Good week/bad week, news, notes, and the road ahead...
On Vlad's long single, Ronald Acuña Jr., which Jays are hot and which are not (non-sexual), my chat with The @Homestand Show on Monday, news, notes, and more!
Chris Bassitt twirled a complete game gem to outduel Spencer Strider on Friday. José Berríos and the bullpen held it together long enough for the Jays’ offence to scratch their way to victory on Saturday. And somehow both games ended up being outdone by the Jays’ spectacular walk-off victory to sweep one of the best teams in baseball during Sunday’s Mother’s Day matinee.
Now they get set for an even bigger test: four at home against the Yankees, three against the Orioles, followed by a three-game visit with the Rays at the Trop.
In a vacuum — or, you know, the AL Central — these Blue Jays are an incredibly good team. In the brutish reality of this foul year of Our Lord, 1971, they sit six games back of Tampa after the first six weeks of the season, are not even ahead of Baltimore in the wild card race, and find the Yankees — not to mention the Red Sox, Astros, Angels, and Mariners — nipping at their heels.
It could be great. It could also get ugly. Especially if they [insert all the mouth-frothing “that’s unacceptable” stuff the old-school types were absolutely ready to tee up on Sunday before they had to tone it down after the team actually won the game] again.
(Frankly, though this is hardly any sort of excuse for Vlad, I wish I’d heard more about how Ronald Acuña Jr. maybe kinda bluffed him on this one, dejectedly jogging to the exact spot where he’d be able to perfectly barehand the ball and rocket it back into to the infield.)
Anyway, uh… buckle up!
And buckle up for something a little different here in the space that would normally be reserved for Weekend Up!, because by the time of Sunday’s walk-off win, whatever happened on Friday and Saturday seemed like far distant memories not really worth examining in depth.
So… here’s some stuff!
⚾⚾ This site is the only way that I make a living. It’s free for all to read, but that’s only possible because of the generosity of paid subscribers. It takes just a couple clicks to upgrade — or to contribute again if at some point along the way your credit card expired! — and by supporting you help keep my work free for everybody else. Win-win! ⚾⚾
Good week/bad week
An aspect of FanGraphs’ excellent splits leaderboard that I must admit I’ve never paid a ton of attention to is the fact that you can look at data by calendar week. “Small samples and arbitrary endpoints? Sign me up!”
But something you can do with that data is use it in a Monday afternoon post as an easy jumping-off point to talk about which players are currently running either hot or cold without really considering game context. So let’s do that!
It’s been a good week for…
• Kevin Kiermaier: Obviously the .667 BABIP isn't going to be sustainable, but it's hard not to love what Kiermaier has done at the plate since the start of the Philles series. He's 6-for-11 with three walks in 14 PA, with three of those hits going for two bases. Add in a pair of stolen bases and four runs scored to make it a second straight strong week for a guy who hit a bit of a trough after his strong start. I was not exactly bullish on the decision to sign him, but if he can keep his head above water offensively he adds enough elsewhere to be a really valuable guy. Currently his wRC+ of 140 would be a career high.
• George Springer: My Blue Jays Happy Hour cohost Nick wrote some rather grim words for Sportsnet last week concerning the red flags in Springer’s early season numbers, so it’s been good to see him find his groove a little bit at the plate. Thanks to a couple of off days and the illness he was going through, this week represents his smallest sample of plate appearances of any week of this season, but his 148 wRC+ is also his highest for a seven-day span. The home run on Sunday helped him end it with a bang, of course. But the best number in there might be the fact that he's pulled the ball more often (50%) than in any other week so far this year. Nick notes that an "indication that Springer’s contact quality isn’t quite right is that he’s pulling the ball significantly less than usual. His current pull rate of 35.1 per cent would be the second-lowest number of his career — and traditionally Springer’s ability to turn on the ball has correlated with his power output."
• Brandon Belt: It's still too soon to say that what we've witnessed since the start of May has been anything but a dead cat bounce for Belt, but the fact that he's now up to a 107 wRC+ for the year is nonetheless remarkable given what an absolute mess he's looked like at numerous points in the season so far. The 274 wRC+ in the previous week surely helped, but this week's 182 mark is still very nice (and his second highest weekly total of year so far). He struck out more than 40% of the time, so that's a little concerning. But his wRC+ since April 10th is 160. The longer this lasts the more real that feels — and the less real his rough start does.
• Erik Swanson: Look. I know that the reason Swanson, rather than Tim Mayza, was brought in to clean up Yimi Garcia's mess in the seventh inning against Atlanta on Saturday — despite the fact that a left-handed hitter (Eddie Rosario) was due up — was because the second batter was lefty-killer Ozzie Albies (244 wRC+ vs. LHP this year, 48 wRC+ vs. RHP). But can we please just make Swanson the top bullpen option against lefties already? Swanson held all hitters combined to a 0.00 ERA and .091/.231/.182 this week (one hit and one walk from 14 batters faced), and continues to be especially lethal against lefties. He's held them to .097/.176/.161, while right-handers have been held to a still-impressive .118/.231/.294 against him.
• Kevin Gausman: Another Jays pitcher who didn't allow a run this week was Kevin Gausman, who was as brilliant as ever in the Jays' tough loss in Philadelphia on... Tuesday? Wednesday? One of those days! Gausman, who gets game two against the Yankees on Tuesday of this week, allowed just three hits and no walks while striking out nine in his six innings of work.
• Chris Bassitt: The Hound faced 31 batters in his start on Friday — ten more than Gausman, and 17 more than Swanson — yet also allowed zero runs. Nine hits, two hits, two walks, eight strikeouts, no runs. According to FanGraphs, MLB pitchers have made 1220 starts so far in 2023, heading into Monday night’s action. According to game score, Bassitt’s 89 mark is tied for the third best start of the season. This should really be 4,000-word post about Friday night.
It’s been a bad week for…
• Alek Manoah and Alejandro Kirk: Look, I’m not looking to run down too many guys here — particularly not ones like Matt Chapman, who has come back to earth a little bit since putting together an all-timer of an April, or Daulton Varsho, who started May so well — so we’re only going to highlight two here. And it’s a pair I have a lot of time for! Two guys who were All-Stars just a year ago!
Alejandro Kirk was 0-for-11 for the week, which I’d prefer he hadn’t been, though it isn’t the end of the world. Last week wasn’t the end of the world for Alek Manoah either, though obviously the questions about what’s going on with him aren’t going away just yet. In fact, they’re probably only getting louder.
An interesting FanGraphs piece this week from Leo Morgenstern pokes around at just about every aspect of Manoah’s season so far, trying to decipher what’s changed so quickly for the struggling former (?) phenom, and considers — though ultimately doesn’t pinpoint as “the problem” — the way that Kirk, Manoah’s personal catcher, has gone backwards in terms of pitch framing. Baseball Savant, for example, had Kirk at +9 framing runs last year. This year he's at 0 so far.
Unfortunately, whatever is going on with Manoah, appears to go deeper than Kirk struggling to steal strikes. Velocity is an issue. Location is an issue. Stuff is an issue. Alek Manoah is a land of contrasts, apparently.
The piece may not offer an easy answer, but it’s worth a read. Opposing batters slashed .250/.368/.438 against him this week.
In which I say nice things about Whit Merrifield…
I’ve been pretty hard on Whit Merrifield this season — just as I was in the lead-up to it! And while I'm sure he couldn't possibly care less, people have certainly noticed!
To his credit, Whit’s really been making me look like an idiot. And, during my latest visit with the guys on The Homestand Show, I begrudgingly called him a pretty good player who has clearly been very valuable to the Jays so far.
I also said several other things about other Jays topics earlier on Monday afternoon! Including, apparently, some riffs on that piece Nick wrote about George Springer and his red flags.
Have a watch!
Quickly…
I’m running out of time for this stuff, but there are a few items worth talking about before I send this post off in time to ensure my friend Mack doesn’t yell at me about how late it’s showing up in his inbox…
• Sunday’s win probability chart was a thing of beauty.
• According to what the Zubes says was "15 tweets into an intensely personal beef between a random guy and a reporter that apparently spans 10 years," we learned that Kevin Gausman could have taken the same deal with the Mariners as he did the Jays.
• The Texas Rangers remain a joke franchise.
• Updates!
• Updates part two!
• Updates part three!
• Yankees suck.
⚾ Be sure to follow me on Twitter // Follow the Batflip on Facebook // Want to support without going through Substack? You could always send cash to stoeten@gmail.com on Paypal or via Interac e-Transfer. I assure you I won’t say no. ⚾