Vlad returns triumphantly to Sahlen Field, Semien is the AL PotM, Shapiro speaks!, and more
Welcome to all of the fans who very suddenly this week found themselves with a rekindled passion for the Blue Jays. Let’s talk about Jays-Marlins!
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The Jays had a pretty good weekend until the ugly last inning on Sunday, and the good times kept on rolling on Tuesday — until they once again almost didn’t. Time for some three up, three down…
▲ Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
I’m not going to lie, it feels pretty good to be writing young Vladdy’s name with a big up arrow next to it once again. Just as I’m sure it feels a whole lot better this year for my old friend Drew to be following the ups and downs of Vladito’s career at his Vlad Religion blog than it did over the previous two seasons.
On Monday, Drew expanded on his previous post by looking at the trouble pitchers face when approaching Guerrero with their first pitch.
He told us that, heading into Tuesday's game, Vlad this season had produced a 1.372 OPS when taking a ball on the first pitch, and just a .773 OPS after a first pitch strike. That would seem to make it imperative for opposing pitchers to throw him a first pitch strike, were it not for one thing: Vlad has a 1.244 OPS when putting the first pitch in play.
"It’s quite the balancing act for pitchers to manage," Drew writes. "Too much plate and Vlad Jr will mash it! Miss your spot off the plate, he watches it go by and now you’re in big trouble."
Evidently Marlins pitchers felt this must be some kind of anomaly, because they came at Vlad with strikes.
• Sandy Alcantara's first pitch to Vlad in the first inning was a 97 mph sinker in the middle of the plate that was ripped for a double.
• Alcantara's second pitch to Vlad, which came in the third inning with Marcus Semien and Bo Bichette already on base, was a pretty good slider — belt high, but right on the inner black. Vlad did this to it anyway.
• In the fifth, Alcantara managed to get ahead of Vlad, running a sinker way in on him that Vlad could only fight off for a foul. The next pitch, another sinker with arm-side run, was a pretty good one too, coming in on the inner black, but Vlad smacked it the other way for a single.
• In the seventh, reliever John Curtiss did a better job of setting himself up for success. He got Vlad to chase an outside slider with his first pitch, then threw a good one that just barely missed low and outside. He went to the slider again for pitch three though, and caught too much of the plate. Vlad smacked yet another single into left field.
You simply cannot get the 22-year-old out right now.
Ho hum.
▲ Robbie Ray
The new and improved Robbie Ray continued to quietly get the job done spectacularly well on Tuesday night for the Jays. The two walks he issued were a little more in keeping with the old version of Ray, but this was no Chatwood-like reversion to form. Ray allowed just six hits in addition to those two free passes, and just one run over six innings of work. He struck out nine.
Ray didn't allow a home run in the outing, dropping his HR/9 rate to 2.17 — the second highest among qualified starters. That's the only real blemish on his season so far, and the Blue Jays seem happy to take it because those home runs do so much less damage when Ray isn't walking guys the way he used to. Previously, the best version of Ray, command wise, was the one the league saw from his 2014 debut with the Tigers through 2017 in Arizona, when he walked 3.69 batters per nine innings. From 2018 through 2020 that number jumped up to 5.12 per nine. This year it's at a tidy 2.33 — and he's done it without any slip in his ability to generate swing-and-miss.
Lack of stability in the Jays’ rotation seemed to cause myriad cascading problems for the team as recently as, like, a week ago. Now, with Ray continuing to look like his best self, Steven Matz seemingly having turned a corner, Ross Stripling having success after some mechanical adjustments, and Alek Manoah set to go here on Wednesday, the spots behind ace Hyun Jin Ryu are looking in better shape than they’ve been all year.
▲ Buffalo
The Jays made the best of their time playing in Dunedin this year, but the novelty of the whole thing seemed to wear off pretty quickly. Marcus Semien bristled about it last month, saying that while he enjoyed being in the area, he’d preferred playing on the road. And in a session with reporters prior to Tuesday game, Jays president Mark Shapiro pulled no punches when talking about the mood of the club regarding their arrival in Buffalo.
“They appreciative,” he said. “And I think they're excited for two things: one is the facility, and the second is the chance to finally feel some home crowd. Because we have not felt that. We were the visiting team every night in Dunedin, to the point that our players were heckled, you know, often. So it will be nice to have more fans, and it will be nice to have those fans, at least hopefully most of the time, cheering for the Blue Jays.”
I assume that “hopefully most of the time” is an acknowledgement that there may be a lot of Yankees fans in the building when New York comes to visit. If that’s the case, I think Jays players will take it. Because if Tuesday was any indication, I think this thing is going to work out OK.
You love to see it. (I’ll have a whole lot more from Shapiro below, BTW.)
▼ Having to watch Lourdes Gurriel Jr. commit murder
That poor baseball that Gurriel hit in the eighth. That poor, poor baseball.
Granted, Gurriel’s homer wasn’t hit as hard as the one Vlad Jr. hit (106 mph versus 110), nor did it travel as far (400 feet versus 412), but Gurriel, of course, is but a mere mortal. And that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a wholly impressive bomb in its own right.
Also: those lights!
Don’t look now, but Gurriel is up to an 81 wRC+ on the season. Not a great number, but a clear improvement after a Jansen-esque start to the season for him. Over his last 15 games, which covers 60 plate appearances going back to May 14, Gurriel has produced a 190 wRC+. He's still not walking at all, which is a bit of a concern, but signs of life are definitely there.
▼ That shaky ninth inning
Charlie Montoyo used Jordan Romano in a non-save situation to close out the ballgame on Tuesday night, presumably with the club's recent bullpen wobbles in mind. It nearly backfired.
Walk. Pop out. Single. Flyout. Walk. Strikeout.
It doesn't sound quite so hairy when you put it that way, but those who watched will know that it absolutely was. The game-ending strikeout to José Devers came on a 3-2 pitch in an at-bat that Romano had at one point been up 0-2 in. A foul and three straight balls brought up a bit of the "here we go again" feeling, with bullpen disasters on Sunday, and four times the previous weekend, still pretty fresh in Jays fans' heads. The task was ultimately accomplished by Romano, but the bullpen — once the rock propping up an unstable rotation — still isn't quite where it needs to be.
Fortunately the Jays did get a nice bounce back inning from Tim Mayza in this one, and an excellent one from Rafael Dolis, so it's not all bad. On the other hand, it turns out that real help is not quite yet on the way...
▼ The injury report
Before Tuesday’s game, manager Charlie Montoyo met with the media and gave some updates on the Jays’ walking wounded. Apart from the news on George Springer — who is making progress as he returns from a quad injury, taking fly balls and running the bases, but will still likely need to go on a rehab assignment before being activated — it wasn’t great!
• Thomas Hatch made a rehab start for Buffalo nearly two weeks ago (May 20), lasting just three innings and throwing only 43 pitches. That was likely by design, as he was still in the ramping up phase of his progression. What’s happened since, however, is not. Hatch was given extra days off before his next scheduled start because of some cramping after that first outing, which has evidently continued to be an issue. He hasn't pitched since, and according to Montoyo it's not clear when he'll be able to get back on the mound.
• Ryan Borucki, who we were told a week ago was merely fatigued, and who we were then told would likely only need a short stint in the injured list, is apparently not close to returning.
• Julian Merryweather, who I don’t think anybody should have thought was especially close to returning, seeing as we’ve barely heard anything about him over the last several weeks, is, uh, not especially close to returning either.
• Cavan Biggio is still day to day.
• One bit of good news on the bullpen front from Tuesday, though, is that the oft-injured Patrick Murphy has been moved up to Buffalo to continue his rehab assignment. Murphy has been on the 60-day IL since the start of the season, so he is eligible to return whenever he’s ready. The Jays will have to remove someone from their 40-man in order to make that move, though. (Jeremy Beasley would be my guess at this point.)
Links!
• Marcus Semien posted a pedestrian wRC+ of 84 in April. A month later and his wRC+ sits at an outstanding 159 thanks to a blazing hot May that saw him slash a ridiculous .360/.429/.702 (209 wRC+). His 2.3 fWAR in May led all major league position players for the month. This is, therefore, unsurprising:
• As mentioned above, Vlad Jr. has also been very good. Also mentioned above: my friend Drew writes a Vlad-centric blog called Vlad Religion. Not mentioned above? He’s got a new one up on our large adult son’s incredible seven-pitch night.
• Veeeeeeeeeery interesting stuff from Bob Nightengale of USA Today (no, really), as he writes that Theo Epstein, who now works for MLB, is about to come down on pitchers using illegal substances in a big way. He writes:
“Major League Baseball plans to seriously crack down on the rash of pitchers using illegal substances in the next two weeks, with umpires ordered to be vigilant in stopping pitchers from using foreign substances to dramatically improve their spin rate – even if it means embarrassing some of the biggest pitching stars in the game.
There are some other changes he says are on the way as well, but that’s the most imminent — and the juiciest. Trevor Bauer, come on down… to the commissioner’s office.
• Scotty Mac: The best.
• Speaking of videos you can watch, I had a lot of fun speaking to the guys at the Walkoff podcast this week. (Though I bristled at their characterization of me as an “insider.”) Check it out!
• And in our last link today, even though it’s from back on Friday, I would be remiss if I didn’t make mention of the newest sexual misconduct allegations leveled against Roberto Alomar. Not a fun topic, obviously, but an important one. And one that clearly should have been dealt with, in the specific case of Alomar and the Blue Jays, long, long ago. Sadly, I don’t think this will be the last we hear of this kind of stuff.
Shapiro speaks!
Jays president and CEO Mark Shapiro had a lengthy Zoom session with reporters prior to Tuesday’s “home” opener at Sahlen Field in Buffalo. Most of it, naturally, focussed on the Jays’ temporary new digs and what may or may not happen next, though there was also a little bit of on-field stuff worthy of our attention, too. Some highlights!
• On getting back to Toronto
I’m going to start with the very last things Shapiro said, because I think they summed up his position quite well. Asked about facing some of the challenges inherent in moving operations in-season for a second time, Shapiro was blunt. “We'd gladly endure hardship and burden to get home,” he said.
Prior to that he seemed to get a little frustrated, or at least as close to frustrated as Mark Shapiro allows himself to get, at having been asked a slew of questions about when and how the team might return home. Questions that, at this point, he doesn’t — and really can’t — have good answers for.
Specifically, in this case, he was asked if there is date at which it’s no longer worth it to pursue a return to Toronto in 2021.
I'm going to put an end to these questions after this one because it's so tough, they're just all hypotheticals at this point. I can't answer that. I can't answer what the date is that it no longer is worth it anymore when that could be for the playoffs, man. I think, again, it's not going to be Mark Shapiro sitting alone making that decision, we'll sit down with the leadership in our locker room, with the players, our coaching staff, our ownership, Ross and Charlie, and we'll collectively — when there is a decision to make — we'll make that decision. The logistics and operational realities around a move are probably that it will take three to four weeks to actually physically move. It's not a question of just pushing a button and the entire operation just ups and moves into Rogers Centre and starts playing there. So, all I'm suggesting is, there is some lead time prior to that, to work towards that happening, but if something were to miraculously occur, some decisions were made, the border restrictions completely went away, we wouldn't need eight weeks from that, we'd just need three to four weeks from that to get back. So, simplify it for yourself, just focus on the border, recognize that anything around that is going to be a challenge — not impossible, but a challenge. But the only clarity exists around the border being open.
The biggest challenge involving the border is the same challenge that’s existed since the start of the pandemic: the 14 day quarantine law for all travellers entering Canada.
It’s certainly possible that we’re not too far off from the quarantine rules being lifted for fully vaccinated people, but that wouldn’t solve the issue, as there are members of other teams’ travelling parties, and presumably some members of the Blue Jays themselves, who have not taken the vaccine.
When asked about going to the government with a scenario similar to those proposed a year ago, involving strict and enhanced protocols on players and staff, Shapiro wasn’t so sure.
We're dealing with our players, we're dealing with the players union that represents every visiting team coming in, MLB. You've seen and recognized the environment that those 29 other teams are playing in right now. You also have to recognize what our players and their families have already gone through, in being in Dunedin and transitioning to Buffalo. So, I'm not suggesting that we wouldn't propose that, but what I'm suggesting is I think there probably has to be a lot of respect and appreciation for the complexity to that scenario. And if the right time comes up that we feel that's worth presenting we will. But right now the easiest scenario to consider us returning would deal with the border being open.
I suppose it was one thing when the entire league had to all go through that at once in a 60-game season — being quarantined in hotels, not having family with them, etc. — and when the rules were all all collectively bargained in. It’s another when just one team requires it.
And, of course, our federal government didn’t allow the Jays to play at home last year even with MLB’s strict protocols. Not enough has changed yet for them to budge. Though it does feel like we’re starting to get there — a sentiment Shapiro agrees with.
The conversation, certainly at every level — municipal, provincial, and federal — has been consistent. It's been more substantive as of late, and been more frequent as of late, particularly at the federal level. And, certainly, more positive. I think there is an underlying level of optimism that the proliferation of vaccines, and then the impact of vaccines is being seen in their models. They feel very good about where public health is headed.
Again, though, it really comes down to the one thing. He continued:
But I think, you know, despite the encouragement and despite the optimism about, most importantly, where the public health scenarios are moving in the city of Toronto, throughout the province, and throughout the country, which is to a good place, there remains the obstacle of the border. And I think what I've come to recognize is, until the border is open any proposal would have to deal with that and create a set of circumstances that allow cross-border travel for players, families, and visiting teams. That is not an easy thing to do. It's not impossible, but it's not an easy thing to do. I guess what I would suggest to you is that until the border is open there are significant challenges with us returning to Toronto to play.
“It’s not a question of working around anything,” he added later, being clear that the Jays aren’t trying to cut the line or ask for special status.
Could the Leafs have changed the dynamic, potentially? They certainly seemed to have sped up the timeline on public gatherings when the province made the transparently pro-Leafs last minute decision to allow fully vaccinated healthcare workers in to go see the Buds, ya know? If they had beaten Montreal and made it past Winnipeg into a playoff series with a U.S.-based team there may have been significant pressure to work these issues out so as not to force the team to play their home games elsewhere — including from the office of our premier, who seemingly has never met a bunch of millionaires he wouldn’t immediately humiliate himself for.
That's not something that I'd put together. My only disappointment at the Leafs' loss was not what it could mean for us getting back, but more that it's a team that I'm pulling for because I believe in and care about Brendan Shanahan and the Leafs' leadership, and just pulling for those guys. So, disappointed for that to happen, but had not thought about that correlation of what it may mean for us. I would hope that the Toronto Blue Jays can stand for themselves. And, again, it's been pretty consistent that public health is not going to yield to professional sports, so we'll let that play its course out and certainly be here prepared to engage when the time is right.
I love that Shapiro takes the attitude that the Jays can stand for themselves. Damn right! But, uh, also, the Leafs needing to play a cross-border series probably would have helped!
I suppose some sort of a safe framework for cross-border pro sports could potentially still be established when either the Habs or Jets move on, but I don’t think they’ll have quite the same clout. Which of this country’s spineless politicians could have possibly put that kind of a dent in the Leafs’ chances to maybe finally win a cup? While a Habs fan like Trudeau doing it would have been extremely funny, he still needs to win that vote-rich GTA. I somehow think they would have found a way.
So, yeah. The Jays are going to be in Buffalo for a while yet, it seems.
• On returning to Sahlen Field
I noted above that Shapiro praised the fact that the Jays would finally be playing in front of friendlier home crowds now that they moved to Buffalo. That’s not the only positive about it, though.
I would say the biggest impact on this year will be the bullpens, the batting cages. Those will probably be the biggest impact. The bullpens are probably as good — Matt Buschmann was just telling me, we were just talking on the field — he felt they're as good as any big league bullpens that he's been in, as far as what our guys have to prepare to get up, come into the game. The vantage point they've got to watch from. Certainly being off the field, in and of itself, will be a positive. But they're first class bullpens. The batting cages are a stand-alone, climate controlled environment that our guys can go to to utilize technology and video and resources to get their work in and do it in a way that is close to the field, but certainly not on the concourse in front of concession stand, which this year wouldn't have been a possibility. Other than that it's just kind of converting a lot of the changes last year from temporary to permanent, upgrading facilities like restrooms and hydrotherapy areas, to a much more permanent and closer to major league environment. It's pretty overwhelming and pretty impressive to see.
Lighting was another area that Shapiro spoke positively about, saying that “the quality of the lighting is going to be at or above most major league facilities.”
Hopefully the Yankees don’t cry too much about it while they’re winding down post-game in their beautiful garden centre.
As for the Jays, clearly they’re just happy to be out of Dunedin. Though Shapiro, as always, tried his best to turn that into a positive.
Despite making the best of it we were playing in a minor league facility — an A-ball facility. Instead of spending energy on that, which would have become a crutch, our guys have battled the toughest schedule in baseball, a ton of injuries, and stayed right in the race. Certainly the wild card race. And we still feel like we've got a heck of a run in us as we move through this season. I think that that character, that toughness, that resilience, that insurance that we're not making excuses, is going to be something that is a trademark of this team and hopefully of this organization moving forward — not just in this season but in the years to come. So when we finally get back to Toronto, you're going to have a team that, any adversity or any tough times we experience are going to pale in comparison to what we're having to go through over the past two seasons.
Still, they’re not home yet, and that remains top of mind.
“No one will appreciate playing in front their home fans more than us when that finally happens,” Shapiro added.
• On areas of improvement for the team
There were some actual baseball questions asked in all this, too! Such as, where is the team looking to improve as the season progresses?
Still learning on that. Certainly it feels like the bullpen right now. The bullpen carried us for the first month of the season, and the bullpen lately has been one of our biggest challenges. You could look at anything from balance to our lineup, to the bullpen, to another starter. But there are multiple ways to improve the team. What I do know for certain is that Ross and our baseball operations staff have already started the dialogue on those conversations. Over the next two months those conversations will get more serious, and improving this organization, improving this team, is something that not only happens a couple times a year, it's a constant obsession, a constant focus. And I'm confident there will be the opportunity for that to happen, and we'll learn more over that time period and hopefully be more precise in helping us get better. But if you look at every juncture over the past two or three where there's been an opportunity, Ross and our group have found a way to help make this team better, so I think you'll see the same thing between now and the end of July.
I mean, ideally they might find some relievers a liiiiiiiiiiiittle sooner than two months from now, but I do understand that trades generally don’t work that way. I also have some hope for guys like Joel Payamps and Anthony Castro, and maybe Trent Thornton, to move up the chain a bit during this period of uncertainty. But… yeah. The bullpen is definitely the spot to be looking for help right now. Shapiro’s certainly not wrong there.
Top image via the Toronto Blue Jays/@BlueJays
Also...loved the Garden centre line. Still laughing.
It’s a shame that with the rotation going through a period of quality stability that the bullpen has let us down so much. With the sudden lack of depth there, I hope it doesn’t torpedo the season.