Gaus is the man, Jays get a series win in Boston
On a brilliant Gausman's pitch mix, Romano's wobble, Chapman's good signs, Gabriel Moreno, Gosuke Katoh, Zack Collins, news, notes, and more!
I missed writing about this one in the aftermath of Thursday afternoon’s game because I had podcast duties to attend to, but I think it was a game worth revisiting. Kevin Gausman pitched a gem, Jordan Romano was a bit shaky, and the Jays got just enough offence to pull out a big series win in Boston and stay atop the AL East at 8-5. Here’s three up!
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Up: The big Gaus-man
The fact that Kevin Gausman was the first starting pitcher in all of baseball this season to have thrown a pitch in the ninth inning tells you pretty much all you need to know about how dominant and efficient he was in this one. Complete games are exceedingly rare these days, with the last one for the Jays having been pitched by Marcus Stroman back in 2017 (and the last complete game shutout belonging to Mark Buehrle in 2015), and though Gausman didn’t quite get there, to have come so close at Fenway Park after a shortened spring training is nothing short of remarkable.
And, uh, speaking of remarkable things… Gausman’s splitter!
That’s one of the best pitches in the game, obviously, and a huge reason the Blue Jays made such a big bet on Gausman last winter. But he actually had absolutely everything working for him in this one.
It turns out that if 35% of your pitches go for either a called strike or a swing-and-miss, you’re going to have a pretty good day. Especially when you add in that 22% of Gausman’s offerings were fouled off, too. He was foolin’ ‘em. To the point where even with the somewhat high hit total against him (seven), and a number of hard hit balls (eight that came off the bat over 95 mph), it never felt as though he wasn’t in control.
Consistently, he kept the fastball elevated…
…kept the splitter where no one could do damage…
…and kept pumping the slider low and away to right-handed hitters.
For a guy who was essentially a two-pitch pitcher last year, combining to throw either his four-seamer or his splitter 88% of the time, getting this much use — and success — out of his slider is actually quite a development. Gausman has now thrown the pitch 16% of the time in 2022, and he was particularly enamored of it after this one.
More of this would seem to be a good idea!
Also: sorry, what??!?!
Down?: Jordan Romano
Jordan Romano got the job done in the ninth inning of this one, and truly seems to have taken to the role of closer for these Jays. He’s aggressive on the hill yet unflappable out there — two qualities that will serve him exceptionally well in the ninth inning. And that have served him well thus far, as he’s picked up seven saves in seven tries this season, bringing him up to 30 consecutive saves dating back to last year.
He’s this team’s Mr. Automatic. And yet, so far this season, his appearances haven’t quite felt that way. Including Thursday’s, in which he walked lead-off hitter Rafael Devers, gave up a double to Xander Bogaerts, a run-scoring groundout from Trevor Story, and then needed brilliance from Matt Chapman, who snagged a 102.7 mph rocket off the bat of Bobby Dalbec (expected batting average: .490) to preserve the lead and bring Jackie Bradley Jr. up as the would-be final out.
Romano is obviously allowed to have a dicey outing every once in a while amid such a run of brilliance, but there are some underlying things about his performance so far that are a touch worrying — something it seems like a whole lot of Jays fans don’t want to hear.
This tweet, for example, despite all the likes, also took a hell of a lot of heat.
Sure, it’s early, it’s cold, there was a short spring, and Romano has been a bit overworked. But there’s nothing unfair about pointing out something like this, nor is it even critical! It’s just pointing out trends in the statistical record that don’t portend well if he can’t turn them around.
On Thursday, Romano’s fastball velocity was down 1.6 mph, and his slider velo was down 2.8 mph compared to last season’s average — following a trend he’s been on all month. Many things can factor into that sort of a dip, but the fact that he was pitching on his highest number of days rest so far doesn’t exactly instill confidence. Nor does a comparison of his Statcast percentile rankings from 2021 to this year.
Now, there are some positives to take from this mess. The walk rate being up and the whiff rate being the same aren’t nothing. Plus, it must be noted that Romano found himself in a bit of a funk last year, following the league’s crackdown on sticky stuff, and managed to pull himself out of it with elan.
Still, it hasn’t been a great start for him anywhere but on the surface. What’s maybe the most interesting statistical thing about his season so far, to me, is that Romano’s called strike rate right now is about half of what it was last year (8.6% vs. 15.4%). Stranger still, Romano’s Cstr% is the eleventh lowest among a staggering 503 pitchers to have thrown a pitch so far in 2022.
Hitters aren’t chasing pitches out of the zone, and they’re not being fooled by pitches that end up in the zone, neither of which is a good thing! And one could surmise that’s a big part of the reason his walks are down this season, rather than that necessarily being a new dimension to his game.
Romano is good enough, and the defence has improved enough behind him, that he can still be successful while he works out whatever is going on. But don’t kid yourself that there’s nothing to be worked out here. He’s going to need to find more strikeouts and better ways to limit damaging contact.
My Blue Jays Happy Hour cohost, Nick Ashbourne, went even deeper on some of the red flags we’ve seen from Romano so far in a piece earlier this week for Yahoo Sports.
Up: Matt Chapman
We already took a look at Matt Chapman’s game-saving glove work above, but he also had three hits in this one. Er… well, technically.
His second hit of the day was a 43 foot pop up off of Ryan Brasier that managed to fall between the Red Sox’ infielders, cashing in the winning run in the process. LOL.
In fact, the hardest hit ball Chapman produced all day was a groundout in his second at-bat. He singled on the hit above (.000 xBA) and had another later on that had an expected batting average of just .060. Kinda lucky!
And yet Chapman now sits with a 138 wRC+ for the season so far — much more in line with his MVP calibre 2018 than any of the other seasons he’s had since.
Unfortunately, that’s not to say that he’s looking like the same hitter as he was then. Despite talk of having a fully healed hip, and 13 homers last August and September being evidence that his power might be back, we really haven’t seen that yet.
His average exit velocity has bounced back a little, but still isn’t where it was at his peak. His ISO would be the worst of his career if the season ended today, his slugging percentage isn’t back to where it was before last season, and his .345 BABIP does imply a hefty dose of luck (especially considering his mark from 2019 to 2021 was just .273).
Nonetheless, what we’ve seen so far is, I think, encouraging. Primarily, that’s because Chapman has struck out in “just” 26.5% of his plate appearances so far this season, which is well down from the 35.5% and 32.5% marks he posted in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
Even more impressive than that, if you discard the first four games of the season, he's struck out in just 15.2% of his plate appearances since, posting a 166 wRC+ over that span (albeit with a .375 BABIP).
That's just nine games, mind you, but maybe he and the Jays are trying to find a happy medium between the Three True Outcomes guy he had started to become over the past couple of seasons and someone who trades a little bit of power for fewer strikeouts and more contact.
That's what it kind of looks like, at least. His contact rate has gone from an abysmal 65.9% in 2020 to 70.2% last year, and is now at 75.3% this year, and 77.4% if you exclude those first four games.
It also makes some sense that we might be seeing this, with Chapman now playing in smaller and more hitter-friendly AL East ballparks so often. Justin Smoak became a very effective hitter in Toronto by chasing fewer home runs and simply letting the raw power in his bat do its thing while dropping his strikeout rate and upping his contact. To an extent, that concept seemed to work for Randal Grichuk at times, too.
It could be a blip, but it's an encouraging one at least! Even with the BABIP making the numbers a bit difficult to confidently parse.
Other notes
• Even though the lineup was a bit weird on Thursday, it was great to see Gosuke Katoh get his first MLB plate appearance — and do a nice job of working a walk in it, to boot. This, however, might have been even nicer to see.
• Ethan Diamandas of SI’s Inside the Blue Jays has a good piece up looking at the hot streak being put together so far by newly acquired Jays catcher Zack Collins. I think he hit on the key thing with this one graph:
• Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi was in Buffalo this week, and has come back with an excellent piece on top prospect Gabriel Moreno — profiling how he got to where he is today, how the Jays are excited about his Bichette-esque bat, how he’s improved on defence behind the plate, and where the organization wants to take his development from here. A must read.
• The kid just can’t stop hitting!
• Also from Shi, some notes from the farm system, including the fact that Jordan Groshans is with Low-A Dunedin on a rehab assignment and will likely join Buffalo next week. He adds that Otto Lopez is not far behind Groshans, that intriguing pitcher Yosver Zulueta is expected to join Dunedin's rotation next week as he's works his way back from last year's knee surgery, and that Eric Pardinho is expected to join Vancouver in a couple of weeks.
• I spent an hour this week talking all things Jays with Matt Robinson of Tall Can Audio. Definitely have a listen!
• Speaking of podcasts, if you’re looking for a fresh angle on the Jays, why not do it through the lens of some Canadians who are torn between them and the Mariners. To Love a Mariner can be found on Apple Podcasts here. The idea is, both hosts follow the Jays but one co-host is trying to convince the other that the Mariners are also worthy of love. This week's episode is all about Robbie Ray, and features an interview with Twitter’s own Robbie Ray's Pants (@PantsRR). Give it a try!
• Lastly, Justin Verlander faces the Blue Jays tonight for the first time since his 2019 no-hitter against them. Blue Jays Nation points out that, while Verlander would have obviously been the story, an underappreciated thing about that game was that “Wilmer Font, Sam Gaviglio, and Zack Godley combined to throw eight shutout innings” for the Jays. Lol. Lmao. Should be a fun one!
Next up: Friday, 8:10 PM ET: Jays @ Astros (Ross Stripling vs. Justin Verlander), TV: Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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Very interesting about Romano. His decrease in velocity has been noticeable this year. For some reason I’ve never felt confidant with him as a closer, but he seems to get the job done. Another tight rope act today. Unfortunately closers tend to have short shelf lives. Not all, but most. Let’s hope he’s fine.
Ah the old Font, Gaviglio, Godley tandem. 1963 Dodgers eat your hearts out!