Blue Jays takeaways: Nationals hitters catch up to Steven Matz. The sun was only part of the problem

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This article was published 28/04/2021 (1659 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on Wednesday’s Blue Jays-Nationals game:

LAW OF AVERAGES

Steven Matz took his first loss as a Blue Jay, giving up six runs on eight hits over just 3 2/3 innings — his shortest start of the season.

Matz came into the game with a sparkling ERA of 2.31 over his four starts, all wins, but perhaps more telling he had allowed a batting average on balls in play of just .214.

BABIP is one of the newer metrics, and by removing strikeouts and home runs from batting average it measures only balls that stay on the field of play. History shows that it tends to be about .300. For everyone. Whenever a pitcher’s BABIP against is well below .300 it means he’s been getting lucky, and whenever a hitter’s is well above .300 it means the same. Though some people can obviously be lucky or unlucky over a full season, and other factors like hard-hit rate or speed can drive up a hitter’s BABIP, most big-leaguers will wind up somewhere around .300 over a full season.

Wednesday night, Matz was bitten hard by the BABIP monster, getting mostly nickel-and-dimed in allowing those eight hits.

Out of the 16 balls put in play against Matz, only three were hit harder than 100 miles per hour.

The Nationals loaded the bases with nobody out in the third — on a soft line single, a ground-ball single and a hit batsman — and Matz got the next five Washington batters to hit ground balls. The first two got through, scoring a total of three runs, the next one wasn’t hit hard enough for a double-play to be turned and the last two were turned into outs, the final one thanks to spectacular plays at both ends by Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

Washington hitters had a BABIP of .438 against Matz on the night, driving up his season total to .264.

STADIUM ISSUES

The Blue Jays have done a good job getting TD Ballpark in Dunedin as close to major-league standards as possible, but the one thing they can’t do anything about is the stands.

Every permanent big-league stadium has a third deck of seating, and some even have a fourth. The Rogers Centre, of course, has a 500 level — the “fifth deck” — but it’s really only the third deck of the stands. TD Ballpark in Dunedin doesn’t even have a second deck.

We’ve seen the height of the stands come into play a few times already this season, because it’s not enough to block off the sun as it sets over the Gulf of Mexico, which means there’s a good bit of time where the sun is directly in the eyes of the third baseman and left-fielder.

The longer the days get over the next couple of months (though the Jays will likely only be playing in Dunedin for another six weeks at the most), the later in the game that setting sun will be an issue.

Wednesday night, the sun was right in Joe Panik’s eyes in the top of the first inning, to the extent that the Jays’ third baseman actually lost a ground ball in the sun. He didn’t see Ryan Zimmerman’s bouncer to his left until it was too late, and it got past him into left field instead of being an inning-ending double-play.

There’s nothing that can be done about it, but it’s something to bear in mind for as long as the Jays play down there.

NOT SPEC-TACULAR

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Danny Jansen is having a miserable time at the plate this season. He came into Wednesday night’s game with no hits in his last 31 at-bats, and only a single and a double to his credit for the entire season.

In order to shake things up, Jansen wore contact lenses for the game. It was the first time in his major-league career that he hadn’t worn glasses. Did it work? Not really.

In his first at-bat, Jansen drilled an Erick Fedde fastball down the third-base line at 100 miles per hour off the bat, but Starlin Castro fielded it and turned it into an out at second. Next time up was a routine fly out to left, and Jansen drew a walk in the seventh before striking out to end the ball game, an 8-2 loss.

His 0-for-34 streak is only one unsuccessful at-bat shy of the club’s ignominious record, held by Ed Sprague.

Mike Wilner is a Toronto-based baseball columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @wilnerness