Poll Time: Do you approve of the job John Gibbons is doing?

We haven’t done one of these polls since last September. At that time his numbers were 45% Approve, 21% Neutral and 33% Disapprove.

The team hasn’t been playing well, I’m not sure how much of that is on the manager. I do like that he treats different players differently, he isn't a one size fits all type of manager. Devon Travis is struggling, he sits a fair bit. Jose Bautista is struggling, he plays every day. It looks like Bautista has started to hit, while Travis, not so much.

To me, that’s one of the fine lines a manager has to walk. A slumping player has to play to get out of his slump, but then a manager needs to win. How do you balance the need to win today and the need to get your player back hitting so that you win in the future. Travis isn’t hitting, but is benching him going to help him get hitting again?

A certain segment of the Jays fanbase figures every loss is Gibby’s fault. And then we get off to a slow start and that’s more his fault. For some, even when they win, he’s wrong.

For the most part, I like how he uses his bullpen, other than I’d like him to go longer with some pitchers, but then he’s closer to the pitchers than I am.

With Troy Tulowitzki and Josh Donaldson out, he’s had to play around with his line up more than he would like. Add in that Steve Pearce and Travis still aren’t hitting and he’s had his work cut out for him coming up with a lineup each day.

Gibby seems to have lost confidence in Pearce, and yet he is owed too much money to just release, like they did with Jarrod Saltalamacchia. With it, Ezequiel Carrera has played more than I’d like. He’s has an OPS+ 102, so, essentially an average MLB hitter. You’d like better from your left fielder, but it’s about the best you can hope to get out of Carrera.

And with Aaron Sanchez and J.A. Happ out he’s need to piece together a pitching staff more than he had to last year. And, with that, he’s had to use his bullpen more than you would like. With pitchers coming up and down and some guys not pitching as well as you’d hope, I’m sure it adds to the stress level on the manager.

Roberto Osuna’s troubles makes for more headaches. All Gibby could do is keep running him out and hope he figures things out. Roberto has had a couple of good outings in a row now. I’m hoping he’s back to normal.

I did love that he called into Jays Talk.