What a difference a month makes eh?
At the end of April the Jays sat at 11-17 and looking nothing like a team with playoff aspirations.
Today, on the first of June the Blue Jays sit 3rd in the AL East at 31-27, four games behind the division leading Tampa Bay Rays and three games behinds the wild card leading Boston Red Sox.
After piecing together a few nice winning streaks during the month of my birth, the Blue Jays finished the month with a record of 20-10, or to put it simply, the best record in all of baseball for the month of May.
Too bad for the Blue Jays that the Rays went 19-10 so we gained a measly half game.
So let’s have a look at the Jays month of May piece by piece starting with the offense.
Offense:
Well, it improved. We can start with that.
No one is going to confuse the Jays with the ‘98 Yankees or ‘01 Mariners just yet, but the team did up its offense last month, ending with the last week of May with run totals of 12 and 10 during their California road trip.
The following stats show total values for May, with their respective place in the AMERICAN LEAGUE only, in parenthesis.
Runs Scored: 119 (7th)
Batting Average: .272 (5th)
Home Runs: 19 (13th)
Walks: 97 (5th)
Stolen Bases: 16 (8th)
OBP: .337 (6th)
OPS: .394 (7th)
GIDP: 30 (1st)
Batting Average with RISP: .244 (13th)
So when you look at these stats it should tell you a few things.
First of all, the Jays did improve upon their April batting statistics. Batting average, OPS, RISP and runs scored are all slightly higher than they were in April. Batting average jumped from a .251 mark in April to a .275 clip in the month of May.
The valuable OPS stat climbed from .363 in April to .394 in May.
This shows that the Jays are hitting with more regularity.
The teams OBP and BB are still in the top half of the league, but unlike April the Jays are now starting to slowly drive in more of these runners. Not great, but an improvement.
On a sour note, the team once again hit into the most double plays for the second straight month. Hitting in 30 DP’s in 30 games, down from 38 in 28 games in the month of April.
Also, while climbing, the batting average with runners in scoring position is still very low with the Jays hitting .244 for the month of May. Up from April’s average of .210, but still only ahead of the Kansas City Royals.
Finally, the Jays cannot hit the long ball. The Jays only hit 19 HR’s in the month of May, putting them ahead only of Kansas City. The Jays only managed 19 in the month of April as well and currently sit near the bottom of all of MLB for homerun totals.
Looking at individual players, a few Jays were hot this month.
Rod Barajas had a solid month for the Blue Jays hitting at a .370 clip in 54 AB’s while driving in 13 runs and hitting 3 HR’s.
Marco Scutaro filled in nicely at SS. Playing in 20 games and hitting .288
Lyle Overbay may have had the best month of any Jays player hitting .287 for the month while hitting 4 HR’s and driving in 14 runs.
A few of the Jays big bats also went cool this month as Matt Stairs and Alex Rios hit just .230 and .231 respectively. Together they totaled a meager 4 HR’s and 19 RBI’s in 204 AB’s.
For the Jays to continue their current winning ways, these two will need to turn it around.
Overall the offense made slight improvements from the month of April where I had them graded as an F.
This month I’m feeling that the team deserves a little higher grade and thus I will grant the Jays offense a grade of C- for the month of May.
OFFENSE GRADE : C –
Pitching:
ERA: 2.91 (1st)
HR Allowed: 20th (4th)
BB: 77 (2nd)
SO: 234 (1st by a LARGE margin)
Opponents Batting Average: .211 (1st….the White Sox are second at .236)
WHIP: 1.09 (1st)
Seriously, what can you say about this pitching staff.
They are amazing. This is probably the best Jays pitching staff I have seen since I started watching the Jays in 1991.
Everytime a Blue Jays starter goes out there, I feel the team has a legitimate shot to win the game. Granted I feel the least comfortable with AJ Burnett, but none the less I wouldn’t swap our pitching staff with any other in the majors.
The bullpen has been phenomenal, the starters have been phenomenal.
If the Jays could upgrade their offense from a C- / D level to even a B- team, the Blue Jays would be running away with the division. They could probably be about 40-18 right about now if they had some hitting.
Let’s just quickly go through the Jays Starters 1-5 for the month of May to truly appreciate their talent.
1. Roy Halladay : 4-1 with a 2.52 ERA. This included a WHIP of 0.89 and an opponents batting average of .240
2. AJ Burnett: 3-3 with an ERA of 3.43. This included a WHIP of 1.27 and an opponents batting average of .305
3. Dustin McGowan: 3-2 with an ERA of 4.33. This included a WHIP of 1.33 and an opponents batting average of .333 (The beating that Cleveland gave him skews his numbers a bit it would appear)
4. Shawn Marcum: 3-1 with an ERA of 2.18. This included a WHIP of 0.88 and an opponents batting average of .244
5. Jesse Litsch: 4-0 with an ERA of 2.08. This included a WHIP of 0.90 and an opponents batting average of .238.
It says a lot when your number “5″ guy is your team’s best pitcher.
But again looking at the staff, Halladay, Marcum and Litsch all had fantastic months.
McGowan was quite good aside from one beat down in Cleveland, while Burnett while posting decent numbers still instills the least amount of faith in me.
Also, why is BJ Ryan not getting more publicity here and down south? He’s returned from a major surgery to post a 1-0 record this season with a 0.53 ERA and a perfect 12 saves in 12 chances while striking out 20 in 17 innings.
In fact the bullpen as a whole has been among baseball’s best all season, if not the best.
So overall how I can give anything but an A+ to this team’s pitching staff would be beyond me.
PITCHING GRADE : A+
To summarize,
The Jays have climbed back into a pretty good position after the first two months of the season.
With a record of 31-27 and coming off the month of May as baseball’s hottest team the Jays look poised to make some noise.
But it will be important for Toronto to realize that Tampa Bay is for real and is not going anywhere. The Red Sox as always will be tough, so it’s important to make up ground when you can.
Finally, we have the record of 14-7. The Blue Jays are 14-7 WITHOUT Vernon Wells in their lineup since he was injured in a game in Cleveland in early May. What’s the deal with that? Are the Jays players too complacent with Vernon in the lineup thinking he’ll bail them out?
Let me know what you think of the Jays month of May and what the future could hold for the club. Is this a playoff team or not?
Currently the team is on pace for 86 wins, but this recent hot streak indicates that they may improve on that mark. What do you think?
