Blue Jays Bats Meet Jacob deGrom With a Tin Cup

The Blue Jays face the Texas Rangers today with Jacob deGrom listed on the other side, which is a sentence that arrives wearing steel-toed shoes.

Toronto’s probable pitcher is Spencer Miles.

That part matters too.

But let us be honest about the little cartoon thundercloud hovering above this preview.

The bats just scored 2 runs on Saturday.

They also scored 1 run in another game against Texas on Saturday.

The recent series summary says lost 2 of 2 vs the Texas Rangers, which is the baseball equivalent of buying a two-pack of sadness because it was on sale.

Now the Jays get deGrom.

Excellent.

The kitchen is on fire, and today’s special is flammable soup.

The first five innings were a waiting room

Saturday’s 6-2 loss had a very specific shape.

Toronto scored 0 in the first. Then 0 in the second. Then 0 in the third, fourth, and fifth.

Five innings of polite offensive silence.

A mime convention with batting gloves.

By the time Alejandro Kirk singled in the top of the sixth off Nathan Eovaldi to score Andrés Giménez, the Rangers had already put runs on the board in the first and second. Texas added 3 more in the bottom of the sixth.

That is a hard way to live.

It is also a hard way to preview the next game, because the solution sounds insultingly obvious.

Score earlier.

There. Print the pamphlet.

Kirk did his part. He went 2-for-4 with an RBI. Davis Schneider did his part too, homering in the top of the seventh off Robert Garcia. Schneider went 1-for-2 with a homer and an RBI.

The rest of the afternoon had too much empty hallway.

The Jays finished with 6 hits and 5 left on base. That is not catastrophic in a laboratory sense. It is just not enough when the other team is busy turning 5 hits into 6 runs and leaving Toronto to stare at the math like it came from a haunted calculator.

Jacob deGrom is not a suggestion box

So, yes, Jacob deGrom is listed for Texas today.

The Jays do not get to submit comments.

They do not get to circle maybe and request a friendlier menu item.

They get to hit.

Or try.

The season line says Toronto has 622 runs, 4.01 runs per game, a .248 batting average, a .693 OPS, and 149 home runs. This is the profile of a team that can score, but often does so with the timing of someone answering a doorbell three hours after the package was stolen.

The offense does not need to become a parade; it needs to stop arriving as a rumour.

That is the assignment.

Not win the whole sport in one Sunday.

Not make the Rangers question their life choices by the second inning.

Just produce enough traffic that Spencer Miles is not standing on the mound with a lunch tray and a small sign that says please help.

Miles is the listed probable pitcher for Toronto. That means the Jays have a chance to give a fresh shape to the day, instead of replaying Saturday with different cloud cover.

He cannot swing for them.

Cruel rule, but apparently real.

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The lineup needs less interpretive dance

Saturday’s box score was not completely barren.

Brett Bateman had a hit. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. had a hit. Kazuma Okamoto had a hit. Kirk had two. Schneider had the homer.

There were pieces.

The pieces just never became a cabinet.

George Springer went 0-for-4. Ernie Clement went 0-for-3. Andrés Giménez went 0-for-2. Myles Straw went 0-for-3. Nathan Lukes went 0-for-2.

No one needs to be launched into Lake Ontario from a novelty spoon.

This is not that kind of desk.

But somebody has to stack a few useful plate appearances together before everyone watching begins naming the couch cushions for companionship.

Against Texas on Saturday, the Jays’ two runs came on a Kirk single and a Schneider homer. Fine. Good. Lovely. Put them in a scrapbook.

Now add friends.

A solo homer is wonderful, but it is still one man playing kazoo in a gymnasium. A single that scores one run is helpful, but it cannot be the entire emergency response plan.

The offense needs a group project that does not end with Kirk and Schneider doing all the slides at midnight.

Sunday’s modest proposal

Toronto is 76-79, with a .490 winning percentage. The last ten says 4-6. The streak says L2. The division rank says 4.

That is not a standings page.

That is a refrigerator note written by a tired parent.

Please clean up after yourself.

Today, cleaning up means making deGrom pitch through actual resistance. It means not donating a quiet first five innings to the void. It means giving Miles an offensive cushion larger than a postage stamp.

The Rangers are not a therapy llama.

They are not here to make Toronto feel better about Saturday.

If the Jays want a different game, they have to manufacture one out of the unglamorous stuff: a few early baserunners, better contact, no free defensive comedy, and at least one inning where the broadcast does not need to pan to fans looking like they just remembered a dentist appointment.

That is it.

That is the preview.

Spencer Miles vs Jacob deGrom.

Blue Jays at Rangers.

Sunday baseball with the emotional stakes of a toaster in a bathtub.

Bring runs.