Power outage

Shutout loss to Rays caps costly 2-7 road swing Chisholm,

There’s no reason to sugar-coat it: The Blue Jays have been playing really bad baseball for the last two weeks, and the longer that trend continues the more improbable a run at the division title will become.

A 15-7 start to the season feels like ancient history following a disastrous three-city road trip that caused the Jays to tumble down the standings. After not registering a series loss in April, they’ve dropped four in a row as part of a free fall that can largely be blamed on a dormant offence.

The latest setback took place Sunday afternoon in Tampa, as the bats remained eerily quiet in a 3-0 loss to the Rays. Another quality start was wasted, this time a strong sixinning performance by Alek Manoah, as the Jays lost for the ninth time over their last 13 games.

On May 1, the Jays were 1 1 ⁄ games 2 back of the New York Yankees and 2

1⁄2 games up on the third-place Rays. They now find themselves 7

1 ⁄ back of the Yankees and three 2 behind the Rays. It took a full month to rack up some early gains, less than half that time to throw it all away.

Teams can’t win a division in May, but one could make the argument they can lose it. With more than four months remaining, there’s no reason to panic quite yet, but the more losses pile up now, the less margin for error there is the rest of the way. One only needs to look at recent franchise history to understand why.

Late last season, when the Jays finished one game shy of a tiebreaker, they were generally considered one of the league’s top teams; it just took them too long to start playing like it. Eventually the promising young squad ran out of time to prove it.

One of the reasons that group fell short can be traced back to May. The bullpen fractured, coughed up too many leads and contributed to a six-game losing streak. The Jays opened that stretch six games above .500. They wouldn’t reach that level again for another two months.

A more extreme example was in 2013, after the Jays were crowned the off-season champions following a blockbuster trade with the Miami Marlins and a deal with the Mets for R.A. Dickey. A 10-21 start derailed that year almost as soon as it began, and while the Jays did eventually climb two games above .500, they were ill equipped to handle another skid. When it arrived in July, they were toast.

The Jays’ recent struggles have been surprising, but even more shocking are the reasons behind them. There have been injuries, but unlike previous seasons not an alarming number. The starting rotation has been strong, particularly the duo of Manoah and Kevin Gausman. More often than not, the bullpen has done its job. Even the defence, a glaring weakness last season, has been improved.

No, what ails this team the most is what was supposed to make it so great: a prolific lineup that has performed like nothing of the sort.

During the recent 12-game stretch, the Jays have been averaging a paltry 3.2 runs per game and it’s a problem that existed well before the losing streak. The Jays are averaging the same number of runs this season as the Red Sox, just 0.4 more than the Orioles. If it wasn’t for the pitching staff, this group would be performing like a lastplace team.

Manager Charlie Montoyo continues to insist the Jays are going to hit, and he’s almost assuredly right, but as of Sunday afternoon they ranked 21st out of 30 teams with 130 runs. Most of the players in this lineup are too good to be held down like that for an entire season. There’s bound to be a breakout, one that will probably last a good amount of time, yet the key to any successful team is limiting the lows and extending the highs. Through the first six weeks, that’s not something the Jays have been able to do.

At 18-17, nobody should be writing off the Jays this early, especially with an expanded post-season format that will see six teams qualify from the American League. But there’s a difference between stating they don’t have a chance — which is pure hyperbole — and simply saying this group made its mission a lot more difficult than it needed to be and needs to figure this out before it’s too late.

The Jays will have an opportunity to right the ship on Monday, when they open a six-game homestand against the 16-19 Seattle Mariners and 9-26 Cincinnati Reds. If they handle those teams like they should, their recent skid will be put in the rear-view mirror and potentially forgotten just as quickly as their strong April. If it lingers, there will be trouble.

On paper, the Jays should be one of the best teams in the AL, and the expectation from this corner is that by the end of the year they still will be. It’s just not possible to write that with as much conviction as a couple weeks ago, before the doubts crept in.

For the Jays’ sake, they better hope those concerns are alleviated in the near term, because it’s only early until it’s not.