Another won!
Three up, three down on another big Jays win, including a look at some playoff odds, Vlad's piss rocket, a Statcast-based appreciation of Jarrod Dyson, HOF talk, Berríos's Yankee troubles and more!
The Blue Jays did it again on Wednesday night, making it three straight wins over the Yankees, and seven straight overall. So let’s talk about it!
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The New York Yankees have lost five straight games and nine of their last 11. The Toronto Blue Jays have won seven straight games and 10 of their last 11. We’re in a playoff race, folks!
And now, with that out of the way, here’s a little three up, three down…
Wednesday (Blue Jays 6 - Yankees 3)
▲ Taking what you’re given
In a section in my piece from yesterday that looked forward to the week ahead, I noted that Wednesday night's Yankees starter, Luis Gil, had been impressive in the big leagues this season, albeit a little bit fortunate — particularly because teams had yet to truly exploit his troubles with walking guys. "The Jays will need to be patient" against him, I wrote. "His 4.02 BB/9 in the big leagues is bad, and his 5.44 rate in Triple-A was even worse."
Well, they certainly got the memo. Gil showed that he can miss bats, racking up six strikeouts in just 3 1/3 innings of work. But he was badly undone by the seven walks he issued — including three straight to the bottom three hitters in the Jays' order, which ended his day.
Gil was also undone by a teammate's wildness, as his replacement, Lucas Luetge, uncorked a wild pitch with the bases loaded that allowed Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to score the game's first run in the bottom of the fourth. One batter later, Luetge gave up a two-run, two-out single to Marcus Semien to make it 3-0 Jays. (FYI, in that same piece from yesterday linked above, I wrote about the report that the Jays have unsuccessfully tried to sign Semien to a long-term extension, and what the payroll implications of keeping both him and Robbie Ray would be for the club long-term.)
Of course, the Jays took what they were given in a different sort of way later in the ballgame. Specifically, the absolute meatball that was thrown to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. by Aroldis Chapman in the ninth.
You can see the location of Chapman’s pitch above, but what you don’t see here is the fact that it came in at just 96.5 mph — well off Chapman's season average velocity of 98.2. In fact, of 103 four-seamers Chapman has thrown this season, 85 were harder than this one. Vlad made absolutely no mistake, hitting a piss rocket over the left field fence to finally restore the Jays' three-run lead.
Chapman’s last pitch of the game, a four-seamer that went for ball four to Jarrod Dyson, measured just 94 mph, making it his third slowest of the year. *COUGH*
It, uh, also goes without saying that Vlad is really good. His slump seems to be fully in the rearview now (i.e. he’s got a 217 wRC+ so far in September after “slumping” to just 112 in August), and we’re starting to see the return of fun facts like these:
Ho hum.
▲ The bullpen
It was another excellent, efficient game from the Jays' rejuvenated bullpen, who allowed just two hits and one walk over 3 1/3 innings of work between them while striking out six. Things did, however, get a bit more hairy at times than that makes it seem.
Trevor Richards entered the game with two on and two out in the sixth, missing with a curve, then getting the count to 3-2 with four straight fastballs before getting Gary Sánchez to swing over top of a beautiful changeup. But the even bigger performance was from Adam Cimber.
The side-arming right-hander was brought into the game in the seventh to pick up Richards, with a runner on, two out, and Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo due up. I must admit, it seemed like a weird spot for a guy who relies on pitching to contact against right-handers like Judge, and indeed, the Yankees slugger smashed a bouncer up the middle that forced Marcus Semien into a tough play on the left side of second base. Semien's throw to first was barely in time, but it bounced just before reaching the glove of Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who then wasn't able to scoop it.
No matter for Cimber, who this season has oddly been even better against left-handers than right-handers, and actually turns into a league average strikeout pitcher when facing them (his 15.9% strikeout rate vs. RHB jumps to 23.3% vs. LHB). He struck out Rizzo on four pitches — though it shouldn’t have even taken that long.
Cimber then stayed in the game and faced even more Yankee thumpers in the eighth, striking out the right-handed hitting Giancarlo Stanton on three pitches, and the lefty Joey Gallo on four around a D.J. LeMahieu single before popping up Sánchez to send it to the ninth.
Jordan Romano, unsurprisingly, made quick work of the Yankees in the ninth. Albeit with a little help…
▲ Jarrod Dyson
I’m not going to pretend I was a little worried about the Jays’ addition of Jarrod Dyson a couple weeks ago. While there are things that he certainly does well enough, hitting is not one of them. Based on the way the Jays were going at the time, his skillset seemed a bit of an odd fit. We are now — by which I mean I am now — seeing quite clearly what the Jays liked when they made the move.
For starters, Dyson is being deployed more or less correctly by the Jays, who reserve him for pinch-running and late game defensive situations. But when he has been called on to hit — a thing that's happened only seven times so far in nine games — he's at least managed not to be completely uncompetitive up there, having picked up a single and a pair of walks over those 7 PA.
But the thing that concerned me even more about Dyson is that he just isn't as fast as his reputation would suggest. According to Statcast, "sprint speed measures sustained speed over a full second, ensuring that runners are able to maintain their speed for about seven full-effort strides." Also according to Statcast, Dyson's 27.7 ft/sec average sprint speed ranks below the following Blue Jays: Marcus Semien (28.6), Teoscar Hernández (28.5), George Springer (28.3), Josh Palacios (28.3), Cavan Biggio (28.3), Bo Bichette (28.1), and Randal Grichuk (27.9). What sprint speed doesn't seem to capture, however, are his instincts and his impressive initial burst.
That's not to say that I think giving Dyson the green light to steal whenever he is on base is a good idea. He now has been caught twice on four tries with the Jays, and five times on 15 tries for the season. But stealing bases — or tagging up to score on relatively shallow flies like he did in a key moment on Wednesday — isn't only about footspeed.
We see Dyson’s value captured better in Statcast’s data when we look at their outfielder jump leaderboard. The data there shows us that Dyson's reaction time is exactly average, his route efficiency is a hair below average, but that his burst — his acceleration, if you want to think about it that way — is 2.1 feet better than average, which is tied for the 15th best mark among 185 outfielders with at least 10 opportunities to have made plays with a Catch Probability below 90% in the outfield this season.
That allows him to do things like this:
The expected batting average on that one was “only” .410, so I’m not going to suggest it was some kind of a miracle catch. But it was a pretty great one — and one I’m not sure the Jays’ other options in centre necessarily make. Which is to say: it’s a good thing that Dyson is here.
▼ That one pitch to Brett Gardner
This was yet another game that was a little bit on a knife’s edge for the Jays, but it really didn’t have to be.
Rookie Alek Manoah pitched very well for the vast majority of the night, but in the bottom of the fifth with one out and a Joey Gallo single already on base, he walked Rougned "somehow still in the league" Odor on five pitches. After a visit from Pete Walker he bounced back to strike out Andrew Velazquez on three pitches before having to face lead-off hitter Brett Gardner for the third time. In the at-bat, Gardner saw two four-seamers from Manoah over the heart of the plate. The first, on 1-0, he looked at for strike one. The second, on 3-2, was in just about as perfect a spot as it could have been for Gardner. He made no mistake, blasting his seventh homer of the season to tie the game up at three and swing the momentum — and the win probability — into the Yankees favour.
It was a nice piece of hitting from Gardner and a bad pitch from Manoah. The thing is, other than that one tiny mistake, the Yankees had nothing in this one.
This one could have been much more comfortable.
▼ Having to hear about Derek Jeter
Look, I get that you’re probably going to have to hear something about Derek Jeter on the day he was inducted into the Hall of Fame, especially during the telecast of a game featuring the Yankees. And, honestly, I try not to make a habit of picking on the broadcasters around here. But how many decades of fawning over this icon of one of the Jays’ most bitter rivals must we endure? Please, enough already.
And don’t get me wrong, Jeter was an excellent player. He’s clearly a Hall of Famer. He was also about five WAR better than Barry Larkin over the course of his career according to FanGraphs, and only about one win better per Baseball Reference. As a Jays fan I’m clearly biased, and I recognize that those numbers don’t account for Jeter’s wealth of postseason success, but that sounds about right to me! Yet we don’t hear constant paeans to the former Reds shortstop, and that’s because Jeter played in the biggest media market in the sport and was very conveniently made the face of the league as the golden antidote to the “steroid guys” because it was (kinda weirdly) presumed that he did it all clean.
Little of that is Buck and Pat’s fault — though I won’t concede that all the ball-washing from out-of-town broadcasters over the years didn’t help in some small way — and I’m sure Jeter’s behind-the-scenes reputation as a consummate professional is well earned, but Larry Walker was inducted into the Hall yesterday too, shouting out Canadian kids and encouraging them to follow their baseball dreams in the process, and we’ve gotta hear more Jeter stuff? Man alive. No, thank you.
▼ Worrying if Berríos can close out the sweep
The Jays will try for a four-game sweep of the Yankees here on Thursday, and much of their chances rest on the shoulders of right-hander José Berríos. That, it turns out, can sometimes be a problem.
Berríos pitched against the Yankees in the 2017 AL wild card game, relieving Ervin Santana in the fourth inning with the game tied at four, but lasting just three innings himself and giving up three earned runs on five hits in what was eventually an 8-4 Yankees win. He also got the start against the Yankees in game 1 of the ALDS back in 2019, allowing just one earned run, but three runs total on four hits and three walks over four innings.
Those are, of course, just two games, and many of the batters Berríos faced in them are no longer with New York. But it will be fascinating to see if he can get over the hump here against a team he has historically had a little bit of trouble with — especially because lately we've seen a "new" Berríos, who has righted himself after a rough start to his Blue Jays career with a small mechanical change involving a simplified windup.
It sure would help the Jays if it works, because after Jordan Romano was used again on Wednesday night, the closer will likely not be available for this one. Tim Mayza will presumably get the nod in that regard, though both Nate Pearson and Julian Merryweather will be available, too.
Pearson would have pitched on Wednesday if the Jays had pushed their lead to four runs, Montoyo told reporters. In other words, they’re seemingly ready to bump up his leverage a bit after he struck out the side in his one inning of work against the A’s on Sunday. Still, saving both him and Merryweather until the Orioles series would be pretty good if they can pull it off. That comes down to Berríos.
It should all once again be a whole lot of fun, at the very least. The run of ‘21 goes on, baby!
*nervous energy*
Shoot this September baseball straight into my veins, baby!