Baseball can be a cruel game, as Devon Travis learned on Sunday when the Blue Jays’ 27-year-old second baseman was demoted to Toronto’s Triple-A affiliate in Buffalo in order to add some ballast to an arm-weary bullpen.
The move was announced Sunday morning before the Blue Jays beat the Texas Rangers 7-2 to snap a sobering four-game losing streak.
Travis was not exactly tearing the cover off the ball, as his .148 batting average would clearly attest. But the Blue Jays (15-12) are desperate for bullpen help and Travis was sacrificed in order to make room for reliever Carlos Ramirez, who got the promotion from Buffalo.
“Naturally he’s disappointed but there’s not a more professional guy in the clubhouse, he understood the reasoning,” Toronto manager John Gibbons said about the decision to relegate Travis. “But … we don’t think it will be long term.”
The player the Blue Jays probably would have preferred to send down was Randal Grichuk, their big off-season acquisition to replace Jose Bautista in right field this year.
Grichuk has been a bust with the bat, entering Sunday’s game on a 0-for-18 funk during which his average plummeted to .079, the worst mark of any qualified major-league hitter.
Grichuk did have a couple of hits in three at-bats on Sunday and drove in a couple of runs to nudge his average up to .106. He also made a circus catch on a little flare from Isiah Kiner-Falefa, which led to an inning-ending double play in the first inning.
But he didn’t do himself any favours, either, when he got picked off at first base in the sixth.
However, were the Blue Jays to demote Grichuk he would have to first clear waivers. Travis, on the other hand, still has options, so sending him down to Buffalo is a far easier proposition.
Plus, the Blue Jays already have Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the roster, called up from Triple A on April 20. Gurriel, who got the start on Sunday at second base, can also play shortstop so his presence on the big-league club gives Gibbons a little more lineup flexibility.
“We definitely didn’t want to do it [send Travis down] but we’re strapped in the pen right now,” Gibbons said. “Those guys are pitching a lot and really the thinking behind it is, he’s strictly a second baseman and Gurriel you can put him anywhere so that gives us a little more versatility.
“We don’t think it will be long term by any means. And it’s not going to hurt him to go down there and get his bat going too, so ... but it basically came down to we got to protect the bullpen a little bit.”
Essentially, nothing had been going right for this outfit after such a promising start. Heading into Sunday’s game, Toronto had lost four in a row and seven of its past nine after going 12-3 in its previous 15 contests.
Much of the blame for the slide can be laid at the feet of a starting staff that has been inconsistent in its ability to pitch deep into games, which is why the bullpen arms have been so overtaxed.
Toronto’s rotation entered Sunday’s game averaging 5.6 innings pitched per start with a combined earned-run average of 5.39, third worst in the American League
On Sunday, J.A. Happ gave the Blue Jays just what they needed – a good, long start in what the team hopes is a trend for its starters.
Happ (4-1) went seven innings in the win and allowed Texas (11-18) two runs and five hits with nine strikeouts.
Happ has now had back-to-back starts with nine-plus strikeouts and no walks. The only other Blue Jays pitcher to do that was Roger Clemens in 1997.
“We desperately needed that, we really did,” Gibbons said. “We’ve been looking for guys to go late in the game. We’ve had a couple along the way but we really haven’t been consistent and he’s done it now a couple of times, at least two or three times.
“It’s big. Our bullpen needed the break and he shut them down. And the bats came to life pretty good.”
After hitting just .178 over their previous seven games, the Toronto offence cranked out nine hits against the Rangers, including home runs by Yangervis Solarte, Teoscar Hernandez and Kevin Pillar, his third in two games.
Gibbons is hoping that the good day at the plate for Grichuk will help “jump start” his confidence as the Blue Jays head out on the road for the next eight games, starting with a three-game set in Minnesota beginning Monday.
“He needed at least one sanity hit, you know,” Gibbons said. “That’s the way it goes sometimes. But that first inning, that great catch. That kind of set the tone a little bit, especially with the way things have been going.”