Last Wednesday, the Blue Jays, much to my surprise, recorded only their first shutout of the season. Prior to defeating the Angels 3-0, they opened the season with 38 non-shutout games. Based on little knowledge of the expected frequency of shutouts, that seems like an awful long stretch of non-shutout baseball to open the season. In order to ease my troubled mind, here's how long it's taken each Blue Jays team since 1977 to record its first shutout:
Year First Shutout # Total Shutouts
1977 Game 69 (June 26 vs. Orioles) 3
1978 Game 14 (April 23 vs. White Sox) 5
1979 Game 16 (April 24 vs. Rangers) 7
1980 Game 6 (April 17 vs. Brewers) 9
1981 Game 18 (April 29 vs. Brewers) 4 <-- Strike-shortened season
1982 Game 8 (April 16 vs. Red Sox) 13
1983 Game 19 (May 1 vs. White Sox) 8
1984 Game 10 (April 10 vs. Oakland) 10
1985 Game 2 (April 10 vs. Royals) 9
1986 Game 18 (April 27 vs. Orioles) 12
1987 Game 29 (May 11 vs. Royals) 8
1988 Game 5 (April 9 vs. Twins) 16
1989 Game 7 (April 10 vs. Yankees) 11
1990 Game 42 (May 28 vs. Oakland) 9
1991 Game 7 (April 14 vs. Brewers) 16
1992 Game 9 (April 15 vs. Yankees) 14
1993 Game 2 (April 7 vs. Mariners) 11
1994 Game 26 (May 5 vs. Royals) 4 <-- Strike-shortened season
1995 Game 4 ( April 29 vs. Angels) 8 <-- Strike-shortened season
1996 Game 6 (April 9 vs. Angels) 7
1997 Game 6 (April 9 vs. White Sox) 15
1998 Game 29 (May 2 vs. Athletics) 11
1999 Game 13 (April 18 vs. Orioles) 9
2000 Game 6 (April 8 vs. Rangers) 4
2001 Game 4 (April 5 vs. Devil Rays) 10
2002 Game 41 (May 19 vs. Athletics) 6
2003 Game 64 (June 8 vs. Reds) 6
2004 Game 9 (April 15 vs. Tigers) 11
2005 Game 12 (April 16 vs. Rangers) 7
2006 Game 39 (May 17 vs. Angels) ?
Well, it turns out that it's abnormal to not post a shutout a good deal prior to the 39th game of the season. However, that doesn't necessarily reflect poorly on the quality of the Blue Jays. Simply put, there doesn't appear to be any sort of correlation between the date of a team's first shutout and its overall performance. Now, it does appear as though successful teams accrue more shutouts than unsuccessful ones, which makes sense. However, that correlation doesn't appear to be overly strong, since past teams with poor records posted many shutouts, and vice versa.
As of now, the Blue Jays are on pace to record approximately four shutouts this season, but they should easily surpass that. To be honest, this seems like it has more to do with unfortunate luck than anything else. With that in mind, however, it's important to note that a great deal of the current Blue Jays' success can be attributed to its high-octane offense as opposed to its subpar pitching staff. That should change, because the pitching really isn't this bad, while the offense simply isn't this good.
For interest's sake, here are the top 10 all-time Blue Jays shutout leaders, taken from baseball-reference.com:
Player Shutouts
Dave Stieb 30
Jim Clancy 11
Jimmy Key 10
Pat Hentgen 9
Roy Halladay 8
Roger Clemens 6
Chris Carpenter 5
Jesse Jefferson 4
Todd Stottlemyre 4
Six others tied at 3