Blue Jays Surprisingly Ordinary Against Left-Handed Pitching

With men on second and third, Bo Bichette watched a pitch fall in the dirt, forcing the bat to his shoulder as he huddled near the ground.

It was a visible effort for Bichette to lay off the pitch with a chance to drive in Toronto’s second run. Two pitches later Bichette could not hold back, swinging hard at a changeup four inches off the zone and ending Toronto’s mid-game rally.

On his career, Bichette is a .338 hitter against left-handed pitching. On Thursday night, he was just one of Toronto's surprisingly overmatched hitters. Yes, Dallas Keuchel is one of baseball’s better pitchers — he won a Cy Young in 2015 and posted a 1.99 ERA in 2020 — but against the Blue Jays he was just the latest left handed pitcher to solve Toronto’s right-handed lineup.

In the sixth inning Teoscar Hernandez wrapped his fingers around his bat grip, re-adjusting his cleats in the box after throwing himself at the previous pitch. He double tapped home plate before coming set, but a moment later he found himself falling towards the Toronto dugout after whiffing on an inside pitch for Keuchel’s eighth strikeout of the game. 

Keuchel had just a 4.5 K/9 coming into Thursday's start, and his eight Ks were two more than any other outing this year. He finished Thursday's outing allowing no extra-base hits and just two runs (assisted by poor defensive play).

The Blue Jays should be one of the best hitting teams against southpaws, but Thursday’s loss dropped them to 5-9 against lefties. Even with just three left-handed hitters on the roster, Toronto has scored just 73 runs against lefties (19^th in baseball). Their .741 OPS v LHP ranks 14^th and is 20 points lower than their mark against righties.

Even with outfielders Hernandez and Randal Grichuk mashing, several key Blue Jays are posting confounding splits and struggling against southpaws. Marcus Semien, who has a career .805 OPS against LHP, has just a .714 mark in 2021. Even Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s 1.132 OPS against righties is 300 points better than his southpaw slash line. It may be a small sample and it could be tough luck, but Toronto's v LHP peripherals are as expected.

On paper matchups like Keuchel should fall in Toronto’s favor. This Blue Jays lineup should be scary for lefties, it should overmatch even the best in baseball. 

The lineup draws eery comparisons to the monstrous 2015 Blue Jays who proved a gauntlet for lefties and lead the league in hitting against the weak side of the platoon. Through 60 games the 2021 Jays have flashed that 2015 offensive potential, but against southpaws the damage has been surprisingly absent.