What you missed in Blue Jays land: Going old up the middle

Another week, another losing record for the Toronto Blue Jays. A combination of cold bats and a suddenly-shaky bullpen had the club producing another 2-3 stretch going into Sunday’s action.

Jaime Garcia is back, and looked very strong on Saturday, but beyond that it’s hard to draw too many positives from the week. As much as it’s fun to see Russell Martin play a little shortstop, if a team is trotting out a 35-year-old catcher at the most athletically-demanding spot on the diamond, it’s not a great sign.

The Blue Jays continue to fall behind other prospective wild card contenders and without and about-face in June, they will earn the dreaded “sellers” label as the trade deadline approaches.

Here are a couple of things you might have missed from this week:

Another reason Saturday’s fielding alignment was weird

On Saturday, the Blue Jays made headlines by rolling Martin out at short, but it’s also worth noting that Curtis Granderson drew a start in centre field as well. Both of these were a little odd because each player was playing out of position – obviously Martin moreso – but it’s also extremely rare to see players of their age playing those premium defensive spots.

Martin is 35 and the only player that old to get significant time at shortstop this year is Jose Reyes. Similarly, only Rajai Davis has played centre this season at Granderson’s age of 37. Both of those former Blue Jays are better deployed at other spots at this point in their careers, too.

As teams have placed more and more emphasis on defence in recent years, they’ve tended to spring for younger, more athletic options up the middle. The Martin-Granderson duo didn’t kill the Blue Jays in the field on Saturday, but it’s not generally prudent to put 72 years of life experience at those two positions in the same game.

Sam Gaviglio missing some bats

Last season, you could argue that Gaviglio’s defining quality was his inability to rack up strikeouts. Out of 204 pitchers who threw at least 70 innings in 2017 his 5.93 K/9 ranked 188th. That’s the reason he was available for virtually nothing in the offseason despite a respectable 4.36 ERA.

Things have been a little different this year as the right-hander has struck out 18 batters in 15.2 innings of work. He’s posted six strikeouts – a career high – in both of his starts as a Blue Jay while providing the club with better innings than they could have possibly expected.

It’s hard to imagine Gaviglio has turned into a strikeout artist overnight since he’s still dealing heavily in sub-90 sinkers and his pitch mix hasn’t changed that significantly since last year. He is using the slider a bit more and having success with it, but this looks more like a blip than a breakout.

If he has found something real, though, the Blue Jays will certainly take it given their rotation woes.

A weird kind of consistency from Marco Estrada

On Thursday afternoon when Marco Estrada went just 4.1 innings and gave up four runs on seven hits, it would be tempting to describe the outing as “uncharacteristic” of the right-hander.

Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, that isn’t exactly the case. Strangely, he’s given up precisely seven hits in four of his last five starts, allowing four runs in three out those outings. That’s just a statistical quirk that shouldn’t be read into, but it is something of a barometer of how hittable he’s become.

When he’s dealing, Estrada is a master of inducing soft contact and suppressing hits to a degree few pitchers can match. Seven hits is an arbitrary number, sure, but he’s conceded that many or more in six out of his 10 starts this year. For a frame of reference, when he had his last great season in 2016 he allowed seven or more hits just five times in 29 trips to the mound.

Danny Barnes having serious troubles holding runners

In his short career, Barnes has shown he can do a lot of things well. He keeps runs off the board, he misses bats despite throwing in the low 90s, and he’s demonstrated multi-inning capability when his manager needs it.

One thing that he clearly hasn’t excelled at is holding runners, something he demonstrated on Wednesday when he allowed Justin Upton to commit an act of larceny on his watch. Here’s a look at the top five pitchers in stolen bases allowed this season – a list where Barnes pops off the page:

Although catchers play some role here, culpability for the running game lies more on the pitcher, and the fact Barnes is the only reliever here is certainly an indictment of his work holding runners.

The 28-year-old isn’t the high leg kick fireballer you’d normally associate with a bag snatching problem, but clearly he needs to pay a touch more attention to the men on base under his care. That’s especially true seeing as John Gibbons likes to use him in situations where he inherits runners.

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