Blue Jays' Jose Bautista disappointed about team's trade deadline inactivity
The Blue Jays are 60-51 entering play on Saturday, 2.5 games behind AL East-leading Baltimore and 2.5 games ahead of the Royals for the second wild card spot. A playoff appearance this year would be Toronto's first since winning the 1993 World Series.
With so much on the line, Blue Jays slugger Jose Bautista was disappointed in the team's inactivity at the trade deadline.
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“Of course it’s a little disappointing that we somehow weren’t able to get anything done, but everybody around us that’s in contention somehow — and even some teams that aren’t in contention, like the Red Sox — somehow figured it out. But there’s still time to get stuff done,” the 33-year-old told MLB.com's Gregor Chisholm.
"So mixed feelings with the disappointment and then you’ve got to look at it from the other perspective: Maybe they believe enough in our talent that they didn’t feel like they wanted to break up our group and sacrifice what we have now, because we’re playing good ball."
Toronto closer Casey Janssenwas also critical of the team for not adding any pieces.
“For us not to do anything, most of us had some ideas that we were going to improve this club a little bit. It’s unfortunate we didn’t," he said. “I just think from an overall perspective of all these teams getting better, we know it’s going to be a tough time for us.
“We’ve heard ’92, '93 and I think we’re tired of hearing it. We want to put our stamp on Toronto and across baseball. For me in my eight years here, I’ve never been this close, never had such an opportunity to make it into the playoffs and I think that’s where this excitement level for this trade deadline was."
The Blue Jays, who had won six in a row before Friday night's loss in Houston, were reportedly in the mix for Asdrubal Cabrera, Jon Lester, Bartolo Colon, Chris Denorfia and former Blue Jay Alex Rios, but they couldn't complete a deal.
- Chris Mascaro
