Maybe the Blue Jays should try something different at the plate

I'm sure I'm not the only one that is getting totally frustrated by out offense (or I guess lack of offense).

We seemed to be striking out on low 90's fastballs (I think Griffin topped out at 93 mph last night)  It hard to watch. Of course, it had a lot to do with that 69 mph curve and mid-80's slider, but really, there were enough low 90's fastballs, over the middle of the plate, that we should have scored a bunch of runs.

In Shi Davidi's game story, he had this from Brooks Jacoby:

Last year, early on, this team hammered fastballs and then the other teams would run to their breaking stuff. A lot of guys I think are looking for the breaking stuff right now and not getting to the fastball. That's what I'm seeing. You've got to trust in your ability to hit the fastball and stay on it.

One part of me wants to scream out "it's your job to deal with their approach at the plate".

But, he is dealing with a bunch of veteran players  They should know what has made them successful in the past, they should not how to get there. I'm not a big fan of firing batting coaches or pitching coaches because I think it sends the message to the players that they are not the 'captain of their ship'. That their success or failure isn't on them. That some outside force controls their destiny. I think that, if you make the hitting coach the scapegoat, you giving the players an excuse. I think you want the players feeling that success or failure is totally on them.

Basically I think that if you give a person an excuse to fail, they will take it. If you don't give/allow excuses, you'll get success.

Of course, on the flip side of that, playing OOTP Baseball, my teams not hitting, I get a new hitting coach. Pitchers aren't pitching well, I hired a new pitching coach. I find it cathartic. Same with me firing the training if I get a bunch of injuries. Then, it is a lot easier to fire someone in the game they aren't real people, you are putting someone out of work. And, of course, you aren't signalling to real live players that their failures aren't their fault. It's just a computer game. You can have a moment of fun pretending that you are George Steinbrenner

I am a big fan of the idea of looking for a fastball early in the count, and adjusting later in the count. It really doesn't seem that we are looking for fastballs early in the count. It looks like we are taking fastball strikes, early in the count, and then swinging at the pitcher's pitch late in the count.

I'm ok with taking a strike, sometimes it isn't where you wanted it, sometimes you just want to gauge the pitcher. If you don't think you can hit the first pitch, you shouldn't swing. Jose Bautista has had a great career built around taking first pitch strikes and yet he still has 291 career home runs and still takes 100+ walks a season.

But, every now and then, he'll jump on that first pitch fastball.

There have been so many games where we have run up the starting pitcher's pitch count early, without getting runs. I do like seeing the other team's pitcher finish the first inning at 30-35 pitches, but I'd also like us to be up 4 runs at the same point.

Maybe we could go a game or two swinging at the first fastball we see? Make the game simple for a couple of days. Fine players $10 for taking a fastball strike. Take them right out of the thinking process at the plate. See pitch, hit it.

I don't know, I'm not a hitting coach, I don't know what would work. Maybe moving away from seeing a lot of pitches, which is a good plan, is a bad idea. Maybe that's putting results over process. It seems like we've had a month of bad results. We've scored more than 5 runs in a game just 5 times this season. We haven't made it to double figures in a game yet. Maybe taking the batters out of their comfort zone is an idea?

I don't know if that's an answer, but I'm all for trying something different.

Or maybe I'm just frustrated and I'd like to lose in a different way than striking out 12 times a game.