More fun in Atlanta, Stripling soars, the NL sucks, Manoah & Pearson, Rogers & Trump, Borucki, and more!
More fun in Atlanta, Stripling soars, the NL sucks, Manoah & Pearson, Rogers & Trump, Borucki, and more!
The Jays keep finding ways to win, and they haven’t even called up Alek Manoah yet! So let’s talk about it.
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I posted about Tuesday’s win so close to the start of Wednesday’s game that maybe you missed it, or didn’t bother to read it. Fair enough! But what it means is that, now that Thursday’s contest is in the books, I’ve got two more Blue Jays victories to reflect on, and I’m going to do that by combining a bunch of stuff from each into a tidy game of three up, three down…
▲ Comebacks, baby!
The Jays were down 1-0 heading into the sixth inning on Wednesday before the Teoscar show took over for the Ryu show (more on that below). They were down 2-0 after one inning on Thursday afternoon, then down 4-3 after six, before coming back to take the lead and utterly demoralizing the Braves with a four run ninth inning.
Danny Jansen singled to start that frame, raising his wRC+ on the season to, uh, 15. Marcus Semien singled for the second time on the day, having earlier extended his hitting streak to 12 games (he has hits in 18 of his last 19, in fact). Bo Bichette doubled to the wall to pick up his second hit and his second and third RBIs of the day. After Vladimir Guerrero Jr. roasted a ball to shortstop that went for an out, Wednesday's two-homer hero Teoscar Hernández blooped one into right field for his second hit as well, then Cavan Biggio smacked a double to right — his second of a two-walk, two-double day that brought his wRC+ for the season up from a lackluster 81 to a nearly respectable 94.
It was easy to count the Jays out at times this week. Turns out it was also foolish.
I stand by this:
▲ Starting pitching
I’m not going to lie, during the early going of Thursday’s game, I definitely didn’t expect to group Ross Stripling’s performance in with Hyun Jin Ryu’s gem of an outing on Wednesday as one of the highlights of these last two games. Stripling gave up a home run on his first pitch, then continued for several batters looking every bit the guy who entered the day sitting on a 6.61 ERA. But credit to the former Dodger, as he wriggled his way out of what could have been a disastrous start and then went on to be… sort of awesome?
Stripling's final line of five innings pitched, nine strikeouts, one walk, and just four hits allowed is somehow even more unbelievable considering all four of those hits came before he recorded his second out of the day. He went from looking like he wasn’t going to make it out of the first inning to putting in one of the Jays' best starts of the season so far. Remarkable! Also: shocking!
“I've never been a strikeout guy, necessarily, so it's not like I expect to go out there and strike out nine in my next outing, but to miss bats like that compared to how the season's gone so far, that's certainly encouraging,” he said after the game.
He pointed to the fact that he had stopped pitching exclusively from the stretch as one of the likely reasons for his success.
Probably harder to time up out of the windup, versus just the monotony of coming out of the stretch every time. And then even when it matters, when guys are on base and I'm out of the stretch, they've already seen that timing. So, a little changeup there from what I've done in outings prior, and really just executing. I probably got more swings and misses on curveballs in this outing than I have the whole season, and was able to kind of mix in everything. Fastball up in the zone was good. These guys are a better matchup for me that way than the Astros were last week. The Astros are good up-ball hitters, these guys not as much, so I was able to kind of live in the top of the zone with the fastball. Curveball off of that. That sequence for me usually means things are going to go well.
He later added that he didn’t notice anything on video that suggested he was tipping his pitches last weekend in Houston, but he did feel like moving to the windup helped.
“When I'm out of the stretch you can really just focus on my glove,” he said, “and that's where I've had issues tipping in the past. Out of the wind-up that glove's going to move with me, right? And be kind of more fluid. Harder to tip. And then just timing — it's much harder to time as a hitter.”
Encouraging stuff.
And Ryu on Wednesday? Well, he was just his usual, joy-to-watch self. One run on five hits and one walk over seven innings with six strikeouts.
To be fair, it wasn’t only the starters that got the Jays through this series. The bullpen was mostly great in both games, too. But Ryu and Stripling shoved, kept the team in both games, and set the stage for a couple of awesome comeback wins.
▲ 20-16
It may not exactly be the flashiest record in the world, but the fact that the Jays sit today at 20-16 — on pace for 90 wins with the best still yet to come — is pretty remarkable.
They’ve been playing home games out of a spring training facility, and played there just 11 times in 36 games. The were scheduled to play 16 games in 16 days early on. They’ve faced a particularly difficult schedule. They’ve had their best player for all of three games, their MLB-ready top prospect starter for one, their closer for zero. Yet at the time of this writing they are the fourth best team in MLB by run differential.
They’re also fun.
Fun for Jays fans, that is.
They’ve been relentless at the plate, they’ve tightened up the defence, they’ve been hitting up and down the lineup and passing the baton, they’ve been getting what they need from their starters, and the bullpen the front office has put together, despite all the injuries, has somehow been absolutely legit. LFG indeed.
▼ The National League
In the second inning on Tuesday, with the Jays down a run, Reese McGuire was hit by a pitch to load the bases with one out for pitcher Ross Stripling. Unfortunately, despite his many years in the National League, it turns out Stripling absolutely cannot hit to save his life.
Over 97 big league plate appearances Stripling has eight singles and four walks. His career slash line is .093/.133/.093. And in this at-bat, he got two absolute meatballs straight away, yet didn't even manage to take the bat off his shoulder.
I get that people like to romanticize certain traditions and all, but letting pitchers hit is a particularly bad one. Players are so incredibly specialized that 99% of pitchers are at a ludicrously unfair disadvantage every time they step to the plate, and they have too much else to focus on in their careers to spend time getting any better at it. Hell, even position players can barely hit MLB-calibre pitching these days.
Yes, there are massively gifted pitchers, like Shohei Ohtani, who you would never want to take the bat away from. But there’s nothing stopping teams from using a guy like that as their DH — which is exactly what the Angels do!
Why don’t more teams use their pitchers in this way? Because they suck at hitting!
Elite level sports are supposed to be about the best in the world competing with each other, and I must be honest and tell you that regular pauses to mock that concept don’t do a whole lot for me. I’d think the same if, say, every third power play in Western Conference NHL games was replaced by a penalty shot taken by the opposing goaltender in full gear with his own stick.
Would that be a whole lot of fun on the rare occasion when someone actually managed to score? Yes. Would it be a total joke? Also yes.
Would people find ways to argue that it’s actually good if that had been the way things were always done? I have absolutely no doubt.
▼ Being finished playing Atlanta for the year
Come back, Barves! Come back! We need your sweet ineptitude!
▼ Acuña’s scary moment
While it may have been good for the Jays, it wasn’t easy watching Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. have to leave Thursday’s game in the seventh inning after landing awkwardly while crossing first base and immediately clutching his ankle. Fortunately, the Braves announced after the game that X-rays were negative, and that Acuña Jr. is listed as day-to-day. Acuña Jr. is and incredible player, as we saw all series long, and the game needs stars like him. So hopefully Atlanta was being truthful about his condition. *COUGH*
Bor-uh-oh-ki
After Thursday’s game, Jays manager Charlie Montoyo made his umpteenth injury announcement of the season. To wit:
Cut at least a dozen people making the same unfunny joke in Keegan’s replies!
But also cue actual concern. Borucki has been a revelation for the Jays this season, as he’s only improved on the strides he made last year when he first joined the bullpen. He’s been an important part of the success they’ve had.
He’s also not pitched since May 7. So, this “just needed a day” business strains credulity, to say the least.
Adding to that is the fact that Borucki was notable by his absence at the end of Wednesday night’s game. With a 4-1 lead in the bottom of the ninth and A.J. Cole in to try to finish the game off, the Blue Jays got lefty Travis Bergen up just in case. Here’s how Dan Shulman described the scene on Sportsnet’s broadcast:
Meanwhile, in the bullpen the 'just in case' guy right now is Travis Bergen. This is interesting, because remember last night, if the Blue Jays needed some help in the ninth inning — if Romano couldn't get through it — Ryan Borucki was up. Didn't come into the game, but he was throwing. But Borucki's not up tonight. Don't know if that means there's anything going on with him, but Bergen is up in the bullpen right now.
Hmm. Seems like Borucki needed a day yesterday, too.
What is amazing here is that the Jays have the choice to not let this nonsense become such a big part of the conversation around the team. They could simply not lie to the fans about injuries. Alternatively, they could do a better job of lying to the fans about injuries. Both of those options seem reasonable enough to me. Blatantly bullshitting fans to their faces, however, does not. Quit it already, ya weirdos.
Rogers and Trump, together at last?
News of the Rogers family’s recent trip to Mar-A-Lago has evidently reached the New York gossip pages, as Page Six quotes a “Canadian insider” on the backlash Suzanne Rogers has faced after posting a photo of her and the family (including Blue Jays chairman Edward Rogers) posing with Donald Trump. (Said backlash allegedly includes her being disinvited from the Canadian Arts & Fashion Awards despite being a major donor, and members of the Awards’ board resigning in protest. Scandalous! But also... yeah, legitimately scandalous.)
I think I've already said all I need to about what a giant piece of shit one needs to be to pose with, or have anything good to say about, or believe the election fraud lies of ol’ Diaper Donald Trump. But we must proceed here anyway, as there's a Blue Jays angle to all this. Sort of.
To wit:
A source said of the Palm Beach, Fla., visit: “They were there as his guests. She’s getting the bulk of the criticism because she’s more public than her husband, but the entire family was there. They are in television, media, sports, fashion, all of it — and it’s a courtship. Trump is developing his multiplatform network. It was not coincidental that they were there. Every Canadian in Palm Beach is talking about it.”
Well, gross.
A Rogers family spokesperson denied all this to Page Six, insisting that group had never met Trump, only did so as they were walking out, and were simply there for a family dinner. Yeah, sure, and Ryan Borucki has only been feeling fatigue for one day.
Links
• Great stuff from Laura Armstrong of the Toronto Star, as she talks to Toronto FC captain Michael Bradley about meeting with Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. last January “to talk leadership, Toronto and winning.” And how the three Jays youngsters remind him of himself, Jozy Altidore, and Sebastian Giovinco — the trio that led TFC to MLS glory in 2017.
• Elsewhere at the Star, Gregor Chisholm looks back at the Jays’ off-season and gives the club praise for the way they didn’t found a way to get better despite many unappealing options to help in their greatest area of need, the rotation. As much as I know some Jays fans are hurt every time Taijuan Walker has another great start for the Mets, I don’t think Marcus Semien is here if he is. That alone is reason to be fine with how the Jays played the winter, I think, but Gregor’s piece shows that there were a whole lot of potential landmines the front office avoided as well. (Besides, where does Walker fit in the eventual Ryu-Ray-Matz-Pearson-Manoah rotation anyway???)
• Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail looks at this week’s decision by Ontario’s Local Planning Appeal Tribunal that has seemingly put an end to the city of Toronto’s plan for Rail Deck Park in favour of a private mix-use development at the site that will bring “six residential towers containing roughly 3,000 units and one office tower, along with a long retail building” as well as some parkland. This relates to the Blue Jays, of course, because the Rogers Centre is adjacent to the rail lands in question, which stretch from Bathurst Street east to Peter. Before the pandemic hit, word was that Rogers and the Jays were exploring a real estate development of their own in the area — including, potentially, a new stadium — which may have been folded into the city’s Rail Deck Park project. That’s all on pause now anyway, but one wonders if this likely shift to private development nearby changes anything. Regardless, it’s an area of the city that Jays fans should be keeping their eyes on.
• Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports on the latest in the ongoing tension between MLB and the players union. “The MLB Players Association has officially filed a grievance stating that MLB did not act in good faith last year to play as many games as possible,” he writes, “and MLB has filed a counter-grievance, multiple sources told The Post. The players are seeking an estimated $500 million in damages, according to two sources.” Sigh.
• Tyson Shushkewich of Jays Journal takes a look at an interesting arm that the Blue Jays have in Buffalo’s rotation who few people are really talking about: Nick Allgeyer.
• Over at Fangraphs, Jake Malihot goes deep on the pitcher who right now has MLB’s biggest positive year-over-year change to his percentage of pitches thrown in the strike zone: Robbie Ray.
Manoah is the new Pearson
“I think he's pretty close, I really do.”
That was Buffalo pitching coach Jeff Ware, speaking about Alek Manoah’s big league readiness on Sportsnet’s Writers Bloc on Wednesday afternoon, just a few hours before Manoah once again showed why his stint in Triple-A is not going to be a long one.
“A couple things that we like to look at,” Ware continued. “Do you throw your fastball for strikes? He checks that box. And is his slider a swing-and-miss type pitch? And he checks that box. He's got changeup that he can throw for strikes when he wants. So he's got three pitches he can throw over the plate at any count. So, when you can do that, plus you add the velocity in there and the swing-and-miss he's getting on his pitches, I mean, now it's just a matter of fine tuning a few thing here, getting him used to facing big league hitters. We're in Triple-A here, but we're still facing some veteran-type hitters here. Getting him used to that.”
I know there are some Jays fans out there who seem a bit scarred by Nate Pearson’s transition to the big league’s not going as smoothly as it could have and would like to see Manoah held back a while longer, but I sure hope the Blue Jays aren’t of the same mind. And I don’t imagine that they are. Having a major league talent going repeatedly unchallenged in the minors while your big league team is desperate for precisely that kind of a player doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and while you don’t want to completely overwhelm a player, you don’t want to want to be afraid of failure either.
The Jays have shown in the past that they’re not afraid to bring a youngster up when the performance says he’s ready. Frankly, if Pearson had thrown on Sunday the way that he did in his previous start for Buffalo, which easily could have happened, he’d be getting ready for another big league start on the weekend. And something else that Ware said makes the point that Pearson’s seeming lack of readiness isn’t as much about where he’s at as a potential big leaguer, but where he’s at in terms of the 2021 season specifically: “This is still kind of a spring training for him.”
Pearson threw just one inning in his spring debut back on March 1. It was announced on March 4 that he had been diagnosed with a Grade 1 groin strain. He threw a bullpen session on March 13 and then three days later the club announced that he had re-aggravated the injury. He was supposed to throw a bullpen on April 3, but that didn't happen. He threw his first bullpen since early March on April 8. He got up to 51 pitches in a alt-site game on April 24.
For context, Hyun Jin Ryu was up to 51 on March 15th — 17 days before opening day. Pearson's debut came 15 days after his April 24th outing. So, he was close to being on the same sort of timeframe as the Jays’ other starters, but also recovering from injury and dealing with those pesky tweaks. Given all that, I don’t think it’s especially alarming that he didn’t have it on Sunday. And now, as Ware puts it, the message to him is that “we’re going to get back to work here, get you comfortable, get you going, get you in a groove.”
I’m not saying Manoah needs to be making his next start in the majors — though I may have been had Stripling not turned his day around here on Thursday — but none of that stuff that’s waylaid Pearson has affected him. Manoah has been building up without interruption since the start of March. He threw 44 pitches in that seven strikeout Grapefruit League outing against the Yankees back on March 14. He, presumably, pitched about as well at the alt-site through April as he did in that game, and as he has in his first two starts in Triple-A.
Oh yeah, and on Wednesday night, in his second Triple-A start, Manoah allowed just one hit over six innings, walking two, hitting a batter, and striking out five. Of the 76 pitches he threw, 49 went for strikes. And he may have even come out for more had his Bisons/Thunder teammates not forced him to sit so long in the bottom of the sixth, as they scored six run and sent ten batters to the plate.
I think it’s safe to say he’s in a groove. He's confident, too.
“I would’ve felt better if it was no hits, but I felt pretty good out there," Manoah told reporters after the game, such as Greg Johnson of the Trentonian. "I felt like I was able to get ahead in counts, was able to get some guys out early in the counts and just keep that pitch count low to go deep in the game.”
My Blue Jays Happy Hour cohost, Nick Ashbourne, wrote about the outing for Yahoo Sports, drawing our attention, among other things, to a couple situations where Manoah’s ability to pitch was as impressive as his ability to overpower.
“It may seem overzealous to think of Manoah as a near-term option for the Blue Jays considering the 29 innings he’s thrown in his minor-league career,” Nick wrote, “but that number doesn’t tell the whole story. The former 11th overall pick is a 23-year-old who probably would’ve worked his way through High-A and Double-A in 2020 if minor-league ball was being played. His development last year took place out of view at the Blue Jays alternate site — and a gym Manoah and his brothers set up in a Miami warehouse. Under different circumstances, he’d have a relatively extensive — and likely impressive — minor-league track record.”
Ross Atkins himself made an appearance in Trenton to check this one out, and you can hardly blame the GM for wanting to see for himself whether Manoah really does look as though he can help the Blue Jays right now. I doubt I have to tell you what my answer to that question would be.
GIF via MLB.com/Sportsnet
Top image via the Toronto Blue Jays/@BlueJays
So the question is: why are they so disingenuous when it comes to injuries? Why can't they just be straight up? Borucki will hit the IL for sure.