Ernie Clement didn't hold back after Monday night's loss, and his words summed up everything wrong with this Toronto Blue Jays team right now.
Toronto fell 1-10 to the Giants in San Francisco, its third straight loss on a road trip that's turning uglier by the day.
Clement wasn't interested in sugarcoating any of it once reporters got to his locker.
"You've got to find a way to win when you're not playing your best and we're not doing that," Clement said. "I don't know."
"You play like s***, you don't play as a team, it's really tough to win baseball games."
"So we've got to start playing for each other and play a lot better. You can't win baseball games when you play like that," Clement said.
That's not the kind of quote that gets buried in a notebook. That's a veteran infielder telling you exactly where this team stands.
Toronto's record tells the same story Clement just did
The Blue Jays sit at 42-49, third in the American League East, and they've been outscored by 51 runs this season.
Clement went 1-for-4 with a single in the loss, one of the only Blue Jays hitters to put together anything resembling a real at-bat.
His season numbers still hold up, a .293 average with a .744 OPS across 335 at-bats, but even he's cooled off, hitting .222 over his last five games.
Kevin Gausman took the loss on the mound, giving up four earned runs over five and one third innings, and the bullpen made it worse from there.
Adam Macko and Tommy Nance each allowed a home run in relief, turning a manageable deficit into a laugher by the middle innings.
Here's the uncomfortable part. When your own player says the team isn't playing like a team, that's not a slump anymore, that's a culture problem showing up on the scoreboard.
A car can only run on fumes for so long before it stalls out completely, and that's exactly where this Toronto lineup looks right now.
Does John Schneider address this in the clubhouse tomorrow, or does he let Clement's words do the talking heading into the series finale tonight?
Either way, the Blue Jays play the Giants again this afternoon, and another flat effort won't just be a bad loss. It'll confirm exactly what Clement just said out loud.
Is Ernie Clement right that the Blue Jays aren't playing like a team right now?
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