Blue Jays: What fans missed while the Leafs took centre stage: Griffin

The Blue Jays have messed up in May.

The local nine missed out on a huge opportunity over the first 13 days, under the cover of Maple Leaf playoff darkness, to straighten out their issues and make an upward move through the standings, erasing the bad taste of April. Fans are now turning their attention to the Jays only to see they’re still last in the AL East, still struggling to put a win streak together.

The Jays may still be losing more than they’re winning, but it’s not as ugly. Fact is, from Game 1 of the NHL playoffs through the drama of the Leafs’ Game 7, the Jays managed just a mediocre 5-7 mark. As baseball takes the local stage, the starting rotation is at a crossroads that could take them either way.

The problem is that the revamped rotation that was going to lead the Jays back to the post-season is a combined 7-12. And if you include Ricky Romero, who was expected to be there but pitched his way out of the picture twice, the six primary starters are a combined 7-14. With Josh Johnson and J.A. Happ currently on the injury shelf, the rotation at the moment includes right-handers Ramon Ortiz and Chad Jenkins. Who’d a thunk that?

Of course, there are encouraging signs, if you believe in the ability of the human body to heal itself and if you also trust history to repeat itself, when it comes to the veteran starters.

What needs to happen for the Jays to make a positive move?

Tuesday’s starter, R.A. Dickey, has to become the ace they thought they had obtained. He had back issues that moved to his neck, but because he throws a knuckleball, he was able to pitch through it and has worked at least six innings in eight of his nine starts. He has also posted quality starts (six-plus innings, three earned runs or less) a total of six times.

Left-hander Mark Buehrle is the guy with whom you have to trust history. Over his career in the month of April, he is a game under .500. But in May and June, Buehrle is a combined 27 games above the break-even mark. His start in Boston, and his reaction afterwards, shows he believes in his history.

Brandon Morrow, the third of the original starting five who has managed to remain active all year, has showed flashes of brilliance, but has now been pushed back to Saturday to allow his back spasms to completely disappear. To fill in starts for Morrow, Johnson and Happ, not even GM Alex Anthopoulos would have guessed the Jays’ depth chart would be so shallow.

“When we came out of spring training, you would have thought that Romero would have been next and ultimately he was, but it was short-lived,” Anthopoulos said. “Jenkins had been set back a little bit with his shoulder so we didn’t know. Someone that we talked about was Sean Nolin.”

The left-handed Nolin, 23, was selected by the Jays in the sixth round of the 2010 draft and was invited to major-leaue camp this spring after going 10-0 at Class-A Dunedin and Double-A New Hapshire in 2012.

“We thought (Nolin) would really come on, but he hurt his groin at the end of spring,” Anthopoulos explained. “Last outing on Sunday (at New Hampshire) he pitched outstanding, six innings, eight strikeouts, up to 95 (m.p.h.). If he continues to pitch that way, then he would definitely be in line for a call-up if we ever need.”

In addition to Nolin, there is another potential starting candidate moving up the system. That candidate is 22-year-old Marcus Stroman, who’s finishing up a 50-game suspension under the minor-league drug plan after testing positive for a banned stimulant. He will start for the Jays at Dunedin on Sunday, when he becomes eligible.

Last June, draft experts predicted that Stroman, out of Duke University, could be the first from that summer’s crop to reach the majors, but they said as a reliever. He has already been stretched out at extended spring training as a starter and will soon be ready to go.

“We had some of our amateur scouts down there for meetings and they said he looked really, really good,” Anthopoulos said. “Ultimately he’ll get to New Hampshire. He might get his first start or two in Dunedin, but then again, it might be New Hampshire as well. He’s going to stay a starter for the time being. He looks good. Stuff was very good. He was 91-95 (Tuesday). Great athlete, very poised.”

For the moment, the Jays will stay with Ortiz and Jenkins, but that’s not the solution if they are to claw their way back into contention. Josh Johnson could be back before the end of the month, perhaps ready to go five innings for the Jays on May 25. With Happ, it’s the knee, not the fractured skull, that is delaying any prediction of a return. But Nolin or Stroman may be next.

Looking for other positive signs from the Jays as you emerge from being hypnotized by the Leafs’ surprising but ultimately doomed playoff appearance? The Jays took two of three in Boston and now the first game against the Giants and scored 25 runs in those three victories.

To start the season, it was believed Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion would provide as potent a middle of the order as any AL team. That hasn’t happened. They believed Jose Reyes would be the best pure leadoff hitter the Jays have ever had. He was — until the injury. They believed Melky Cabrera would pick up where he left off when his season ended last August as the NL batting leader. He’s hitting better now, but needs an MRI Wednesday on his wonky hamstrings.

The Jays returned from the just-completed road trip with a winning record for the first time this year and beat Boston for only their second series win. Not great, but better.

“It was encouraging that we played better,” Anthopoulos said. “We just played cleaner games. There’s a lot of good things that happened. We had some quality starts. There were a lot of home runs and we started to do some things. The key now is to carry it over.”

With Blue Jays fans finally paying attention again, they had better hope that’s the case.

MORE:The Star’s baseball page