Submit your questions for this week's mail bag!
PLUS: Thoughts on Nate Pearson's promotion, and my segment talkin' Jays with Homestand Sports!
It's been a while since we've seen a Griffbag come down the ol' content pipe, and even longer since I've done a mail bag of my own! And with the Jays' season now in full swing ā and closing in on being a month old ā I think it's just about time to take another dip.
As always, I'll need help with that, so leave me your best questions in the comments on this post!
Of course, also as always, comments are only open to paid subscribers ā and Iād love for you to choose that option if youāre not already doing so, as this is the only way I make a living, and your support keeps all my work free to read for everyone else.
Hey, and while I have you here: NATE!
The Blue Jays made an announcement on Monday afternoon, revealing that they've sent reliever Adam Cimber to the 15-day injured list and recalled former top prospect Nate Pearson to help out the bullpen.
Surprisingly, Cimber's issue has not been diagnosed as side-arm shittiness. He's actually dealing with a strained rhomboid ā a rhombus-shaped muscle between the upper back and the shoulder. Or so they say. While it's not an especially common injury, as far as my memory suggests at least, it's not an unheard of one for a big league pitcher. Max Scherzer went on the shelf with rhomboid strain in late July 2019, missed less than a month, then returned to mostly pitch his ass off as the Washington Nationals marched to an improbable World Series title.
I'm not sure the same path is quite going to be in Cimber's future, but it at least sounds like it might not be a terribly serious issue.
Of course, the bigger story here is obviously Nate.
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here
Yeah, baby! Are you ready for another ride on the Pearson express?
Travis Bouchard (@CalamusandSinew) sure is ā he's the one who tweeted the following meme at me with the caption, āBoth me and Nate Pearson right now.ā LOL
(Note: Since one of either Twitter or Substack no longer allows tweets to be embedded on this site, I decided to download the image myself and badly Photoshop a Blue Jays hat on Steve Carrell.)
I hesitate to make too much of an injury replacement reliever getting a chance in the big leagues for a month, but it's not every day that such players are also former first-round draft picks who became consensus top 10 prospects in baseball only to struggle so badly to stay healthy that, at less than 120 days from their 27th birthdays, they'd only managed to throw 33 innings in the big leagues. It's been a trip!
A lot of guys with that kind of back story might have long ago lost the intrigue factor, but to Pearson's credit that's certainly not the case with him. It hasn't been arm injuries that have derailed his career to this point, so he still has just about as big a fastball as ever. And this season he's been using it to dominate minor league hitters the way he did in that brief flash as a big league reliever at the end of the Jays' doomed 2021 season.
In 8 1/3 innings over eight appearances for the Buffalo Bisons so far, Pearson has allowed just two runs on five hits and five walks, while racking up 16 strikeouts. Of the 35 batters who've come to the plate against him so far, 46% have struck out.
And, as Sportsnet's Blake Murphy pointed out on Monday, he's been even better if you discard his shaky early outings this season.
He tweets:
Nate Pearson's last 5 appearances: 5.2IP, 11K, 2BB, 2H, 0ER
Fastball 95.5-99.8, 11 swing&miss, 63.5% strikes, 7 balls in play avg exit velo 86.9
Slider hasn't been squared up for a hard-hit ball, 6 swing&miss on 23 pitches
Thatās pretty good! And while obviously thereās a big step up going from Triple-A to the majors ā something Nate has seemed to struggle with before (even if his setbacks the last two years have been mostly to do with, you know, a sports hernia and mononucleosis) ā the fact that heās this locked in makes this the best chance this incredibly talented pitcher has had to really get some runway as a big leaguer since that awful 2 1/3-inning debut he had in Houston nearly two full years ago.
Add in that Anthony Bass has been pitching about as well as heās been deciding whatās a good thing to tweet lately ā which is to say: extremely poorly ā and that neither Yimi Garcia nor Trevor Richards inspires a ton of confidence at the moment, and this could be a huge moment not just for Nate, but for the future of the Jaysā bullpen and their season.
Clearly Iām ready. Do your worst, Toronto Blue Jays baseball!
Just one more thing! (My dumb face)
While I still have you here, be sure to check out my appearance with James Sharman and crew on Mondayās edition of Homestand Sportsā the Homestand Show.
Topics include: the Jaysā rotation, current objects of anxiety, Matt Chapman, Pearsonās call-up, Cavan Biggio, my Ajax shirt, and more!
Apologies for the face!
ā¾ 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 wonāt say no. ā¾
After the last few series most things seem ... pretty good to me. I could squint and look for areas of improvement (they are there) but instead I think I will just enjoy this next stretch of very winnable games until the Barves/Yankees in mid-May. Winning is fun and the prospect of future winning is also fun? Does this seem like a good approach to you or is there anything that has you genuinely concerned right now?
Thereās a sort of implicit assumption in general that weāre going to make the playoffs. But should we be worried about the Orioles? Or teams in the AL West that get to play the Aās more frequently? Or is this a way too early questionā¦