Blue Jays Trending Up Offensively While Situational Hitting Remains Stagnant
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The expectations couldn't have been any higher for the Toronto Blue Jays going into this season after falling within spitting distance of their first Fall Classic in three decades last November. So, the bar was set with nowhere to go but down.
Well, to say the entire team got kicked in the teeth from the get go would be putting it lightly, Part of their below-average season has definitely been to a mind boggling amount of injuries, but there is no reason this team shouldn't be a .500 ballclub at this point.
It is really easy to pick this team apart right now, especially offensively, and it doesn't get easier to watch when the two highest-paid hitters, George Springer and Vladimir Guerrero Jr., have lost most of their power this year.
Some criticism is definitely warranted, but others are not, but it's a tougher pill to swallow after watching too many games get logged as L's when they do the nitty gritty work to win games, but come up short.
In terms of overall performance at the plate, the team's entire slash line in the last two weeks is well above their average this year. Right now, they are hitting .273 while slugging 422 and their OPS is a full 50 points higher than what was seen in May.
All of that is really important to turning things around, especially with finding power again. The little things all add up, and the scariest piece that isn't clicking right now is the situational hitting. How are they doing in the clutch?
Whatever someone wants to call it, the Jays are not doing it well this year.
Toronto's Stat Line With Runners in Scoring Position This Season
There is always more added pressure to make a hit or come up big for the team when there are players ready to score, two-outs, one-out, down one, etc. whatever it might be, compared to early in the gam,e no runs posted yet.
That is what situational hitting is, and the biggest glare in the Blue Jays hitting right now is how they are doing with RISP, not well.
- .235 Batting Average
- .306 On-Base Percentage
- .356 Slugging Percentage
- .662 OPS
- 21% Strikeout Rate
Toronto seemingly isn't putting all of the pieces together as they should be, and Saturday's loss paints the perfect picture of it. Kevin Gausman throws seven nearly perfect innings, but the offense goes 1-for-10 with guys ready to score.
That just can't happen, and if the Blue Jays want to be right back where they were when October comes around, then the "clutch" performances have to start coming through.
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Maddy Dickens resides in Loveland, Colorado. She grew up with two older brothers, where their lives revolved around sports. She earned a master's degree in business management from Tarleton State University while simultaneously playing basketball and competing in rodeo at the collegiate level. She successfully parlayed a reserve national championship into a professional rodeo career and now stays involved in upper-level athletics by writing for On SI on several different MLB teams' pages, along with some NCAA sites.