Toronto Blue Jays: A Final Road Trip Review for 2019

The Blue Jays final road trip of the week came to a close Sunday afternoon with an 8-3 loss the New York Yankees.  Over their six games they swept a team that they should beat, and lost a series to a team they likely should have.

The biggest, what I would call frustration, or concern of the Blue Jays’ recent road trip would be Bo Bichette going down with a concussion in the series finale in Baltimore.  Concussions are scary as they can range from being mild to severe; and there has not been much word on Bichette besides the fact he may miss the rest of the season.  With just one week (six games) remaining, even if he clears protocol, I think the best thing to do is shut him down.

Back to the games now, the Blue Jays swept the series in Baltimore and Cavan Biggio put on a clinic.  In the first game of the series Biggio went 4-5, becoming just the third Blue Jay and first since 2001 to hit for the cycle.  Biggio finished the series 8-16 with a double, triple and two home runs to go with eight RBI. He carried his hitting into New York going 3 -11 and has raised his average to .236, which is quite impressive since it was .207 just 16 days ago.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr has seemed to lose a lot of his power of late as he has not hit a home run since August 22nd and doesn’t seem to be squaring up the ball. But by the end of the trip I looked down and he had at least two hits in every road game except Saturday when he went 1 for 4 with a double. VGJ finished the road trip .438, so you can’t really be frustrated with him.

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The catchers had another good combined week, although I am not including Luke Maile who went 0 for 2 with two strikeouts, as I think his start was more of a thanks for your time.  Reese McGuire went 5 -12 with a double and three walks.  McGuire is now batting .318 on the season and over 41 career games he has nine doubles, seven home runs and a .311 career average.  Danny Jansen who only played two games with 3-8 with a home run.

I wanted to recognize Rowdy Tellez, who although he went just 2-9 over four games, struck out just once and walked five times to have a .500 OBP.  Richard Urena now has me completely on board with him being the utility player on the Blue Jays next year, as he went 3-10 over five appearances and brings very good defence.

I am not going to get too much into pitching as that is their biggest weakness and I don’t think many of these guys are going to be around for the long run.  With that being said, Elvis Luciano is now back from injury and pitched twice on the trip and in two innings failed to allow a hit on one walk and two strikeouts.

Thomas Pannone also had two good outings going 2 1/3 innings failing to surrender a hit on three strikeouts.

The Blue Jays are set up for their last home stand of the season with three games against the Baltimore Orioles, followed by the Tampa Bay Rays.  Tuesday night fans can get a look into the future with Anthony Kay getting the start.