Jays struggle against elite starter again

A 3-4 week is by no means a dream opening to the new season for the Toronto Blue Jays, and among the many areas where there are gains to be made is in finding ways to beat elite starting pitchers.

With losses to David Price, Chris Archer, Masahiro Tanaka and, on Sunday in a 6-4 setback to the New York Yankees, CC Sabathia, their all too familiar troubles scratching out runs when facing some of the opposition’s best arms resurfaced.

To the Blue Jays’ credit they did manage to beat Alex Cobb, Matt Moore and Michael Pineda, but they were 10-15 last year when facing pitchers who started the first game of the season for their teams, according to Stats Inc., and at 0-2 so far in 2014, they simply have to be better.

“When you’re facing the better guys you can’t give up a lot of runs because then it gets that much tougher,” said manager John Gibbons. “It all starts on the mound, regardless of who you’re facing, you’ve got to match them or at least keep it close, and then it’s a whole different look. It’s tough to come back when you’re down five runs.

“But you’ve got to beat those guys, you’ve got to keep battling and we had a shot late, it didn’t happen. I feel good because we’ve got a few guys in our lineup that are cold right now, we’ve won a few games, gotten some pretty good pitching, so I’m optimistic once they get going. It shouldn’t be that far off.”

This one is largely on starter Drew Hutchison, who struggled to find the zone throughout his 3.1 innings, coughed up a three-spot in the first to dig his team an early hole and then buried the Blue Jays in the fourth when he surrendered an RBI double to Yangervis Solarte and two-run shot to Brett Gardner.

Against Sabathia, who skinny or fat lives large against the Blue Jays, that’s unacceptable, especially when the offence, dormant after Melky Cabrera’s leadoff homer in the first, broke through for a three-spot in the sixth on Dioner Navarro’s RBI double and Erk Kratz’s two-run single.

It’s only the sixth time in 20 starts that Sabathia has allowed four or more earned runs against the Blue Jays, and he’s now 15-4 in those outings. With a better outing from Hutchison, Sunday’s contest in front of a crowd of 34,067 at Rogers Centre would have been there for the taking long before a rally in the ninth stalled when Colby Rasmus popped out and Cabrera lined out with two runners on.

“To have a big year you’ve got to start winning some games like this,” said Gibbons. “It’s not easy, you can’t fall behind and spot them five runs, but there comes a time where you’ve got to start winning some of these games, especially at home.

“You’ve got to find that magic. Hopefully we find that soon.”

The beginning was similar for the Blue Jays in the 9-2 season-opening loss to Price, as R.A. Dickey gave up four runs in the first three innings and the game was essentially over. They didn’t score until the eighth inning, when Kratz crushed a pinch-hit, too-little-too-late two-run shot.

Still, a lineup with more than its fair share of thunder must find ways to make life more difficult for the opposing starter, even when he’s dealing the way a Price or a Sabathia can.

“Our plan of attack was not trying to do too much with (Sabathia), and make him be up and out over the plate, don’t get pull happy with a guy like this because he’s not going to give you anything to pull,” said hitting coach Kevin Seitzer. “He made a mistake on the first hitter with a hanging slider and Melky hit out and he really bore down to try and keep the ball down in the zone and hit his spots. The first four or five innings, we were a little bit in front, trying to do a little too much with him, rolling over some balls, popping up.

“I feel like our-bats weren’t bad but they’ll get a lot better against the top pitching when we see more of the top pitching on a daily basis. I can hopefully help these guys make the adjustments we need to make to give ourselves more opportunities.”

To some extent the opportunities have been there, but the Blue Jays haven’t done that much with them. On Sunday they were 2-for-6 with runners in scoring position, bringing their season total to 9-for-46, an icy .196 clip.

Partly they miss the versatility of Jose Reyes atop the lineup, but mostly they’re glacial in significant parts of their lineup, with Navarro batting .208, Edwin Encarnacion .179, Brett Lawrie .120, Colby Rasmus .087 and Ryan Goins .063.

That’s a tough way to try and beat the best, and helps explain why so far, they haven’t.

Top Stories

Top Stories

Most Watched Today