Blue Jays: 2019, the year of “Why not give it a shot?”

You can’t blame Charlie Montoyo for being creative early in the 2019 season, and with a young roster that’s learning on the job we could see a lot more of it.

It was great to see the Blue Jays’ offence come to life yesterday, especially against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park for their home opener. As if beating them in that game isn’t sweet enough, it was also ring ceremony day for the defending World Series champions, so it was a nice little way for the boys in blue to play the spoiler for their division rival for the day.

It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses for this team in the early going through, as evidenced by their 4-8 record to start the year. Hopefully Tuesday’s effort will be the turn of the corner that the offence has been looking for, as they’ve been striking out over 10 times per game, and routinely allowing the opposition to flirt with a no-hitter in the season’s first couple weeks.

It hasn’t been pretty, and as a result the new manager in Charlie Montoyo has already started to get creative, and you can’t exactly blame him. He’s also dealt with some unusual roster turnover as well, as the Blue Jays shipped Kendrys Morales to the Oakland A’s on the eve of Opening Day, and Kevin Pillar was sent to San Francisco last week as well. They also acquired Socrates Brito and Alen Hanson, who are both on the big league roster at the moment, and weren’t a part of any spring plans.

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Throw in some prolonged and seemingly significant neck stiffness for Justin Smoak, and we’ve already witnessed some pretty interesting lineup configurations this year and we’re only a dozen games into the season. It might have seemed odd to see guys like Billy McKinney and Tim Mayza taking ground balls at first during spring training, but that hasn’t even been what’s unfolded so far.

There are three things that stand out in my mind as “let’s give it a shot and see what happens” decisions from Montoyo so far, and each one made me laugh a little harder than the first, at least until I thought about being in the manager’s shoes myself.

First, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. started a game at first base when Smoak’s neck stiffness first flared up, despite the presence of Rowdy Tellez on the roster. It would appear that the Blue Jays really are serious about developing him as a “super-utility” type and they need to see how he can handle first base, so that was basically Montoyo’s justification for sticking him there.

The second would be Brito’s arrival, and his getting a crack in the leadoff spot on the lineup card. While he hit just .175 in 24 games with the D-backs last year, he was tasked with trying to jump start an ice cold offence. Montoyo essentially had the same reasoning for leading off with his new player, that the Jays need to have a good look and see what they’ve got in the speedy outfielder.

"“I want to find out about this kid. He’s got all the tools to be a good player for a long time and I want to give him at bats. I want to play him to see what he can do.”"

The third one would be the use of Hanson at first base, and that might be more out of necessity than anything. The somewhat comical part is that Hanson had never played first base at any professional level before his debut there on the weekend. It might be perceived as the easiest position on the diamond, but getting your first pro experience in a live MLB game isn’t exactly ideal.

And yet, I don’t think we can really blame Montoyo for being creative at this early stage of the season. With the exception of yesterday’s outburst the team has been badly sputtering at the plate, and hopefully they’ll be able to use their seven runs against the Red Sox as a spring board to a more consistent offensive performance.

In mean time, don’t be surprised if Montoyo continues to roll the dice with his young players, putting them in different positions and seeing how they respond. That’s part of the freedom he has with a rebuilding team that isn’t really supposed to compete, and in a weird way I suppose it’s a good way to figure out if, and where the pieces fit in the long term picture. It’s also pretty entertaining to watch.