the nearest rooftop instead: "You only have 27 outs. Don't give them away." and "If you play for one run, that's all you're going to get." In the fullness of time, we mostly found ourselves accepting Weaver's view of the matter. But Schneider's Blue Jays are tied for the AL lead with 20 sac hits, and at this rate they'd wind up with about 35 on the season. 

Obviously, that wouldn't even come close to the franchise record of 81, set by Roy Hartsfield's squad way back in 1977. Hey, it's not like Hartsfield had anyone who could actually hit (except Otto the Swatto.) But those 81 sac hits weren't even close to the lead league. It was a very different time, kids. 

It was such a different time, in fact, that it's worth noting that Earl Weaver's Orioles bunted more frequently than John Schneider's Blue Jays. Each and every year (well, except for the strike year, but if they'd played the 50 missing games... ) It must be acknowledged that Mark Belanger was Weaver's shortstop. The Blade was an amazing defender but he hit a little bit like a pitcher. He led the AL in sac hits a couple of times while playing for Weaver. 




Isn't that pretty?

You can sure see when Bobby Cox came to town, with Jimy Williams and Cito Gaston following in his path. There's a sudden one-year spike in 1991 - Manuel Lee, no one's idea of a hitter, had taken over at shortstop, and Gaston used him like Weaver used Belanger. And Roberto Alomar had come over from San Diego with his filthy National League ways, and he kept trying to bunt for a hit with men on base. (Hey, if it doesn't work, you advance the runners without hurting your batting average. I strongly suspect Gaston eventually told him he'd much rather see Alomar try to drive the runners in rather than move them over.) The other big one-year spike was in 2008. That team's offence was being absolutely strangled by the fact that they were hitting into double plays at a truly historic rate (on pace to set an all-time MLB record, in fact.) Bunting is one of the things managers resort to in order to stay out of the double play. And poor John Gibbons was trying everything. That lineup also generally featured people like David Eckstein, Joe Inglett, John McDonald, and Marco Scutaro. 

Still, it's interesting to me that it's a John Schneider team that is acting this way, threatening to become the first Blue Jays team ever to lead the league in sac hits. Because what did Schneider do in his first full year on the job? Yup, that's the season where they laid down so few sac bunts that the line on the graph falls right off the page. The 2023 Blue Jays had 4 sac bunts, a possibility not foreseen in any of my philosophy. Four sac bunts, all year. Two by Santiago Espinal, one each by Daulton Varsho and Kevin Kiermaier.

On the one hand, I'm in full agreement with Weaver - the bunt is seldom the best strategic option at any moment in any game. Now that the pitchers have been removed from the batting order, it may never be the "correct" option. And that's certainly how the modern game is played. The two guys on the Blue Jays roster with the most career sac hits are Max Scherzer and Eric Lauer, neither of whom has picked up a bat in years. Five of the 13 position players on the current roster (Kirk, Bichette, Guerrero, Barger, Schneider) have never laid down a sac bunt in their careers, and George Springer's last one was ten years ago. 



Matchups

Mon 7 July - Berrios (4-3, 3.64) vs Burke (4-7, 4.03)
Tue 8 July - Bassitt (8-4, 4.32) vs Civale (1-5, 4.60)
Wed 9 July - Lauer (4-1, 2.65) vs Houser (4-2, 1.60)