The Jays shut out the 27th best offence in baseball again, win 7-0!
On Manoah vs. lefties, Kirk's framing, Kirk's hitting, double plays, Chapman's surge, injury troubles, Gabriel Moreno, Trevor Rosenthal, Josh Donaldson, Joe Maddon, Adam Cimber, and more!
The Blue Jays shut out the Royals for a second day in row on Tuesday night, and continued the torrid offensive pace that has seen them average more than seven runs per game over their last 13 contests. Pretty good!
So let’s talk about it! Here’s Three Up…
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Up: Another shutout!
I noted on Twitter before this one that one of the ways Alek Manoah has been able to have success this year despite his odd lack of strikeouts has been his ability to avoid issuing free passes. You can see just how stark the difference between 2021 and 2022 has been for him in the (pre-game) chart below from Props.cash — player prop research made easy!
Well, Manoah broke the mold in one a little bit, as his strikeouts were again down — he managed just four of them, and generated just two swinging strikes all night — but also issued three walks. Partly this was due to the fact that the Royals actually did something quite smart: they stacked their lineup with left-handed hitters.
I don’t want to go too deep into territory that my cohost Nick said during last night’s Blue Jays Happy Hour (more on that below!) that he is going to explore in a piece later on this week, but Manoah has been low-key awful against lefties this season. And yes, I very much do mean awful, even though I fully recognize that it’s a word that seems jarring when used to describe anything to do with Manoah’s fabulous season so far.
Believe it or not, left-handed hitters this year have hit Manoah to the tune of .295/.355/.411. And while he has struck out 29.5% of the right-handers he's faced, that rate drops to just 15.6% against lefties. The Royals filled their lineup with lefties as best they could in this one, sending out five of them (including switch-hitters) to face the Jays’ young ace. As a group they went 4-for-12 with a pair of walks. KC's four right-handers managed just two hits and a single walk.
It wasn't as easy a night for Manoah as the score line suggests, in other words. Fortunately for the Jays — who were in a genuinely tight until Raimel Tapia’s huge two-out double in the seventh scored Santiago Espinal (seen above smiling at his teammates in the dugout as he rounds third before scoring a huge insurance run to make it 3-0) — they had ways in which they could help him out while they waited for the bats to wake up and/or the Royals to start pissing themselves.
One of those was Alejandro Kirk’s pitch framing. Though Kirk’s night was more notable for his offence — and we’ll get to that, I assure you! — with Manoah struggling to miss bats it was on the diminutive backstop to try to steal some strikes. Or, at the very least, to ensure any potential borderline calls went the right way.
Here we see a pair of called third strikes that Kirk didn’t exactly steal, but still did an excellent job of receiving and framing. The first came on a 2-2 pitch to Bobby Witt Jr. in the first inning with one out and a runner on first. The second was to MJ Melendez on a 3-2 pitch to end the fourth.
The Jays’ other fielders also pitched in with their gloves. Bradley Zimmer had a great night in centre, and made an especially spectacular catch on a Nicky Lopez liner in the bottom of the seventh (though with the Jays already up 5-0 by then). Matt Chapman was surehanded as ever. But even bigger were a couple of double plays turned by their infield stars.
With two on and one out in the bottom of the second, and the Royals threatening to claw back the lead the Jays had taken in the top half of the frame, Bo Bichette leaped as high as he possibly could to snag an Emmanuel Rivera liner before casually tossing to second to double off lead runner Carlos Santana and end the threat.
The, an inning later, with Whitt Merrifield on first, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. did a great job of fielding a grounder down the line from future Blue Jay Andrew Benintendi. He then seamlessly stepped on first, made a great almost under-handed throw to second hang up Merrifield between bases, before getting the ball back and applying a great tag to end the inning.
I know it’s a weird thing to say about a 7-0 win, but it could have been a very different outcome if any one of these innings — the first four of the game! — had gone sideways. And without those two frame jobs, and those two great defensive plays, they potentially could have.
Up: Runs!
I’ve already mentioned Tapia’s huge two-out double to score Espinal as an insurance run in the seventh, but obviously in order for that to have been an insurance run the Jays needed to have scored earlier in the game. They did so thanks to a guy who has been quietly coming on very strong of late.
Matt Chapman’s 99 wRC+ for the season is still below average, if only now by a hair. That makes his recent surge a little less noticeable, I suspect, than the ones from Alejandro Kirk (who had four hits in this one, and came to the plate in the ninth with a chance to go 5-for-5) or Bo Bichette (who, like Kirk, had a rugged April but has come on very strong of late, including picking up two singles and three walks in this one — the latter a feat it took him 282 big league games to accomplish once, but which he’s now done twice in a week). But at the start of the Jays’ mid-May homestand against the Mariners and Reds, Chapman’s wRC+ was way down at just 71. Since then he's slashed .292/.395/.446 (147 wRC+), while striking out in just 18.4% of his 76 plate appearances (down from the 27.4% rate he was at when the Mariners series began).
While it would be tempting to see the formerly snake-bitten Chapman's mid-May improvement as merely a result of the fact that the ball seems to have become a little bit juicier at almost the exact same time, his at-bats have become noticeably more competitive of late, and his earlier issue with whiffing at fastballs has improved dramatically.
The Jays are 15-4 since his turnaround, and in this one he opened the scoring with a one-out double that plated Kirk (of course) and Espinal (who had just doubled himself, and was 3-for-4 on the night in his own right). You love to see it.
As for additional runs, Tapia’s double in the seventh would give the Jays breathing room before the Royals lost the plot and started walking guys with the bases loaded. Or, uh, as I put it at the time…
Even Vlad and Teoscar would get in on the act in the ninth. After both having frustrating nights at the plate, Vlad followed a Bichette single with a walk, then Teoscar doubled them both home for the sixth and seventh Jays runs of the game.
Team effort!
Up?: More Alejandro Kirk, I guess?
Poor Danny Jansen. The only break he can seem to catch is a broken finger.
The Jays announced on Tuesday afternoon that the team’s oft-injured catcher will once again be heading to the injured list, as he suffered a fracture of the fifth metacarpal on his left hand after being hit by a pitch on Monday night. In short: he broke a bone at the base of his pinky finger. According to GM Ross Atkins, per reporters there in Kansas City such as Sportsnet's Arden Zwelling, the club hopes that it will be a short trip to the IL, as it's a "small, stable fracture. But he'll be out at least two weeks." Arden adds that Atkins suggests the team will have a better idea of his timeline in 10 days.
Jansen, of course, seems to really have discovered something in his swing, as he’s been one of the better hitters in baseball since last August, albeit in a tiny number of plate appearances. Since August 31st of last year — the day he came off the IL for the second time in 2021 (which was two IL stints ago now!) — Jansen’s 177 wRC+ is the sixth-best mark of anyone in baseball with at least 100 plate appearances. He’s sandwiched right between Aaron Judge and Mike Trout. Over that span he’s hit 13 home runs in 40 games, which would put him on pace for 49 in a 150 game season. Granted, a dirty little secret is that the home runs are, at this point of 2022, just about all he's offered — he's slashed a SLG-heavy .232/.290/.625 this season — but given the typical production catcher's provide, we'll all gladly take it!
Unfortunately, now he's facing yet another setback. And because of a stupid hit-by-pitch in the eighth inning of a game that, at the time, was a 7-0 rout! Ugh.
On one hand, I suppose that's better than it being a soft tissue injury or something that could end up recurring. It’s also (maybe?) good that, as Dan Shulman noted on Tuesday’s telecast, Jansen had previously broken a bone in that part of his hand, and has a metal plate there that he believes may have helped stabilize the injury and prevent it from being worse. On the other hand, it obviously still sucks to see his season yet again derailed!!
Ugh!!!
Zack Collins, and not top prospect Gabriel Moreno, was recalled from Triple-A Buffalo on Tuesday to take Jansen's place — a move that I didn't find surprising, though one I certainly saw some grousing about on Twitter. Frankly though, with the way Alejandro Kirk has been playing on both sides of the ball lately, he was really starting to eat into Jansen's playing time anyway. Kirk deserves some real run here, I think. And Moreno deserves to be somewhere where he's going to be playing as often as possible — at least until he really forces the issue here, which to date he has not.
It's easy to get wrapped up in the hype for a guy like Moreno, and in the glowing scouting reports about the kinds of things he ought to be able to do in the future. But the reality is that he’s not familiar with any of the big league pitchers he’d be asked to catch — and help succeed — regularly. The reality is that he’s got some defensive development still ahead of him. And the reality is that his .323 batting average (on a .389 BABIP) at Buffalo is covering quite a bit for an average-ish walk rate and a near total lack of power.
Moreno has just one home run in 35 games so far this year. Last year in New Hampshire he hit eight in 32 games, producing a .278 ISO on a .373/.441/.651 slash line. This year his ISO is at just .083, and he's slashing .323/.377/.406. That's fine for a 22-year-old in Triple-A — especially one with major defensive responsibilities on his plate — but they're not exactly the numbers of a guy who is breaking down the door just yet.
His .360/.417/.442 mark since the start of May is more like what you’d like to see, but still... I don't think this is service time manipulation, or Super Two manipulation, or egregious, or anything like that. There's just no need for him to forgo the still-valuable development he's getting in Buffalo to come up here to only play behind the plate a couple times a week. Nor is there a need to back Kirk off to accommodate him just yet. If the team's offence was currently going like it was back in early May — i.e. in desperate need of any kind of spark — that would maybe be a different story.
Anyway, it will all sort itself out eventually. Right now I think we ought to just enjoy the things Kirk is doing, and — most importantly — give our regards to Danny Bats, who I’m sure we all hope gets well as quickly as possible.
Other notes
• There is, of course, more injury news to talk about here, as the Jays provided an update on Hyun Jin Ryu on Tuesday that… uh… doesn’t sound… uh… well… judge for yourself.
I’m not honestly sure how to reconcile that public-facing optimism with the term “chronic changes” and the visit to famous Tommy John doctor, Dr. ElAttrache. Yet here we are.
ElAttrache obviously doesn’t only do the one thing, of course. But it’s an ominous name regardless.
Also ominous, as Jay Jaffe of FanGraphs pointed out in a piece from Tuesday that dropped before the update on Ryu, is the spectre of the Jays’ starting depth being tested at some point. Ross Stripling has filled in beyond admirably whenever the Jays have needed a sixth starter, but there isn’t a whole lot behind him for the Jays to call on, should it come to that.
Jaffe lays it out for us:
The closest thing they have to a ready starter who’s pitching well at Triple-A Buffalo is 34-year-old Casey Lawrence, who has nine starts, a 2.00 ERA, 3.60 FIP, and 22.4% strikeout rate in 54 innings. However, Lawrence has started just twice from among his 40 major league appearances dating back to 2017 and owns a career 6.48 ERA at the major league level. The Blue Jays’ top starting pitching prospect in the upper minors, 26-year-old righty Bowden Francis, has been lit up for an 8.82 ERA and 8.58 FIP in 33.2 innings at Buffalo and was recently sent to the bullpen, where he has continued to struggle. Thomas Hatch, a 27-year-old righty who made 20 appearances but just three starts for the Blue Jays in 2020–21, has a 5.76 ERA and 4.24 FIP in 45.1 innings at Buffalo. Max Castillo, a 23-year-old righty who was recently promoted from Double-A New Hampshire to Buffalo, has pitched to a 2.11 ERA and 3.56 FIP with a 28.8% strikeout rate. Two years ago, Eric Longenhagen described the 6-foot-2, 280-pound Venezuelan as “a bowling ball with an upright delivery and two above-average pitches in his heater and split [with] a relief-only mechanical and physical look.” He hasn’t been on a prospect list since.
Uh… get well soon, too, Hyun Jin!
• Sticking with FanGraphs, Dan Szymborski also wrote about the Blue Jays on Tuesday, calling the next two weeks a crucial period for the team. After the Royals series the Jays will face the Tigers in Detroit, then go home for dates with the Orioles and the red hot Yankees — who they then won’t see again until mid-August. Dan explains how the difference in the Jays’ odds of winning the AL East could swing massively depending on how those series go.
• I wrote about free agent reliever Trevor Rosenthal in my Three Up! piece after Monday's game, and on Tuesday he had his showcase in the Miami area — an event the Blue Jays sent a scout to (per MLB Network's Jon Morosi).
It, uh, didn’t seem to go especially well.
SI’s Pat Ragazzo spoke to a scout who was there who told him that Rosenthal "looked strong" but was "not in pitching shape." His fastball, which generally averages 98, was sitting 95-96. His slider, usually about 88, was down even more at 83-84.
On one hand, those are still velocities plenty of guys can be successful with, and maybe the "not in pitching shape" thing will be of value to teams that would prefer to help him continue to build up in their preferred way. On the other, he certainly doesn't sound as though he's ready to step in and help a bullpen just yet — especially since Ragazzo's source also notes that Rosenthal seemed to cut his session a few pitches short after landing awkwardly on what would end up his final delivery. (He then declined to speak to anyone afterwards.)
Might have to dream elsewhere, Jays fans!
• Aaron Gleeman of the Athletic had one on Tuesday that should make Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro smile. Josh Donaldson and the Yankees are visiting the Minnesota Twins at Target Field this week, and with that as the backdrop Gleeman revisits Donaldson’s exit from Minnesota this winter, and hilariously takes issue with Donaldson's claim that every organization he's been a part of, save for Oakland, has wanted him to stay.
Gleeman explains that after the Twins had beat out the Yankees in acquiring shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa from the Texas Rangers this off-season, New York came calling to see if they might be interested in flipping him. Minnesota "saw it as their chance to further remake the core of the team and unload the $50 million left on Josh Donaldson’s contract,” Gleeman wrotes. “They liked Kiner-Falefa a lot, but the Twins also saw the Yankees’ sudden willingness to unburden them of Donaldson as an opportunity they couldn’t pass up."
He later adds: “They wanted to be out of the Donaldson business, and that alone was enough for the Twins to celebrate the trade as a win.”
Shapiro took a lot of heat from his own fan base, understandably, for never seeming to have all that much interest in re-signing the 2015 MVP and making him the highest-paid, loudest-voiced player in the Blue Jays clubhouse. I suspect a lot more people probably get it now.
• Famously annoying manager Joe Maddon was fired by the Angels on Tuesday, and according to a piece by Buster Olney of ESPN it was a long time coming. Part of the reason for that is the fact that Maddon was extended a few months before former GM Billy Eppler was pushed out and current GM Perry Minasian was brought in. “In the parlance of baseball,” Olney writes, “Maddon was not Minasian's guy.”
You know… I can think of a guy Minasian has worked with before. Hmmm.
• SI’s Mitch Bannon has a nice piece in which he talks to Jays reliever Adam Cimber and former Jay Joe Smith about the “sidearm sect and submarine brotherhood” both men are now a part of. Interestingly, the Jays recently added another sidearmer to their stable, in this case in Buffalo. Eric Yardley signed a minor league deal with the club in mid-May, and has already pitched four shutout innings for the Bisons, allowing just two hits and no walks while striking out three — and, crucially for him, generating a ground ball rate of 63.6%. I'm not sure any team really needs more than one submariner in its bullpen, but Yardley’s is certainly a name to watch. Over 53 2/3 big league innings with the Padres and Brewers, Yardley has produced a 3.52 ERA (though with the kinds of ugly peripherals you'd expect from such an atypical hurler).
• Lastly, as mentioned above, Nick and I had a blast on another live edition of Blue Jays Happy Hour following the game. Have a listen on Callin, or your podcast app of choice, and be sure to download the app, follow the show, and listen in — or give us a call! — when we do it again on Thursday at 11:30 AM ET with our special guest The Zubes!!
Next up: Wednesday, 2:10 PM ET: Jays @ Royals (Yusei Kikuchi vs. Brady Singer), TV: YouTube and Sportsnet, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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