Why the Blue Jays' Franchise-Worst Start Doesn't Mean Much... Yet

Things are looking up for Toronto's marquee sports teams right now… other than the Blue Jays. The Leafs and Raptors are both set to begin first-round playoff series, while the Jays are, well, shitting the bed.

After dropping their home opener to the Brewers on Tuesday, the Jays fell to 1-6 on the season. It's the worst seven-game start in franchise history. The main culprit behind the team's early-season struggles is its offence.

The Blue Jays, coming off back-to-back postseason appearances, are one of only two teams in baseball hitting below the Mendoza Line, and are slashing a putrid .196/.278/.288—good for an MLB-worst .565 OPS. They are collectively hitting like a light-hitting shortstop, if not worse (Miami's Adeiny Hechavarria had the lowest OPS among qualified hitters last season at .594). Only three teams have scored fewer runs than their 23—the Blue Jays ranked ninth last season—and two clubs have hit fewer homers than their four (Toronto's 221 in 2016 was the fourth-best mark in all of baseball).

Jose Bautista hasn't done much of anything yet. Russell Martin doesn't have a hit. Devon Travis has three singles in 27 at-bats. Josh Donaldson, the only regular hitting above .290, missed the home opener (he pinch-hit in the ninth) as he's battling another calf ailment. Troy Tulowitzki has a team-leading nine RBI, but is hitting .185.

The starting pitching hasn't been great, but not as terrible as its third-worst-in-the-majors 5.20 ERA would suggest. A couple bad outings sandwiched around terrific starts by Marcus Stroman and Aaron Sanchez make it seem worse. With Francisco Liriano, Marco Estrada, and J.A. Happ rounding out the five, it's more likely the Blue Jays will have one of the better rotations in the game, not one of the worst. Plus the team just got back closer Roberto Osuna, which instantly improves a bullpen that recently lost free-agent lefty signing J.P. Howell.

So what does it all mean? Probably nothing. It's too early to find real meaning out of this rough stretch. It's been seven freaking games. Sure, only three teams since 1977 have started a season 1-6 or 0-7 and made the playoffs, but it's important to remember there's more than 90 percent of the season left.

Numbers can look really good or bad at this point, when we are looking at extremely small samples, until the stats start to stabilize. The Reds and Twins—two consensus non-playoff teams—are in first place, while the Angels' Yunel Escobar has an AL-best .455 batting average. None of that is holding up.

Bautista will start mashing (even in a down, injury-shortened 2016 he had 22 homers and an .818 OPS) and Martin isn't going the season without a hit. There's reason to believe Tulowitzki will hit a lot better than what he's shown so far in Toronto after coming over from Colorado at the 2015 deadline. We shouldn't take much meaning out of a seven-game stretch for any of them, just like we shouldn't for the team. The lousy start is magnified because it's coming at the beginning of the season—if the Jays were 3.5 games back of the division (which they are now) in July, no one would be panicking.

It's a long season. There's 155 of these left. The playoffs aren't being decided in the second week.