Weekend Up!: It was a frustrating series, but at least the bats stayed hot!
On Yusei Kikuchi, Trevor Richards, José Berríos, Vladdy, Kevin Gausman, Teo, Danny Bats, Alejandro Kirk, Ryan Borucki, Russell Martin, J.A. Happ, and more!
The Blue Jays can’t be happy to have lost two of three to the Minnesota Twins over the weekend, but there were plenty of positives to take from it as the 2022 Jays continued to look as much like the 2021 Jays as we’ve seen all year.
So let’s talk about it!
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Down: Friday: Jays 3 - Twins 9
A rag tag bunch of Minnesota Twins came to Rogers Centre on Friday, missing several regulars due to injury and COVID restrictions, and stunned the red hot Blue Jays, putting an end to an eight-game winning streak. Jays starter Yusei Kikuchi allowed four runs over just 4 2/3 innings, though he was hardly awful. Kikuchi allowed seven hits over that span, but struck out six and didn't walk anybody. The issue was really the three home runs he allowed — one on a slider that caught too much of the plate and was ambushed by José Miranda to lead-off the top of the second, and two on fastballs to Kyle Garlick.
The journeyman Garlick doesn't stink against lefties, it turns out. He has a 228 wRC+ against them this year through 38 plate appearances, though the pair of home runs off of Kikuchi certainly helped in that regard. His first came on a clear mistake, as Kikuchi missed Danny Jansen's low target on an 0-1 pitch and threw a second straight fastball to him in the upper third of the zone. Garlick watched the first one for a strike, but clubbed the second for a two-run shot. His second blast came off of a pretty decent 2-2 fastball inside that Garlick managed to smack into the Blue Jays' bullpen. A nice piece of hitting, to be fair.
Kikuchi had only allowed four home runs all season heading into this one, so I tend to think this is probably just an unlucky day and not much to worry about. The only thing that gives me pause about that is the fact that balls have really started flying out of ballparks of late, and that may not be down to the usual weather-related uptick this time of year.
Setting that aside, there were definitely things to like about Kikuchi's performance. He managed seven whiffs on 16 swings against his slider (44%), and used his changeup far more often (30%) than he has in any start this year — and did so reasonably effectively. Despite being not quite as good in his last few outings, he's still got a 3.16 ERA since the start of May, with 37 Ks to just 11 BBs in 31 1/3 innings. As Rob Silver points out, since the start of May, Kikuchi has the 19th best strikeout rate (29.1%) among MLB starters, the 27th best K-BB% (20.5%), and the same SIERA as Luis Severino and Zac Gallen.
That works!
Working less in this one were the Jays’ bats, as the hitters (Springer and Vlad excepted) went back to their walk-averse ways against a starter and bullpen they really should have teed off against. Fortunately they’d wake up the following day.
Trevor Richards' homer-proneness continued to be an issue in this one, too. Garlick singled off of him to open the sixth, then two outs later, with Miranda in a full count, Richards threw a low-and-in changeup that was fouled off, then went right back to the same pitch in the same spot — actually, slightly higher and more out over the plate — and was made to pay. A 4-3 Twins lead became a 6-3 lead and they never looked back. Richards has now allowed 2.45 home runs per nine innings of work this season, which is second-worst among relievers with at least 20 innings pitched. Not ideal!
Up: Saturday: Jays 12 - Rays 3
The last time I wrote about José Berríos, I noted how much of the plate he’d been catching with both his fastball and his curveball this season. Let’s see how he did in that regard in this one…
On the left here are his fastballs against the Twins, and on the right his fastballs overall this season.
And now here are the same plots, but with his curveballs.
That’s much, much better! And it should therefore come as no surprise that this was by far Berríos’s most dominant start of the season so far.
Having his sinker/two-seamer working didn’t hurt either!
It didn’t feel like it at first, of course. Berríos allowed a single and a home run to two of the first three batters he faced. There was talk before the game about how he had been experiencing a bit of a “dead arm” of late, and the early runs gave everyone a bit of that “here we go again” feeling, I’m sure. But he was brilliant from there. Berríos’ final line was seven innings pitched, three hits, two walks, just those two runs scored, and 13 strikeouts — a career high. The highest whiff rate Berríos had produced this season before this one was 26.3%, but here it was 45%. More of this, please!!!
And more of the kind of hitting we saw in this one, too. After a limp performance on Friday, the Jays roared back with 12 runs on 16 hits and six walks. Bichette homered. Kirk homered. Vladdy homered for the third time in four games. Teoscar had three hits and two runs scored. Espinal had two hits and a walk. Chapman was 0-for-3 with a walk and pair of runs scored.
Vlad’s blast was especially impressive, given how he was able to turn on a ball that was up and way in. Vladimir Guerrero-esque! Er… Vladimir Guerrero Sr.-esque!
Sunday: Jays 6 - Twins 8
What could have been a confounding start from Kevin Gausman — among others — was made a whole lot more understandable thanks to some outstanding work in the broadcast booth from Sportsnet’s Dan Shulman and Joe Siddall in this one. Early on Siddall noticed that the Twins had potentially picked up on something in Gausman’s delivery that was tipping them off as to when a splitter was coming. As the outing wore on, it became rather apparent that he was correct.
Previously the lowest percentage of splitters thrown by Gausman this season was 29%. In this one he went to the pitch just 19% of the time, and barely did so after throwing 13 of them in the first inning. Over 2 2/3 additional frames, he went to his bread-and-butter pitch just six times.
And while the swing percentage from Twins hitters didn't seem terribly out of whack overall, I counted each fastball and splitter thrown by Gausman in the first inning with runners on, and 83% of fastballs were offered at, while only 17% of splitters were swung on. So far this season opposing batters have swung at the pitch 66% of the time.
Siddall's theory was that something Gausman was doing to grip the splitter was out of the ordinary for him, and that the additional movement — whatever it was — was telling Twins batters when one was coming. And, crucially, when one wasn't. As Gausman throws either the fastball or the split about 85% of the time, they were able to spit of the splitter — a pitch that rarely ends up in the zone — and take hacks when they knew it wasn't coming.
Frankly, it's kind of remarkable that Gausman did as well as he did, allowing five runs (three earned) on nine hits and a walk. Even more amazing is the fact that he should have done even better!
The “among others” who had confounding games that I referred to earlier were Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Teoscar Hernández. Or, at least, they had confounding first innings. Coming out of the dugout without sunglasses, both lost easy pop-ups in the sun.
Teoscar lost his on an easy .010 xBA fly off the bat of Jorge Polanco, then made matters worse by not exactly sprinting to retrieve the ball. The play allowed a runner to score and another to advance to third, giving the Twins first and third with a run in and no outs, rather than first and second with no runs and one out. Ugh.
To his credit, Teo at least made up for this somewhat with a pair of outfield assists later on in the game — including one to end the first inning.
Vlad’s was in foul territory behind first base and would have ended the inning with just two runs on the board instead of the three that Minnesota eventually scored. Double ugh!
Not a great day for Gausman to be asked to get five outs in one inning, guys!
The offensive highlights in this one were few and far between — at least until the ninth inning, after the completely understandable decisions to give garbage time innings to Andrew Vasquez and Jeremy Beasley predictably ended in the Twins expanding their lead just a little too far.
Before that frame — which included an incredible three-run shot from Santiago Espinal to pull the Jays to within two runs, and Danny Bats just barely missing a potentially crushable pitch to tie it up...
...— offence was hard to come by. Matt Chapman, who seemingly has been harmed by the dead ball as much as anybody on the team short of Raimel Tapia, crushed a solo shot. George Springer hit his seventh lead-off home run of the season, because of course he did! And future AL All-Star catcher Alejandro Kirk did it again.
Kirk entered the game with the highest fWAR and wRC+ among catchers in the AL (minimum 100 plate appearances). His 1-for-3 with a walk and a home run pushed his wRC+ from 142 to 147. According to the defensive component of FanGraphs' WAR, he's also been the seventh most valuable defensive catcher in that group, despite playing a whole lot at DH. Granted, we're talking about him at his peak right now, but there is a whole lot to like here that I think can be durable. Maybe not the home runs in back-to-back games and four of his last five, but the defensive improvements are obvious and the bat-to-ball skills are legit — and incredibly fun to watch.
O Captain! My Captain!
Other notes
• Ryan Borucki was designated for assignment by the Jays last week and has since been sent in a minor deal to the Mariners. It was a move that wasn't exactly unwarranted — the 1.691 OPS right-handed hitters have produced against him this year is simply not going to cut it here in the three-batter-rule era — but can’t not be a notable one for anyone who has followed this team through the lows and highs of the Anthopoulos era through the lows and highs of the current one. Borucki scratched and clawed his way to the big leagues as a 15th-round pick in the 2012 draft who missed all of 2013 and almost all of 2015 due to injury. He made 17 starts for the awful 2018 Jays, and was a legitimate bright spot, putting up a 3.87 ERA on a team that was in need of bright spots beyond a handful of exciting but very young prospects below the major leagues. Then he missed almost all of 2019 and returned as a reliever. He also went from a guy who barely threw his slider to, eventually, one who in 2022 has used it as his primary pitch. From a guy throwing a 91.5 mph sinker as a starter to a 95 mph guy out of the 'pen.
The uptick in stuff and the pitchability that was already there should have worked, you felt. And yet.
And yet.
A likable guy — something you get the sense of whenever hearing media folks talk about him — and someone whose perseverance you can't help but respect, Borucki has the ability to strike plenty of big leaguers out, but has yet to show that he can keep from issuing them free passes. His career 7.33 K/9 and 3.99 BB/9 is a sad reminder of just how many of his MLB innings came long ago, as a starter, and how hard it has been for him to stick in the majors in his new role. In 2022 those numbers have been 11.37 and 7.11 respectively.
There's a good arm in there. I hope the Mariners can help him bring out the best in it. Godspeed, Ryan.
• Godspeed, too, to a pair of players who were hugely important to the best Blue Jays teams since the early 90s. Last week, within the span of days, Russell Martin and J.A. Happ each announced his retirement.
Martin, of course, was the first — and maybe most important — piece of the Blue Jays’ mid-2020s turnaround. Sure, Josh Donaldson (who arrived a couple weeks later) won the 2015 AL MVP award. But not only was Martin an elite offensive catcher. Not only did he — eventually, mercifully — take on the job of catching knuckleballer R.A. Dickey away from Josh Thole (to his own physical detriment). Not only was he Canadian! Not only did he hit that massive September home run to crush the Yankees hopes that I had to watch at the Embassy in Kensington because we got kicked out of that game because one of my friends decided to fight four complete dickheads. But he helped get the best out of Buehrle, Estrada, Price, and so many other pitchers — especially the following year — and he did so on by far the highest-priced free agent contract then-GM Alex Anthopoulos had ever handed out. The Jays had signalled with their big trades and the Melky Cabrera signing ahead of 2013 that they were willing to pay players if they could pry them away from other organizations. The signing of Martin signalled that players from outside the organization were willing to take their money. Big difference.
The Zubes had a great, heartfelt video about what Martin’s career meant to him. Definitely worth a watch.
• J.A. Happ may not quite rise to Martin’s level in the all-time Jays pantheon, but he absolutely deserves recognition here, too. Happ had enormous shoes to fill when he signed a three-year, $36 million deal in late 2015 that all but meant the end of the dream that David Price would return to the Jays after his spectacular 11-game cameo that August, September, and October. It didn’t help that Happ had gone through a tumultuous previous tenure with the Jays, the most memorable part of which was probably him taking a comebacker off the skull in Tampa, which thankfully looked a whole lot worse than it was. Mostly, though, he was essentially setup to be the on-field avatar of the “Cleveland Crew and their cheap cronies.” (God damn that whole era was so incredibly stupid!).
And so what did Happ do? Only pitch to a 3.18 ERA over 32 starts in 2016, helping to lead the Jays back to the ALCS, before going out and being nearly as good in 2017. (Let's not mention his starts heading into the 2018 trade deadline, or Josh Donaldson while we’re at it, ever again. Shall we?).
• I suppose I should mention that Ryan Borucki was actually traded to the Mariners for an actual. Except, I did mention that — on Sunday’s episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour! Check it out on Callin, or wherever you get your podcasts (provided the RSS feed is working again — a known issue that Callin is fixing if they haven’t yet), and hear such insights as “this guy has Cistulli written all over him!” And be sure to join Nick and I when we go live again after Tuesday’s game with the Royals!
Next up: Monday, 8:10 PM ET: Jays @ Royals (Ross Stripling vs. Daniel Lynch), TV: Sportsnet One, Radio: Sportsnet 590
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Personally, I'm just elated the Blue Jays played a pivotal role in reminding Angels fans that their poverty franchise is, in fact, bad.
Shame about Borucki. I always wondered why they didn't try him starting again. When he transitioned to relief, his velocity increased dramatically. I thought maybe he could have pulled it back a bit and turn into an ok 5th starter, but perhaps his whole pitching style had changed by then and his arm wasn't durable for starting. Dunno. I can't help thinking that our bullpen (and starting for that matter) depth is an issue to be honest.
What's our record with the red uniforms I wonder. Seems we always lose when wearing them.