Blue Jays: Increased pressure on Charlie Montoyo this season

Being a MLB manager is going to be a difficult task in 2020, and there’s no doubt that the pressure has increased for Charlie Montoyo of the Blue Jays.

Baseball returned with a pile of enthusiasm on Friday night, and the Blue Jays rewarded us with a 6-4 win in their first game against the Tampa Bay Rays. You would have had a hard time wiping the smile off of my face after the game, and I’m sure I wasn’t alone.

Then the Blue Jays lost on Saturday afternoon, and life suddenly felt as normal as it has in months. Why? Because I saw fans second-guessing Charlie Montoyo, just like it was 2019 again.

To be fair, that’s all part of sitting in the manager’s seat for a MLB team, and Montoyo knows it comes with the territory. The job requires that you’re capable of facing heavy criticism, from the media, the fans, and sometimes the players themselves. And in 2020, that job is going to be even more intense.

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I say that because there’s not a lot of room for error for any team that hopes to qualify for the postseason this year. Yes, the playoff format has been expanded to 16 teams and that improves everyone’s chances, but a lot can go sideways in a season of just 60 games. Take last season as proof, as the eventual World Series champion Washington Nationals were 27-33 after 60 games last year, and that almost certainly wouldn’t be good enough to get them into the playoffs this year. No team has the luxury of “heating up” later in the year, and if you dig too big of a hole early on, you may not be able to climb out.

As for Montoyo, Saturday provided an early example of that pressure when Sam Gaviglio struggled in the eighth inning against the Rays, ultimately taking the loss after allowing three earned runs over just 0.1 of an inning. The game was tied at 1-1 at that point, which left many of us wondering why Montoyo would turn to a middle reliever rather than someone viewed as a back of the bullpen arm. To be fair to Montoyo, he used most of his high leverage relievers in the Blue Jays’ win on Friday night, and he told Sportsnet’s Ben Nicholson-Smith as much after the game, saving that Rafael Dolis, Jordan Romano, and Anthony Bass were unavailable.

You can hardly blame Montoyo for that way of thinking, especially after pitchers were asked to get ready for regular season games in very short order. He likely made the responsible decision, and Gaviglio was a reliable reliever last season with a 1.12 WHIP, so it’s not like it was completely out of left field. And yet, if you searched for “Charlie Montoyo” on Twitter on Saturday night, most of what you’d see was criticism from writers and fans.

The Puerto Rican born skipper had a tough task guiding a rebuilding team in 2019 for his first year on the job, and this year won’t be a lot easier, even with an improved squad. That’s life for a big league manager, and unfortunately for Montoyo, the pressure is going to be pretty much constant over a shortened 60-game season.