Toronto Blue Jays News: Bautista AL Player of the Month, Pitching Good and Bad

Just as Jose Bautista was recognized as the American League player of the Month, he missed his first game of the season due to injury. Bautista was scratched before the opening game of the Tampa Bay series due to tightness in his neck. He will likely miss the entire Tampa series and be back for the weekend.

Bautista joins a growing list of Blue Jays that are playing banged up or on the DL, a trend that has decimated their infield. Add to this the struggles of Travis Snider and Brett Cecil, prompting their demotions to Triple-A, and the Jays are fielding a team quite different than they expected at the start of the season.

The injury to Aaron Hill has been the most difficult for the Jays to deal with as it necessitates an entire shift of the infield and an overhaul of the batting already displaying a lot of holes. John McDonald has been playing second base and, with the injury to Jayson Nix, it has forced Edwin Encarnacion's return to the field at third base.

It is a good thing that McDonald and Yunel Escobar have been playing reliable—at times spectacular—defense up the middle since, Encarnacion still seems to be struggling with his confidence at the hot corner.

Lucky too that Adam Lind has been heating up at the right time, and that Brandon Morrow recently returned from injury to shore up the rotation.

Lind has been one of the hottest hitters in the American League over the last two weeks. Consider his numbers over the last week: six runs, four home runs and 10 RBI with a .440 batting average and a ridiculous .920 slugging percentage.

It would appear that Lind is getting decent pitches to hit due to a monster named Bautista batting in front of him. They will need that production from Lind going forward as their home run strength from last year has apparently been transferred completely into base stealing.

Morrow has pitched quite well in his return, notching 10 strikeouts in his first game against Tampa Bay. In two games he has a 3.97 ERA, a 1.06 WHIP, 16 strikeouts and three walks in 11 innings pitched.

Another positive (until Tuesday's loss to Tampa) has been the performance of the bullpen. The relief pitching had gone 10.2 innings without allowing a hit until B.J. Upton's walk-off home run, according to Gregor Chisholm of MLB.com.  

Carlos Villanueva, Casey Janssen and Jason Frasor have been rock solid in leading the bullpen to sixth place in the league with a 2.84 ERA, while at the same time pitching the second most innings, with 98. 

If the starting rotation could go deeper into games and gain some consistency, it would take the burden off of the bullpen and, perhaps, make them even better.  

Jo-Jo Reyes was well aware that his job was on the line in his start against Tampa Bay. If he doesn't begin to find success soon, other arms with the Jays would love the chances he's been blowing. Reyes managed to pitch six innings, allowing four hits, one earned run and striking out four.  

Whether this is enough to keep him in the rotation remains to be seen. Brad Mills has been pitching very well in Triple-A and Brett Cecil should be able to regain his pitch location in Las Vegas. There is also the chance that Villanueva or Rzepcynski could be used to start, but it seems the team would prefer to leave their bullpen alone.