Blue Jays takeaways: Yes, the Orioles really are that bad

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/06/2021 (1607 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The view from Deep Left Field on the Blue Jays’ 9-0 win over the Orioles in Buffalo on Thursday night:

What did I take away from the Blue Jays’ series-opening blowout win against the Orioles? More than anything, it’s that Baltimore is really not a good team at all.

The game was over seven batters into the bottom of the first inning, when Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s first career grand slam put the Jays up 6-0. It was only the second hit allowed by O’s starter Dean Kremer, who had walked the first three batters he faced.

Kremer, the first Israeli-born player in major-league history, managed to record only one out while allowing six earned runs, and saw his ERA jump to 7.25 for the season. That number, while ugly, is still better than the 7.80 sported by Matt Harvey, who will take the ball Friday night in an attempt to avoid his 10th loss of the season already.

After getting their ears pinned back in Buffalo, the Orioles have now lost 20 consecutive road games. Only once has an American League team done worse: the Philadelphia A’s dropped 22 straight away from home in 1943. That team wound up finishing 49-105, a .318 winning percentage that’s better than the Orioles’ current .307.

Over their last 18 innings against them, going back to Saturday’s six-run ninth, the Jays have outscored Baltimore 22-4. The Orioles are bad. But the Jays laying waste to them means something, too. The Jays have now put together five straight wins as the schedule has opened up for them, against a pair of last-place teams in the Orioles and Marlins. They’ve gone from having slogged through the toughest schedule in the league to having the easiest the rest of the way, and have done a great job taking advantage of it so far.

• The catcher question: Reese McGuire had another three-hit game, his third with at least that many in his past seven games.

With Danny Jansen and Alejandro Kirk out injured and Riley Adams scuffling at the plate, McGuire has emerged as the regular backstop for the time being and is throwing his bat into the ring as he never has before.

Over those seven games, the left-handed hitter is 13-for-20, batting .650. Five of those hits have been doubles, to give him an .850 slugging percentage and a very impressive 1.500 OPS.

Given the paucity of offence from Jays catchers in general this season, the hot streak from McGuire is welcome indeed, but it shouldn’t be taken to mean that the 26-year-old should be seen as the long-term answer, or even that he deserves the majority of the at-bats when Jansen and Kirk get back.

Prior to his hot streak, McGuire was hitting just .204/.271/.296 in 54 at-bats. Those numbers, combined with his .243 career average and OPS+ of 93, carry a lot more weight than his current hot streak, though of course the Jays should keep putting his name on the lineup card as long as he remains this hot.

Winnipeg Free Press | Newsletter

Head Start

Weekday Mornings

A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day.

Sign up for Head Start

Sign Up

I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

• Mound adventure: After being given a six-run lead in the bottom of the first, all the Jays needed from Anthony Kay — who made the start in place of Steven Matz, now COVID-free but still working his way back — was to throw strikes, use the defence behind him and get as deep into the game as he could.

The lefty didn’t follow the script in the top of the second. He put up a zero, but needed 31 pitches to do it and had Anthony Castro warming up in the bullpen behind him after the Orioles loaded the bases for slugger Trey Mancini. Kay struck out Mancini to end the threat, but was in serious danger of not being able to even go the requisite five innings, despite the huge lead, if he couldn’t get his pitch count under control. Then he walked the leadoff man in the third.

To his credit, the lefty kept it together at that point and kicked the efficiency into high gear. He needed only six pitches to get through the rest of the inning, then threw just nine more in a perfect top of the fourth.

Kay stranded a leadoff single in the fifth, then handed it off to the bullpen and lower-leverage relievers: Castro, Patrick Murphy, Jacob Barnes (in his Jays debut) and Tayler Saucedo threw a shutout inning each.

Tune into Mike Wilner’s weekly Blue Jays podcast, Deep Left Field, wherever you get your podcasts.

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