ARLINGTON, Texas — If it feels like the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers are having different versions of the same season, well, that’s because they pretty much are. Both teams entered the season with aspirations well beyond their current standing. Both are held back by underperforming lineups while solid pitching and defence keep them afloat. Both keep looking for answers to their ongoing hitting woes, struggling within a wider offence-suppressing environment.
“Oh, it’s harder now than ever,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said of the difficulty in producing runs. “You look at the pitching these guys are having to face, they’re seeing three or four different pitchers every night, plus fastballs, there’s the defence (positioning) information they have on that, you look at the different shapes of breaking balls, all those things. That’s why you see a lot of teams getting shut down, even really good teams, they go through their bumps because it’s a lot more difficult. There’s no getting around it.”
Underlining Bochy’s point is that heading into the Blue Jays’ 2-0 rubber-match win over the Rangers on Bo Bichette’s pinch-hit two-run homer in the ninth Wednesday, American League teams had averaged 227 runs so far this season.
The separation between them is so narrow that nine teams were plus-or-minus 20 runs of that mark, with the Blue Jays at the very end of that 40-run band. There were three outliers above the pack — the Yankees, Tigers and Red Sox — and three more well below it — the White Sox, Royals and Rangers.
Add in that nine teams are within five games of each other for the AL’s three wild-card spots, with the NL nearly as deep and tight, and there may be precious few bats available ahead of the July 31 trade deadline, with lots of competition for whatever is out there.
Given that, aside from working for internal gains, what can teams do?
“Your defence plays a huge part in the game now because runs are coming at a premium,” said Bochy. “You can save runs. Yeah, we’ve lost a lot of close games, but we’re in them because our defence has done a great job, along with our pitching. On the offensive side, you’ve got to find a way to manufacture runs and that’s using the whole field, walks, stealing bases, moving guys over, getting productive outs, all those things. I think you’re going to see teams working to get better at it. We have to get better at it, having that ability to move runners, get them over, get them in.”
All that should sound familiar to Blue Jays fans, because it’s what manager John Schneider and the coaching staff have been preaching since spring training. Still, that has to be a component of an offence, not its core, and the issue during their 2-4 road trip wasn’t in building innings but in fulfilling them.
On Wednesday, they were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position before Bichette – out of the starting lineup due to some lower-back tightness – mashed an 0-1 changeup from Jacob Webb over the wall in left to cash in Ernie Clement from second and end a 22-inning run drought. Even with that blow, the Blue Jays finished their road trip 4-for-45 trip in that regard.
“Obviously when teams are not scoring runs that becomes a thing of trying to get runs across and the more you don’t, it becomes bigger and both teams feel it,” said Bichette. “So, yeah, definitely, the offence feels that and wants to help out the pitching staff. Luckily, we were able to score enough runs to win two games.”
While they did hit into some bad luck — Addison Barger, for instance, had two hits but came up empty on the two balls he hit hardest, a 104.9 m.p.h. groundout in the eighth and a 103.3 m.p.h. drive to centre in the fourth that’s a homer in four parks but a long out at Globe Life Field — this isn’t their first such dry spell this season.
Schneider continues to put his faith in the abilities and work of his players – “It’s going to come, these guys were too good for it not to come,” he said – and appreciated the way they stuck to it in Arlington. “I’m really, really pleased with the way the guys didn’t let all of the runners left on base and some of the tough luck and some of the tough at-bats seep in and dictate the outcome.”
None of it would have been possible without strong pitching.
Opener Paxton Schultz with 2.2 innings, Eric Lauer with 3.1 frames, Braydon Fisher at an inning and a third, Brendon Little with two outs and Jeff Hoffman handling the ninth for his 12th save all combined for 13 strikeouts in the Blue Jays’ third shutout of the season.
After Josh Smith’s leadoff single in the bottom of the first, the Rangers went 0-for-27 with three walks. Schultz, who was told only Tuesday night he’d be opening, set the tone in his first career big-league start with four strikeouts and continues to make the most of his limited opportunities by attacking from the outset.
“That’s something I’ve been trying to do on the attack side, be in charge so I can throw the pitches where I need to, not being defensive, trying to be too fine, coming from behind,” he said. “Staying on the attack has helped me a lot.”
But worth remembering is that the very best pitching and defence can do is run-prevent a team to level. The teams that will thrive are the ones who can find ways to consistently create runs, too.
“That’s what ball’s about,” said Bichette. “Everything’s not going to go at the same time all the time. It’s about picking each other up and the (pitchers) were amazing.”
The Blue Jays are trying to reach a similar level with their hitters, in a league where very few teams can say the same about their offence.