Ernie Clement was an All-Star in July. Right now, he's one of the worst hitters in baseball.

Fresh off setting the single-season postseason hit record with 30 base hits last October, Clement carried that momentum into a scorching first half.

He slashed .296 with a .433 slugging mark, leading the American League with 23 doubles and ranking third among all AL hitters with 106 hits.

His 109 wRC+ trailed only Kazuma Okamoto among qualified Blue Jays hitters, and his 9.4% strikeout rate led every teammate by a wide margin.

Fans voted him to his first All-Star Game in Philadelphia, a genuine individual honor for a player who spent years fighting for roster spots in Cleveland, Oakland, and early on in Toronto.

Then the second half happened.

Why his collapse is one of the strangest in baseball

Among qualified hitters in the second half, Clement's .526 OPS is the worst mark in the American League, ahead of only Brandon Marsh's .479.

His 46 wRC+ isn't just poor. It's a genuine offensive black hole in the middle of a playoff race.

He collected 23 doubles and eight home runs before the break. Since then, just nine total extra-base hits.

The defense has slipped too. After posting a 15 OAA and a +10 FRV last season, ranking in the top 10% of hitters, he sits at -5 OAA and -3 FRV in 2026.

With 10 games left and Toronto a game and a half back of Cleveland for the final wild-card spot, season-long numbers matter less than what happens right now.

Toronto's team wRC+ sits at just 95, tied for 22nd in baseball, and this offense badly needs a spark from somewhere.

Guerrero and Okamoto have provided moments. Clement hasn't had a genuinely impactful one in a long stretch.

His consistency and contact skills are real, proven across a full first half. Without that showing up again soon, he's simply not producing at all.

For a Blue Jays team fighting for its playoff life, Guerrero's power outage, Scherzer's rough patches, and Clement's second-half collapse can all be forgiven if the wins come.

Whether another taste of October baseball reawakens whatever made his first half so good is the question hanging over the season's final stretch.