It may well have been Yusei Kikuchi’s final start as a Blue Jay.
If it wasn’t, the next one had better be.
The left-hander threw five brilliant innings Saturday afternoon at the Rogers Centre, allowing only a run on four hits to the Detroit Tigers while striking out eight against two walks. But he began the sixth trailing 1-0 and loaded the bases on a single, walk and hit batter before turning things over to Trevor Richards, who immediately gave up a grand slam to Jake Rogers — sending the Jays on the way to a 7-3 loss.
There were silver linings: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit his third home run in as many games, while relievers Yimi García and Erik Swanson each threw a perfect inning in their long-awaited returns to big-league action.
Kikuchi is next scheduled to take the mound on Friday night, when the Jays open a three-game home series against the defending champion Texas Rangers, but that’s four days before the July 30 trade deadline and he could very well be in another uniform by then.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen; it’s out of my control,” the 33-year-old Kikuchi said through translator Yusuke Oshima after the game, in which he fell to 4-9. “If this was the last, I just want to say that I love the team, love the city, love all the fans.”
It’s been a while since the Jays had players giving farewell speeches in July.
From 2020 to 2023, they didn’t play a single regular-season game while eliminated from playoff contention — qualifying for the post-season three times and getting knocked out about 20 minutes after a final-day victory in 2021.
That 2021 team appears to have been the best of the Mark Shapiro/Ross Atkins era, aside from the 2016 club they largely inherited. That the on-field product has gotten progressively worse over the past three years is a damning indictment of the front office, but it has, and that’s why they need to be deadline sellers now.
Sure, they could somehow sneak into the race; miracle runs do happen. It’s possible the Jays don’t lose between now and July 30. But even in that case, Atkins and his front-office crew would be derelict in their duties if they hold on to players on expiring contracts who have value to other teams, as opposed to getting what they can to improve for 2025 and beyond.
The biggest mistake of the J.P. Ricciardi era (2001-09) — and there were a few — was trade deadline inertia, and that can’t be repeated.
Ricciardi only made one trade at the deadline in eight seasons as general manager. It was a great one, sending future Hall of Famer Scott Rolen (who badly wanted out of Toronto) to the Cincinnati Reds on July 31, 2009 for Edwin Encarnación, who became a franchise icon in the 2015-16 playoff years, and a couple of pitchers who didn’t pan out in Josh Roenicke and Zach Stewart.
The Blue Jays of the aughts passed up every other opportunity to be a deadline seller, often believing they were close enough to a playoff spot and good enough to squeeze into it. They never were.
Treading water in the murky middle is the best way to make sure you remain there for a long time, so it’s no surprise that’s exactly where the Jays were stuck for two decades.
While they wandered through the baseball wilderness from 1994 to 2014, only once did they lose as many as 90 games while never winning more than 88. Over those 21 seasons, the Jays were within five games of a playoff spot on Labour Day just three times, so there wasn’t even much meaningful September baseball in those playoff-free years.
With the Jays sitting 12th among 15 American League teams after Saturday’s loss, they’d have to do quite a bit of winning just to get into that murky middle, a brutal outcome for a team that was supposed to be at the peak of its competitive window this year and next.
That’s why Kikuchi’s got to go. So do García, Richards and Justin Turner at the very least. George Springer, too, if they can find a taker for most of the $60 million (U.S.) remaining on the contract of the 34-year-old outfielder who has been arguably the best hitter in the AL since finding his stroke with a three-hit game back on June 25 in Boston.
There’s no choice.
Take the hit. Play the kids. Try to cut payroll enough to slide under the luxury-tax threshold so it resets for next year, hopefully with a new front office in place. Re-sign Kikuchi in the off-season.
Don’t sit on your hands at the deadline and sell hope. There isn’t any left this year.
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