Blair: ‘Scuffling’ Rios typifies decline in offence

If you’re J.P. Ricciardi, you can’t just attribute it to the Mitchell report or anything like that, because you’re an employee of Major League Baseball and, well, he just can’t go there, you know?

But there’s a lot of bad baseball being played in the American League these days. Awful stuff. A drop in offence that Ricciardi, the Blue Jays’ general manager, says is “flat-out alarming.”

The decline causes him to admit that when he sits in his office and contemplates trading for another hitter, he is looking at players “from a different vantage point” than he has in the past and that, well, that it wouldn’t surprise him if a lot of his peers are looking around and wondering whether maybe the wisest thing to do is hold off from trying to evaluate some of the slumping sluggers until the end of the year. For whatever reason.

“The game is changing,” Ricciardi said last night before the Blue Jays were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position. He was watching as Rios took a called third strike with the bases loaded to end the game.

“The game you see now is the game you’ll see in the next few years,” Ricciardi added. “Less balls hit into the seats.”

So you are going to bring back Jorge Velandia. Interesting.