Month in Review - Week 5

April has come and gone for the Toronto Blue Jays, and it seems like nothing has changed for them since the end of last season. I could end the post right there, because we all seem to know what’s been going on. Players continue to get injured left and right, pitching for the most part has been disappointing, however the Jays hitters remain to be strong (12^th in batting average, 4^th in home runs, 6^th in RBI’s, 7^th in runs). One different factor from last year is the fielding, where last year the Jays committed the fifth most errors in the majors, compared this year where they’ve produced the lowest number of errors in the majors, a heavily improved factor. While fielding is a key point to games, if pitchers constantly find themselves having to rely on the fielding it can lead to too many runs given up, something the Jays have struggled with (5th highest ERA in the majors).  Besides fielding, this is the same shtick we’ve been seeing over the past year or so. The Jays feel like a broken record player, looping over and over the same things we see wrong with them, with nothing seeming like it will stop them. At this point, serious changes have to be made. Whether that’s by bringing in some fresh bodies, getting rid of Gibby, trading for some pitchers, anything. It’s up to AA to figure out what really is making the Jays so out of funk, and change it as soon as possible. To deny that changes to be made is doing nothing but harm for the Jays, unless we want to continue to rely solely on hitting to win games. Who knows, calling up Marcus Stroman may be the spark to ignite the Jays pitching. Maybe at the end of May we’ll be talking about how hitting isn’t reliable enough for the Jays. But if this downward trend continues, it’s going to take a lot to try and reverse it.