Losing to teams with inferior records, getting beaten by a rival’s September squad, and playing bad baseball—that’s the current state of your Toronto Blue Jays.

Oh, and they’ve got a month left to play.

The Friday night before the series with Boston kicked off, I was asked where the Jays would be after the series ended: reclaiming their place at the top or shell-shocked and farther back than where they started. I picked the latter. Not because I’m a defeatist, but because I’m a realist.

The Jays have a soft underbelly and it was asking a lot of them to stay sharp all season long with a lack of emerging stars on the horizon, no impact trades and planned disruptions to their rotation. They’ve cooled off and it may be too difficult a task for them to get hot again before the season runs out of games — at least not without a little help from some other teams in their division, all of whom seem to be playing solid baseball.

Unfortunately, I don’t think the Jays are done struggling yet. Their inconsistency is killing them.

Missing Drew Pomeranz and David Price was a blessing for the Jays, one that essentially gave their struggling offence as good a pitching draw as they could have asked for against Boston. Consider they Jays could have faced the three Ps - Rick Porcello, Price and Pomeranz - which is Boston’s optimal rotation. Instead they got Porcello, whom they’ve handled well before; Eduardo Rodriguez, who throws almost exclusively fastballs; and Clay Buchholz, a former star reduced to innings mop.

Even against that reduced rotation, the Jays struggled.

The Jays have beat up Porcello before, but he’s having a hell of a year and the Sox lineup scores plenty of runs behind him. His homer per fly ball rate is near its all-time low, while his strikeouts per nine innings rate is near its all-time high. Add in Marco Estrada’s recent woes, and chances were the Jays would drop the opener. But dropping it 13-3? That’s embarrassing, but not completely unexpected.

Indeed, it’s the mark of a volatile team that’s had its confidence shaken. The Jays were the pick of many to win this division, and once they claimed the division lead from the Orioles a week back, it was expected that they’d run to the finish line holding the crown high. Their only real test was supposed to be their remaining games versus the Red Sox, right?

I don’t even credit the Red Sox for their series win over the Jays; I credit the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees.

When the Rays punched the Jays in the mouth two series before the Red Sox, it stung. The Rays are already thinking of next season, and should have posed no problem for the rolling Jays.

Oh well, losses happen. And had the Jays gotten back on track in the next series, it would have been water under the bridge. But then the Yankees punched the Jays in the mouth, pulled their underwear over their collective heads, and stole their lunch money.

The Jays were supposed to beat those clubs. They were supposed to win this division. They were supposed to have everything going for them. But what happens when you rely on what is supposed to happen instead of what is actually happening? What happens when you come into a series you were supposed to have a cushion for, without it?

I think you have your answer.

The Jays took the field against the Red Sox with a lot of negative mental pressure. When you’re expected to win, winning feels like doing your job. When you’re not expected to win and you start rolling, winning feels awesome and fresh and contagious. The Jays lost their momentum and were facing the Red Sox thinking about damage control. The Red Sox had just picked up momentum and where thinking about keeping it going.

When a team starts thinking about results, negative results, it makes errors. It overthinks. It gets beat senseless.

Things were falling apart the Jays and they knew it even before the big errors and lopsided scores. You can tell the media until you’re blue in the face that you’re professionals and you’re resilient, but when the clock starts ticking loudly in the background and you keep missing opportunities, those narratives go out the window. Players and managers can tell the media that everything is fine and the team is going to bounce back and that there is nothing to worry about, but I think the opposite. You don’t need a players-only meeting to address issues when nothing is wrong.

Hayhurst: Blue Jays aren't built for one-game playoff TSN Blue Jays Analyst, Dirk Hayhurst joins Cauz and Wheeler to chat about Aaron Sanchez's blister problems, Blue Jays having a Players Only meeting, and Toronto not being built for a 1 game playoff.



You could, if you’re a cold pragmatist, concede the opener and focus on beating the Red Sox in the next two games against Rodriguez and Buchholz. Rodriguez was perfect opportunity for the Jays to get their bat’s going: a young lefty facing a veteran right-handed hitting club that eats fastballs. As a matter of fact, ask any hitter what they want to see when they’re cold and they’ll all tell you the fastball.

Rodriguez throws his fastball about 70 per cent of the time. In a small sample against him, the Jays have an on-base plus slugging (OPS) mark of over .800. Rodriguez threw 76 per cent fastballs during Saturday’s game — the most he’s thrown in a game all season. The Jays managed to get four hits off of him. Tip your hat to Rodriguez, but you have to wonder why the Jays didn’t handle the kind of pitcher they’re built to dominate.

Where is Josh Donaldson at physically right now? Is he hurt? His bat was oddly quiet this weekend in a series where it should have thundered. The reigning AL MVP has no hits in the last seven games and is batting .097 in September. The Jays aren’t winning anything if he stays this cold.

You could argue that we did see the offence we’ve become accustom to over the last two seasons on Sunday, but we also saw the pitching we’ve tried to forget.

Griffin: Blue Jays will have struggles sorted out sooner than later Toronto Star Baseball Columnist, Richard Griffin joins Mike Hogan to chat about Aaron Sanchez's blister problems, Blue Jays rotation struggles, and Toronto's series vs Boston over the weekend.

Buchholz is a sinking ship who has been handing out runs like parade candy most the year. He was the “supposed” to win matchup of this series for the Jays. Yes, the Jays did pulverize him on Sunday, but they couldn’t hold on to what was, by all rights, their swing game to win with Aaron Sanchez on the bump.

I’m preaching a lot of doom and gloom here, but there is a troubling trend of inconsistency. Shutdown innings — the inning after a team takes the lead and their pitcher puts up a zero to hold it — are in short supply. Cashing in runs against good pitchers is trending down. Defensive miscues are trending up.

Pressure is mounting and time is running out. And nothing says panic like when Troy Tulowitzki, usually so far above and beyond the need to address the state of the club, telling the media everything is okay. If it is, why is he telling me so? Wouldn't it simply be okay?



No, it's not okay. Why? Because the Jays are busy showcasing the difference between getting beat and losing. Getting beat means you played well and the other team simply played better. Losing means you failed to take advantage of things you could have done in order to improve your chance of victory. The Jays have been losing a lot lately, mostly to themselves. And they know it.

The Jays haven’t been playing their best baseball—that’s obvious. The good news is the race is close and as long as they can keep their head above water they’ve got a chance to reclaim the division. An additional bonus is that they will play a slew of 'weaker' teams in the remaining games on their schedule.

The bad news: They've lost to two of those weaker teams already in the Rays and the Yankees. More bad news: Their future is now at the mercy of another team's results.

I would advise the Jays not to underestimate any competition from here on out. There are no breaks in a September push for the postseason. They need to reclaim the division lead because a one-game playoff, while entertaining for fans, is a gamble the Jays do not want to roll the dice on. The Jays have a very small margin for error. The narrative of "plenty of baseball left" doesn't apply now. Not when every game matters and certainly not when you no longer control your own destiny.

The Jays must win, but other teams must now also lose. With their star bats running cold, the rotation showing cracks and the bullpen blowing leads, their insistence that there's nothing to worry about feels like a lie they desperately want to believe.