BOSTON — A trade.
That would be the ultimate way to shake the Toronto Blue Jays out of their tepid offensive ways, for sure. The problem, as general manager J.P. Ricciardi says, is that the only thing anybody ever wants from him is a starting pitcher.
"And there's no way I want to give up any of them right now," Ricciardi said Tuesday.
Not that he thinks his position players are, well, stiffs. Far from it. And that's what was most frustrating yesterday — a day after Roy Halladay's third consecutive complete-game loss and just hours before the Blue Jays put the torch to another impressive outing, this time by Dustin McGowan — as Ricciardi discussed his club's road swoon. Six hours later, the Blue Jays suffered their second consecutive walk-off loss, as the Boston Red Sox took advantage of two amateurish base-running mistakes by pinch runners Marco Scutaro and John McDonald en route to a 2-1 win on a two-out, run-scoring single by Jason Varitek.
Boston Red Sox left fielder Manny Ramirez beats the throw to home for the game-winning run against the Toronto Blue Jays Wednesday night. (Katie McMahon/Reuters)
Related Information
- Boston Red Sox
- Toronto Blue Jays
- Rod Barajas
- Scott Downs
- David Eckstein
- Jed Lowrie
- John McDonald
- Dustin McGowan
- Hideki Okajima
- David Ortiz
- Jonathan Papelbon
- Manny Ramirez
- Alex Rios
- Marco Scutaro
- Matt Stairs
- Jason Varitek
- Vernon Wells
"The ugly side of baseball," Vernon Wells said after last night's game, after Manny Ramirez beat his throw to the plate to score the winning run — just after Jays catcher Rod Barajas had blocked home plate and prevented Boston pinch runner Jed Lowrie from scoring a run, on another throw from Wells.
Ugly? Pug-ugly. But not enough to make Ricciardi think it's time to back up the truck.
"If this was an open market and Overbay, Hill, Rolen, Wells and Stairs and Rios were out there and anybody could have them, you'd have people knocking down the door for them," said Ricciardi, who has called this team the best he's had in terms of depth.
"I don't question the team [its composition] at all. We're not playing well. I'll take responsibility for it. I put the team together. Do I believe in the guys? One hundred per cent. Do I think we'll hit? Eventually. But right now we're not. So somebody needs to stand up. I'm the guy who did it, so I'll be the guy who takes responsibility for it."
That's likely something of a pre-emptive strike on the part of the general manager, who knows his club is going to face an unhappy fan base when it returns home from this trip in last place in the American League East, and that at some point this weekend, club president and chief executive officer Paul Godfrey will almost certainly want to know whether his GM has any type of list to replace John Gibbons as manager. That will be a fascinating conversation, because for Ricciardi, Gibbons is no Buck Martinez or Carlos Tosca.
"The manager has tried a lot of things," Ricciardi said. "He's shaken the lineup up. He's hit-and-run. … I mean, he hit-and-run with Vernon Wells [last Sunday], a guy traditionally you don't do that with. He's tried to steal more. You know, man on third base, less than two outs?
"Someone's got to drive a run in. Somebody's got to do it. You can't put a hit-and-run on, then. The manager can't hit for the players, and the coaches can't hit for the players and they can't catch the ball for the players."
There was a bit of that last night, as the Blue Jays were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and are 4-for-54 in that situation on this trip. That was compounded last night when Scutaro failed to tag up and go to third base on a sinking sacrifice liner off the bat of Alex Rios that tied the score in the eighth inning. Hideki Okajima struck out David Eckstein and Rolen to end the inning, but pitching with a man on third would have been a great deal tougher than with a man on second.
In the ninth inning, McDonald was picked off first base by Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon after coming in to replace Matt Stairs, who singled to lead off. The Blue Jays said the pitcher balked, although nobody argued with first-base umpire Gerry Davis. "I've kind of tweaked my delivery with men on base to make it quicker," said Papelbon, now 2-0.
Blue Jays reliever Scott Downs, 0-1, was hung with the loss after McGowan scattered four hits over 71/3 innings, including giving up a solo home run to David Ortiz with one out in the seventh inning that ended a 39-inning extra-base-hit drought for the Red Sox.
Gibbons has called one meeting during the swoon — last Thursday, after a 5-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in Orlando. The players haven't bothered to call one of their own. But Gibbons denies the team lacks emotion and gets his back up at the slightest suggestion of a lack of effort. "Emotion doesn't mean blaming this guy or that guy," Gibbons said before the game. "I know what's going on in their heads. You can see it. We all see it."
"Listen," Ricciardi added. "If I'm sitting there and I'm a fan of the Blue Jays and I see us in last place, I'm not happy. There isn't anything we can say to the fans that can justify being in last place. There is no excuse. We're better than this and we need to play better than this."
That's for sure. The Jays are 1-7 on this nine-game trip, which will wrap up tonight, and are 11-17 for the month. They're 2-9 in one-run games and, frankly, fully deserving of their cellar-dwelling status.
