ARLINGTON, Texas — While the Texas Rangers are facing adversity for the first time in 2023, the Toronto Blue Jays have been experiencing something of an identity crisis.
One of the favorites in the American League East going into the season, the Blue Jays find themselves in fourth place, behind a relatively average New York Yankees team, a Baltimore Orioles team that has turned the corner with young upstarts, and a history-making Tampa Bay Rays team that at the top of the standings in the league.
With a star-studded, second-generation lineup, some of the best outfield defense in the game, and a fairly balanced rotation, the Blue Jays are expected to be better than their 38-32 record. They haven’t been doing terribly, but “not terrible” won’t cut it in the stacked AL East.
Meanwhile, the first place Rangers have lost six of their last eight games and will be trying to avoid losing a third consecutive series for the first time in 2023.
Where Toronto is coming from
The Blue Jays come to Arlington in the midst of a three-city road trip. They’ll be flying in from Baltimore, where they just lost a series two games to one against the Wild Card leading Orioles. Save for an uncharacteristically bad outing from Chris Bassitt in the opener, the Blue Jays enjoyed a couple of good starting pitching performances but just couldn’t pull the offense together to win in the finale. Overall, the month of June has been good to the Jays, however.
The Blue Jays are 9-5 since the calendar flipped over from May. Victories include a sweep over the New York Mets and a four-game series win against Texas’ division rival, the Houston Astros. The pitching has been good enough to keep Toronto in games and the offense, while not necessarily producing to the levels some might have expected, has done enough to earn some wins.
Perhaps in the inverse for how things have been going for Texas, the perfect winning combination of good pitching and timely offense has to be there of late for Toronto, but that fortune hasn’t consistently shown up for the Jays throughout the year.
Offensively, the Jays are slashing .265/.334/.422 and their 317 runs scored is just above middle of the pack. They’re led by Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., Matt Chapman, and Kevin Kiermaier, each a solid All-Star team contender.
Bichette has been the team’s best offensive player, having played in all 70 games he’s slashed .318/.348/.508 with 14 homers and 44 RBI. In the Orioles series, however, Bichette went 4-for-12, driving in one. Right now, it’s Whit Merrifield and George Springer that are carrying the team through their upswing in June, with Merrifield hitting near .400 for the month.
The Toronto starters have posted a 4.03 ERA, good for 9th in the league. They’re averaging 5.2 innings per game and have a 1.29 WHIP. Kevin Gausman has been outstanding for the club for a second year in a row. Last year, Gausman finished 9th in the Cy Young voting, posting a 3.35 ERA and a 7.32 strikeout-to-walk ratio. This year, he’s been more efficient with his game, pitching a full inning more per game on average, allowing fewer hits per outing and striking out more hitters.
The bullpen, too, has been solid with Toronto’s relievers putting up a 3.82 ERA, saving 22 out of 29 possible games, with opponents hitting just .232 off of them.
On average, the Blue Jays are allowing 4.27 runs per game while scoring 4.55 runs per game. When the differentials are that close, in a division like the AL East, you get a pretty mediocre team. It’s the kind of team that runs on good streaks for a while, goes on bad streaks for a while, and one that is trying to make a hot start to June stick as a consistent stretch where they can gain ground in the American League.
It’s the task of the Rangers to send the trendy preseason pick Toronto back on a downward trajectory as they try to pull out of their own recent spiral in June.
Things to watch for
Game 69: 7:05 PM CT - RHP Kevin Gausman (5-3, 3.12 ERA) vs. LHP Martin Perez (6-2, 4.67 ERA)
Game 70: 3:05 PM CT - TBD vs. RHP Dane Dunning (5-1, 2.76 ERA)
Game 71: 1:35 PM CT - RHP Chris Bassitt (7-5, 4.02 ERA) vs. RHP Jon Gray (6-2, 2.32 ERA)
The rotation depth has taken a hit for the Rangers with Jacob deGrom and Jake Odorizzi out for the year. Texas has gotten a couple of serviceable outings from Cody Bradford, while Dane Dunning has performed more than admirably for the staff despite a recent tough stretch.
But dents in the armor are starting to show for the usual rotation members with Andrew Heaney and Martin Perez each having a poor month and Jon Gray missing a start with a blister. Texas can ill-afford to dip into its shallow pool of starting pitching depth for the long haul. But even so, Toronto has even less depth.
Recent Cy Young contender Alek Manoah has so vastly underperformed this season that he’s been sent back to Dunedin in the minor leagues for retooling. Hyun-Jin Ryu isn’t on track to rejoin the team following Tommy John surgery until after the All-Star Break. Beyond that, there isn’t much. For that reason, Toronto has a “TBD” listed as the starting pitcher in the second game of this series against Texas.
The opening matchup on Friday will pit the Blue Jays’ ace Gausman against Perez. Gausman is coming off of a bad outing against Minnesota, where he gave up six runs in 4 2/3 innings. That hasn’t been the norm for the former LSU standout. In his previous six starts, Gausman hadn’t given up more than two earned runs in a game and his 117 strikeouts this season leads the league.
Success in recent weeks hasn’t been the case for Perez, who last faced the Rays and gave up seven runs and ten hits in just 3 ⅓ innings at Tampa Bay. Perez, who went all of April without giving up more than three runs, has been wildly inconsistent since then, struggling with command, which has resulted in a lot of walks and a lot of hard hit balls.
Most of the Rangers have seen Gausman before, but Corey Seager has enjoyed six hits off of him in 12 at-bats. On the other side, Toronto third baseman Matt Chapman has feasted on Perez, sporting a .438 batting average against him in 16 at-bats.
The second game of the series will see Dane Dunning take the hill for his fourth start since coming back from the paternity list. Since that time, Dunning has been pedestrian on the hill. After going 12 games and not allowing more than two runs in any appearance, Dunning has given up ten runs in his last three starts, while walking eight and allowing 20 hits.
Dunning doesn’t have the best track record against some of the Jays’ hitters, either, with Merrifield, Springer, Guerrero, Jr., Chapman, and Bichette each hitting .300 or better off of the righty.
The series finale on Father’s Day will see Chris Bassitt face Gray. It is Gray’s first start since he was scratched with a blister. Gray has been stellar for the Rangers, pitching to an 0.84 ERA in his last six starts, including a complete game one-run loss his last time out against the Cardinals.
Meanwhile, Bassitt had one of his worst outings of the year in his last appearance, which had followed one of his best. Against Baltimore, Bassitt only managed to go three innings and gave up eight runs. The time before that, the righty went eight innings and allowed just two runs in a victory over the Astros.
Texas is looking to get back on track, and former Blue Jay Marcus Semien is one of the keys to getting the offense to where it was producing earlier in the month and for all of May. Since his 25-game hitting streak ended, Semien has gone 5-for-35 and the Rangers’ offense has gone cold with him.
While Toronto strives to keep winning in June, the Rangers could really stand to see some of that double-digit scoring offense again to help them get off the mat.
Do you think the Rangers will rebound to beat the Blue Jays? Share your predictions with Matt on Twitter @FisherWritesMLB.
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