Finally!
On Monday's skin-of-their-teeth win, the Blue Jays' recent funk, Vlad, links, news, notes, anatomy of an eighth inning, and more!
The Jays actually won a close game with a late run. So let’s talk about it!
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Man alive. I guess I didn’t post anything about the Jays’ stupid losses in D.C. last week, because I can see a whole nearly finished post in my drafts that runs out of steam just about the point where I tried to once again tackle the “Charlie Discourse.” All the hit down arrows are in there: Ángel Hernández, Rafael Dolis getting the ball in a big spot when he was one bad outing away from a DFA, doomsaying, José Berríos jogging up the line on a bunt and getting doubled off, Brad Hand being terrible, the Jays trusting Hand anyway.
I put a lot of work into it, frankly. Then I figured I’d put it all into a big post after Friday’s game against the Tigers, which, of course, turned out to be yet another spectacular gut-punch. The Breyvic Valera pinch-hit bunt attempt gone awry! The Randal Grichuk GIDP! Wasting another great Robbie Ray start! Getting two straight strikeouts to start the tenth and still managing to allow three runs!
OK then, I said to myself. How about a big post after Sunday’s game? I could use the Washington stuff, cover the whole Detroit series, then look ahead to a big week. What I stupidly didn’t account for was that this one would be yet another horrific gut punch — and maybe the worst one yet. Marcus Semien, steady as a goddamn rock all season, truly world class on both sides of the ball, flubs a throw to end the game so routine that a little leaguer could have made it, and the Jays (naturally) go on to find a way to lose.
It’s not my intention to not write about losses, but some of these lately have been absolutely soul shattering — as I’m sure anybody reading this already knows. They’re not fun to talk about. They’re not fun to relive. They’re not fun to engage people about on Twitter. And they’re certainly not fun to write about, especially when the wounds are fresh.
These weren’t losses to easily vent about. They were ones best flushed from memory as quickly as possible. So, rather than indulge in the charade that I’m a traditional reporter covering this team, I flushed ‘em. And I gotta tell you, hitting delete on a vicious rant about fans who, shockingly oblivious to the constant ebbing and flowing of the sport they love to watch, rush to declare seasons over? It feels a lot better than publishing it.
You know what else feels surprisingly good? Looking at the standings.
At the end of the day on August 9th, with the Jays riding high coming off the first homestand of the season, the Jays sat three games back of the second wild card spot in the AL. After their tough trip to Anaheim and Seattle, they were 3.5 games back. Today, heading into game two with the White Sox, they’re 4.5 back. Clearly they’re moving in the wrong direction. Clearly this isn’t good. But for all the misery and all the heartache since that magnificent 9-2 homestand, they’ve technically only lost a game-and-a-half of ground. They’ve pissed away valuable time. They’ve pissed away opportunity. But there’s at least some of that still left here with six weeks to go in the season.
Lo and behold, the Jays almost pissed another game away on Monday night against the White Sox, too. It wasn’t exactly inspiring. It wasn’t always fun. But it sure was a relief.
Here’s three up, three down, but with a twist — three down, three up…
Monday (Jays 2 - White Sox 1)
▼ RISPy Business
The Jays were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position in this one, continuing a trend that’s been an absolute plague for them of late, including a staggering 1-for-17 in Sunday’s loss, and 0-for-12 in Friday’s loss. The one hit they did manage was a huge one — Vlad’s game-tying two-out single to cash Bo Bichette in the bottom of the sixth — but the boys are grippin’ their sticks a little tight lately, it seems.
It’s been bad all around, but one player in particular stands out: Randal Grichuk. This mind-boggling series of numbers was tweeted out before he struck out on four pitches with two outs in a tied game in the bottom of the seventh with Lourdes Gurriel Jr. standing on second base.
They have indeed gone down. Grichuk’s wRC+ in 20 high leverage plate appearances since May 24th now stands at -93. That’s hard to do!
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Josh Palacios — recently summoned from Buffalo after a year lost mostly to injury — is getting the start in centre for the Jays tonight. Palacios is probably not a long-term centre fielder, but I definitely get it.
▼ Still lacking depth in the bullpen
The Jays have a relatively trustworthy closer in Jordan Romano. They have Tim Mayza out there pitching like 2016 Andrew Miller since the start of June — five runs (four earned) over 25 innings on just 12 hits and four walks with 26 strikeouts (1.44 ERA, 2.21 FIP). And then they have a bit of a crapshoot. Still.
The lack of trustworthy options as a bridge between the starting pitcher and Romano/Mayza meant that rookie sensation Alek Manoah pitched a sixth inning in this one, despite ending the fifth at 95 pitches. Older fans won’t find that so unusual, but for a young guy with not a whole lot of innings under his belt, it was a pretty big ask. Manoah gutted hit way through it admirably, especially given the circumstances he was pitching under, having been at his grandfather’s funeral over the weekend. But having him face the meat of the White Sox’ order a third time didn’t exactly work out, as he allowed the first run of the ballgame and put the Jays in a tough spot against Cy Young candidate Lance Lynn, who to that point had only allowed one hit, and who would ultimately pitch seven innings.
There was a time, way early in the season, when the Jays could have comfortably gone to the bullpen in the sixth there. Beyond Romano and Mayza there was Julian Merryweather (who, despite a reported setback over the weekend, pitched a clean inning here on Tuesday in the complex league in Florida). There was David Phelps, Tyler Chatwood, Ryan Borucki, Rafael Dolis. With Joakim Soria hurt (though he threw live batting practice to George Springer on Monday), Brad Hand struggling, and some of the other options — even, at this point, Adam Cimber and Trevor Richards — feeling a little bit too shaky, the Jays right now are understandably not so comfortable.
They got away with it this time, but these two down arrows get to the heart, I think, of two of the biggest questions the team will face this winter when it comes to roster construction. Do they have blind spots when it comes to hitters who can still thrive in late-and-close situations against (typically) power-armed right-handed pitching, and when it comes to putting together a bullpen that can either, a) stay healthy, or b) provide enough quality depth — as the Rays do — for health to matter less?
▼ Tony La Russa
Usually these down arrows have something to do with the Blue Jays, or at least something pivotal in the game. Not this time. I just think this guy sucks!
This is not an age thing, either. Jim Leyland was great. Dusty Baker? Cool as hell! But Tony throwing a tantrum at his rookie catcher in full view of cameras in the middle of a game? Hard pass.
Also: how’d that little pep talk work out for him during Kimbrel’s inning, pal? (Speaking of which: I certainly could have gone with Kimbrel’s dangerous slide into home plate to try to put the tag on Valera in the eighth here, but whatever.)
▲ Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
It’s been too long since I’ve been able to put an up arrow next to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s name, and gosh does it feel good.
Vladdy has, as I'm sure you've noticed, had some struggles of late. He's posted a wRC+ of just 84 in the month of August. His groundball rate has risen alarmingly of late.
He also has been steadily losing sprint speed as the season has progressed.
In other words, it feels like he’s wearing down a bit — understandable, I think, given his age, the fact that he’s rarely played this many games at this high a level in a season, and the obviously massive effort he put into getting his weight down and his conditioning in order over the winter, before even beginning the long grind of the season.
What, to me, had been almost as much of a shame was that, with the Jays in a funk these last couple of weeks, Vladdy’s level of emotion and exuberance sometimes seemed to have dipped a little bit as well. Certainly not in this one, though. He was into it.
And why wouldn’t he be excited?
Suddenly down a run, Reese McGuire began the Jays’ half of the sixth with a double, but was quickly TOOTBLAN’d at third base when he took off there on a hard bouncer from Bo Bichette that went straight to the second baseman. A one-out groundout from Marcus Semien moved Bichette to second. Then, on a 3-0 pitch from Lynn, Vlad made no mistake.
Brand new ballgame indeed. Get excited, son.
▲ The bottom of the eighth
That old familiar feeling of dread began to creep in as another winnable game got closer to the end with the score still tied. Lynn departed after seven innings and the White Sox turned it over to their incredible bullpen. Specifically, Craig Kimbrel — one of the greatest relievers of all time, who is having an outstanding bounce-back season here in 2021.
Once again, McGuire was leading off. Despite Kimbrel having a strikeout rate of 44.1% this season, and McGuire being McGuire, once again the catcher put the ball in play. This time, however, he hit it into the shift. Second baseman Cesar Hernandez fielded the ball in shallow right field. Though McGuire's sprint speed ranks only in the 37th percentile this season, he turned on the jets. And while I’m not generally a big fan of players sliding into first base instead of simply running through the bag, in this case it worked.
It was a huge play from the glove-first catcher, who was immediately lifted for a pinch runner, Valera, and the fun began.
Bo Bichette took ball one from Kimbrel, then fouled off a pair of heaters in the heart of the plate. The fourth pitch he saw was Kimbrel's curve. Bichette swung at the pitch, which damn near bounced off the plate, and managed to get a piece of it to keep the bat alive (though he maybe didn’t think so, as he took off for first base when the ball squirted away from the previously-berated catcher Seby Zavala).
The next one was another curve — this time way outside. Bichette waved at it and missed, but the ball, again, got through the catcher and to the backstop, allowing Valera to take second base.
Marcus Semien then strode to the plate. After looking at three straight balls, and with the go-ahead on 3-0, he took a cut at a fastball in the upper outside quadrant of the plate but could only turn it into a one-hopper to second base. This at least allowed Valera to advance again, this time to third.
Rather than give Vladdy a chance to come through for his team once again, the White Sox decided to intentionally walk him. Teoscar Hernández then came to the plate, quickly getting himself down 0-2.
The next pitch, uh, was not well located.
A few inches inside and maybe Zavala can block that pitch. A few inches difference and Valera takes a cleat from Kimbrel in the face. Instead, the Jays go up 2-1.
▲ Finally catching a break
It sure felt like it had been a while, hadn’t it? The Jays had seemed to be snakebitten ever since George Springer ran into that wall in Seattle — if not all season. Lately it had been with on the offensive side, of course. The RISP problems, guys hitting it on the screws only for the ball to somehow find a glove. In this game alone Jays hitters put nine balls in play that had an expected batting average above .500 according to Statcast; only three of them went for hits.
Could this be the moment that lifts them out of their funk? We can sure as hell hope, can’t we?
News, notes, links, etc.
• I mentioned Julian Merryweather’s setback/inning of work today in one of the sections above, but here are some more worthwhile details on that situation. (I’ll have a deeper dive on Atkins’ full appearance on McCown’s podcast later on this week.)
• Things are still looking good on the George Springer front, as he’s been doing drills, live BP (as noted above), and here on Tuesday was also spotted running the bases at Rogers Centre prior to the game. I’d be surprised if he comes off the IL after just 10 days, but I wouldn’t exactly be shocked either. (I honestly have no sense of how likely they are to let Springer come back so quickly from something again!)
• The folks at Baseball America seem to be getting excited about Jays prospect Yaifer Perdomo. Perhaps we should be too?
• You probably caught this on the broadcast last night, or elsewhere, but the tough season for Cavan Biggio continued yesterday, as he suffered an elbow injury in a game while on a rehab assignment.
• Other rehab news: Nate Pearson is scheduled for at least one more start in Triple-A. This maybe makes sense, as he had his first hiccup for Buffalo on Sunday, allowing a solo home run and a walk in an inning of work. Per Charlie Montoyo in his pre-game Zoom chat with reporters, after that outing Pearson will be in play for a call-up.
• There’s a chance Pearson will be caught in his next one by Danny Jansen, as he begins his own rehab assignment with the Bisons here on Tuesday night.
• Lastly, over at the always excellent Vlad Religion, Drew Fairservice walks us through some of the highlights of Vladimir Guerrero Jr’s most recent mic’d up games — which, unfortunately, came in one of those dreadful ones against the Nationals. Do yourself a favour and give the video a watch. Vladdy is a treasure.