Carson on Jays: Dangerously thin roster

I’m starting to realize the fine line the Blue Jays are currently walking on.

Sure, they took both games of a mini-series from a Red Sox team still finding its identity. Before that, Justin Verlander threw a no-hitter, sending the Jays into a three-game funk. But they were able to bounce back to end the homestand at .500, coupled with the 5-5 road trip they previously came off of, and it’s been wheel-spinning for the last 16 games. The team heads out to Minnesota and Detroit, sitting in a third-place tie in the AL East with the Red Sox.

The starting pitching still refuses to go deep into games (averaging just under 5 1/3 innings per start over these last 16 games), and the dominoes start to tumble. The relievers are requiring gaps in between appearances, thus an eighth reliever is needed, meaning the team has to carry one less bench player. The Jays currently only have a three-man bench, one in no-man’s land between active and disabled (Lind), one that can only play one position (Molina), and the third is usually John McDonald, who is needed more and more at third right now due to Edwin Encarnacion’s fielding adventures. It’s getting really tough for the Jays to compete in this division with such limited offensive options.

The team’s shallow depth almost came back to bite them for the first time this season Tuesday night after Yunel Escobar left the game after getting hit by a pitch to the leg. David Cooper came off the bench to pinch-run and play first, with Encarnacion heading across the diamond to (gulp!) third. That left only Molina available, and thankfully there wasn’t another injury or two in the game. I could see a scenario where a pitcher like Casey Janssen, who was a position player in his teens, might have to play in the field. The Jays are really gambling going with such a short bench on a nightly basis.

Cooper had the first impact game in his young career, stroking his first Major League home run off fireballer Daniel Bard and getting the walk-off sac fly in the extra frame Tuesday against the BoSox. One night after his coming out party, Cooper provided solid defence behind Jesse Litsch in the mini-sweep. We even started to hear some of the faithful braying ‘COOOOOOOP’. Good to see the first of many highly touted minor leaguers making an impact with the parent club.

Now the fans will patiently await the arrival of Brett Lawrie and Eric Thames, and the return of Travis Snider and Brett Cecil, before they can start getting a glimpse at the heart of the roster that will carry the team towards contention in the near future. Until then, fingers crossed.

THE ENIGMA

Every now and then, you come across some numbers that defy logic. Here’s a perfect example:

This Major League hitter, now in his 12th season is 16-for-53 (.302) against Roy Oswalt, 14-for-38 (.368) against Matt Morris, 13-for-31 (.419) off Livan Hernandez, 10-for-28 (.357) off Chris Carpenter, 7-for-20 (.350) against Mark Buehrle, 6-for-10 (.600) off Matt Garza, 7-for-19 (.368) off Roy Halladay and 8-for-21 (.381) against Felix Hernandez. Based on those numbers, you’d think that I was talking about Albert Pujols, or Alex Rodriguez, or Ichiro Suzuki. Wrong, wrong and, uh…wrong.

These head-to-head numbers have been put together by none other than Blue Jays’ (reserve) outfielder Corey Patterson, a career .253 hitter and now playing on his fifth team over the last four seasons. (Note: I bracket ‘reserve’ because injuries and underachievement has forced Jays’ manager John Farrell to write his name into the line-up far too often through the first 37 games). For whatever reason, Patterson has hit some of the best pitchers in the game very well over his dozen MLB seasons. The left-handed hitter, once a ‘can’t miss’ prospect with the Cubs, took over as an everyday outfielder this season after Rajai Davis turned an ankle on Opening Night in a rundown against the Twins.

Once Davis returned, Patterson took over once again after Snider was sent to triple-A after hitting just .184 and striking out once every 4.3 plate appearances through 25 games. Patterson, who was selected 3rd overall in the 1998 draft amongst the likes of Pat Burrell, J.D. Drew, Carlos Pena and CC Sabathia, never seemed to reach that high potential, only playing as a regular in the Majors in two of his seasons. Since then, he’s kicked around and only landed a job with the Jays this season after accepting a non-roster invite to spring training.

While his production has been modest (.276 Avg, 2 HR, 16 RBI in his first 28 games), there has been snapshot moments to explain why Patterson never made it big. One was back in April during the first trip of the season to Fenway Park. Patterson raced a long way towards the centre field triangle only to pull up a couple of strides from the padded wall and allowing the ball to land on the warning track. But the second, and most glaring, occurred in the final game of this past homestand when a Jose Bautista arching fly ball hit off the left field wall above Carl Crawford’s glove. Patterson, for whatever reason, had gone back to first base to tag up instead of running to second and waiting for the play to unfold, and was only able to make it as far as second. Luckily for Patterson, the Jays bunched together a couple of more hits in the inning to turn a one-run game into a laugher or his faux pas on the bases could have proved costly.

But it’s moments like this that show why he has never advanced past the level of reserve. And with Snider and Thames likely poised for a promotion in the not too distant future, Patterson will get squeezed out of the picture with yet another team. That’s the life of a second-tier Major Leaguer.