Blue Jays: Offence to break out with upcoming schedule?

The Blue Jays have had a tough schedule to start the shortened 2020 campaign, but things should get a little easier in the coming weeks.

It’s no secret that early on it’s been the Blue Jays pitching staff that has carried the team while the offence has had difficulty mustering up any sort of rally or consistency.

Heading into Wednesday night’s game the Blue Jays were averaging 3.25 runs per game, which ranks fourth last in the league, with the leading cause coming from their inability to produce with runners in scoring position. They managed to pick up the win on Wednesday, but they only scored two runs in the process.

There is some great offensive potential in the current lineup led by the young stars and with guys like Teoscar Hernandez and Randal Grichuk stepping up recently, it looks like this offence might just breakout soon, especially with some divisional opponents coming up. Five of the Blue Jays upcoming nine series come against the Red Sox and Orioles, while two of the other four will be played against the Marlins.

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The Red Sox have a depleted starting rotation and are thus one of only four teams in baseball to allow more than 5.5 runs per game. As for the Orioles, they allow 5.33 runs per game and despite the Marlins actually performing well on the bump through their first five games, the team was below average in this department last year.

The Blue Jays haven’t had a ton of favourable matchups over the first two weeks of the season facing pitchers like Max Scherzer, Charlie Morton and Blake Snell, to name a few.

Some fans and others in the media have been critical of the offence early on, more specifically Vlad Guerrero Jr., as they’ve taken a few losses when the starting pitcher has done his job and a provided the team a chance to jump out front early in the game.

While it may be somewhat warranted, the Blue Jays have only played eight games with most of them coming against quality competition. The true test will come in the upcoming eight series where they will be given a chance to break out of their slump and potentially establish themselves as the top team in the division aside from the Yankees.

It’s not time to panic in Toronto by any means, but by the end of the month we should have a better idea of what to expect from this offence going forward.