Blue Jays Weekend Recap: Bautista Loses His Cool, Jays Lose Four Straight

Talk about a miserable weekend for the Toronto Blue Jays.

The team doing their fair share of losing on several fronts over the last few days, both off and on the field. First, there was the coaching staff losing manager John Farrell after he was sent home to rest with a bout of pneumonia that caused him to have to leave the game on Thursday night complaining of chest pains. The initial thought was that the illness wouldn’t be serious enough for the Jays skipper to miss more than a couple of games, but the team has decided to rest him through the weekend. Don Wakamatsu has been taking over in Farrell’s absence, and the team has not responded particularly well, losing all 3 weekend games to the Rays and hoping to avoid a full series sweep tomorrow night.

Then there was Jose Bautista, who completely lost his cool on Friday night, after choosing to debate a debatable strike zone from home plate umpire Bill Welke following his third strikeout of the game. After being thrown out by Welke for arguing and slamming his bat at the side of the dugout, Bautista essentially flipped out, tossing his equipment out on the field and barking at Welke some more before heading into the tunnel.

Now, I guess some of you might want to chalk it off as a fiery leader showing some emotion because of his competitiveness, and that is certainly true; it’s important to realize, however, that Bautista engaged in an immature and childish actions while trying to show those emotions. It’s called a temper tantrum, and there really isn’t a place for it in the game. If you don’t support them when guys like Zambrano throws them, there’s no reason to give Bau a free pass here. Is that a reason to stop supporting Bautista? Does that make him any less of a player on the field? Nah, but what it does mean is that Bautista made a mistake in choosing his forms of expression, and those actions should not be supported. Fans know he can be better, and I’m sure he knows he can be better. There will likely be repercussions coming from the MLB at some point, and hopefully this will remain a one-off incident with the Jays’ star player.

Continuing on with this whole losing thing – not that I’m particularly fond of this theme – the Jays’ losses to the Rays this weekend were particularly harsh because only one of the 3 losses was even remotely competitive, with the Jays losing 5-6 on Saturday. Even so, the team played from behind all weekend, and was never really in the mix for winning any of the games, culminating with a 0-12 blowout earlier this afternoon. If you had to pick a main culprit, it was the pitching: the starters – Luis Perez, Henderson Alvarez and Brandon Morrow – combined for a lackluster 16.1 innings of work between 3 starts, allowing 11 runs on 15 hits and 9 walks for a 6.14 ERA (not to mention Brett Cecil’s poor start on Thursday night). Brandon Morrow was the worst of the bunch in his 2nd straight poor start, giving up 3 homers over just 5.1 innings and continuing that trend of inconsistency that’s been at his side since he entered the majors.

The short starts from our starters meant that the bullpen received some extra work. The line wasn’t pretty: 10.2 innings, 18 hits, 9 walks, 12 earned runs. There were bad performances all around, but the one that hurt the most was Shawn Camp and Jesse Litsch’s combined 4-run blowup in the 6th and 7th innings on Saturday that blew open a tie, essentially costing the team a chance to win. Wil Ledezma, who is really only up here because our bullpen is falling apart at the seams and is undermanned, allowed 7 runs on 6 hits over 2 innings over a couple of appearances, including today’s 0-12 laugher.

And to think, there’s still one month to go before these guys will get a chance to recharge, and for the top brass to try to bolster the team’s weakness in that department. The fun continues tomorrow, with the Jays looking to ace Ricky Romero to try and stop the losing streak at 4 against Wade Davis and the Rays.

PS. To end of a positive note, at least we’ve still got Brett Lawrie, who continued to rake: the growing legend went 4-for-12 over the weekend, launching his 5th homer of the season in Friday night. Lawrie had 2 for the Jays 5 hits yesterday in a record-setting 14 strikeout performance from David Price – so even when other guys are struggling, Lawrie continues to hit the ball well. That impressive small sample stat line is starting to become an impressive stat line, period.