Blue Jays: Small ball a long overdue and welcome sight

The Blue Jays beat the Red Sox in their series opener on Tuesday, and it had a lot to do with their use of small ball, which is a welcome sight in Toronto.

For the last several seasons the Blue Jays had an offensive identify that surrounded the long ball. Back in 2015-16 when the likes of Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion and many more were still in their prime it worked just fine, but as the roster aged the flaw became more visible, and seemingly much easier to exploit. The one tricky pony eventually got tired.

The “New Jacks”, or as I like to call them the, “Canadian Murderer’s Row”, are long gone, and with their departure the Blue Jays are finally moving on to becoming younger and more athletic, as has been the front office’s stated goal for several years now. There’s no doubt they’ve done that with the drastic roster turnover, and Tuesday’s game was a great sign of the benefits of that evolution.

The Blue Jays managed to take the series opener from the Boston Red Sox in Fenway, a game that represented the home opener for the defending World Series champions, and also the day that they got their championship rings. Unfortunately for the excited Fenway faithful, they were left watching their struggling team suffer another defeat, and this time it came in a much different way than the Blue Jays have bested them in recent years.

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Charlie Montoyo‘s team snapped out of their offensive funk by doing the little things right. Hitting the ball to the opposite field, executing a sacrifice bunt (with two strikes no less!), and stealing bases are all useful tools that the Blue Jays really haven’t used a whole lot in the recent past, as goofy as that sounds. They still struck out seven times in the game, and while that’s still a fair number, it’s not all that bad when you consider that Sale had five K’s through the first four innings, and he’s a tough cookie even when he’s not 100%.

For those that missed it, Lourdes Gurriel Jr. even stole home with Chris Sale in the full windup, and I have a feeling that play will be a turning point in his young season. It was also a great little microcosm of how exciting the future of this team can and will be, especially when things start clicking as they did on Tuesday afternoon.

By no means am I aiming to criticize John Gibbons, or the way that the more recent teams in Toronto have played either. Gibbons had a veteran roster and knew that asking a guy like Bautista to start approaching hitting differently in his mid-thirties for example, probably wasn’t going to be the best strategy. For Charlie Montoyo and the current Blue Jays’ coaching staff, they have the opportunity to shape and mold these talented youngsters, and in a rebuilding season they can take more chances, and potentially learn more hard lessons.

The Blue Jays also have a chance to carve out a new identify as this rebuild starts to come together. While a good chunk of that will undoubtedly surround the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, and hopefully some pretty significant offensive talent, it’s great to see things being done just a little differently already in this new era. With the right mix of both, hopefully it turns into something pretty special.