Weekend Up!: No sweep in the heart of Texas
On the ongoing Bo Show, Stripling's homecoming, Kevin Gausman, Kohei Arihara, the ugly stadium in Texas, Raimel Tapia, Mayza's kick, odd umpiring, standings and schedules, new rules, and more!
The Blue Jays’ third-last road trip of the season ended with a frustrating defeat in Texas, but it was still an 8-2 trip that has put a lot of distance between where the team is now and where they were just two weeks ago, when they had just been humiliated at home by the lowly Angels.
The Bo Show continued. Teoscar returned from his paternity leave. After a couple pedestrian months, Alejandro Kirk has brought his wRC+ back up to 138. And though Lourdes Gurriel Jr. is now on the IL, and may be for longer than the minimum of 10 days, things are otherwise looking up. And they’ll continue to do so. You know… provided things go well in this week’s massive slate of home games against the Rays and Orioles.
*GULP*
Here’s Weekend Up!…
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Up: Friday: Jays 4 - Rangers 3
Another day, another one we could call “the Bo Bichette game” — though that may not be quite as apt a title as it would be for his three-home run performance back in Baltimore last week. Bichette remained red hot, driving in three of the Jays’ four runs in Friday’s opener — one on a groundout in the first, then two more via a home run on a pitch that was just 16 inches above the ground by the time he put his best golf swing on it.
He, uh, also tripled.
With his 2-for-4 with a homer and a double, plus three doubles in a 3-for-5 performance on Saturday, and a 1-for-4 on Sunday, Bichette has now taken his wRC+ for the season all the way to 126. That's better than last year's mark of 122, better than 2020's 120 mark, and at 3.8 fWAR for the season he genuinely has an outside chance of surpassing 2021's 5.1 mark by the time the regular season ends on October 5th.
Maybe most impressive is that his OPS — an unadjusted number that, unlike wRC+, doesn't credit players for this year's depressed run-scoring environment due to Rob Manfred's balls — is, at .794, getting to within spitting distance of last year's .828 mark.
He is, in other words, the same hitter he always was. It just took an otherworldly streak for it to really show up in this year's numbers.
And while you may be tempted to suggest that he's simply skewing the results with a stretch that will hardly be reproduceable, I'd suggest that though his rolling 15-game wRC+ chart certainly looks absolutely hilarious at the moment...
...another way to read it would be that this has simply evened out some of those ugly troughs from earlier in the year. (And that he was probably never as bad as a lot of people allowed themselves to believe — something I think a lot of folks would do well to remember as their frustrations about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s recent performances mount somewhat.)
Bo’s career wRC+ in 1,628 plate appearances through Saturday’s game? 126.
Home cooked chicken strip
Then, of course, there was Ross Stripling, who absolutely deserves a mention here. And, to get straight to the point, deserves to be the Jays’ number three starter in the playoffs, too.
In front of a ton of friends and family in his home state of Texas, Stripling completed six innings for the fifth time in a row, allowing just two runs on three hits.
He has now has pitched 102 innings as a starter this season, and among starters with at least 100 innings his 2.91 ERA ranks an incredible 21st, just ahead of Corbin Burnes, Carlos Ródon, and Shane Bieber (though it must be noted that those guys have at least 60 more innings each).
Stripling continues to be something of a moving target for American League hitters. For example, two of his ten hardest thrown pitches of the year came in this one, with him topping out at 94.8 on a fastball to Corey Seager in the first. Interesting twist!
Plus, in his last couple of starts, both of which have come in the month of September, he's been especially reliant on his changeup. To the point where it's been his primary offering.
It’s a credit to him that he’s been so slippery all year, and so brilliant. But — and this is something Nick and I talked about on Sunday’s podcast — while confidence is understandably high for what Stripling is doing right now and what he might be able to continue to do into October for the Jays, the question of whether the club should buy in on him doing it long-term is a trickier one.
For now, Nick and I both immediately agreed that we’d start him ahead of Berríos in a third playoff game at this point. That, in fact, you basically have to. Hurt feelings and huge contracts have to go out the window when it comes to the playoffs, right? Having Berríos waiting in the wings in case Stripling falters seems far preferable than doing it the other way around, doesn’t it?
I certainly think so.
As for Stripling’s contract stuff, we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that after the World Series. (And to think about how the money owed to Yusei Kikuchi and Whit Merrifield next year may pay a role in potentially pricing Stripling out of the Jays’ plans! 💀)
Up: Saturday: Jays 11 - Rangers 7
A laugher became considerably less funny over the course of Saturday’s ballgame, as the Jays hung 11 runs on poor Kohei Arihara — the Texas starter who was somewhat brutally designated for assignment on Sunday, a day after needing 99 pitches to record just nine outs.
Trash franchise! Trash stadium! Ugly carpet! Incredibly distracting seating section behind the plate that I hope to hell the Blue Jays don't replicate when they redo the infield portion of the Dome!
But the thing about said trash franchise is that they do have some hitters on their roster. And since Kevin Gausman has the highest BABIP, by 45 points, among qualified MLB starters not named the Ghost of Patrick Corbin's Career, occasionally that's going to mean bad things are going to happen.
Of course, on Saturday the ones that hurt Gausman, in so much as a pitcher whose team has scored 11 runs can even be hurt, were technically not "balls in play." The 11th and 12th home runs he's allowed this season — impressively low numbers for a guy who making his 27th start — were the sources of all five of the runs he gave up.
On some other night against some other opponent it would have been an incredibly frustrating affair for Gausman, who struck out nine over 5 1/3 innings, generated a ton of whiffs, and had an extra tick on his velocity compared to his season average.
He was good. He was unlucky. And it didn't matter. The Jays absolutely destroyed Arihara, who simply didn't — or doesn't — appear to have big league calibre stuff, and was completely forsaken by his team in this one in order to save their bullpen.
Or I suppose I should say his former team.
According to Dan Shulman on Sunday's broadcast, the 11 earned runs Arihara allowed were the most any starter has given up in the big leagues this season — mostly because teams don't let their guys get absolutely destroyed like that. Arihara threw six scoreless, four-hit innings against the Twins just last month, so there’s not nothing there. But in this one he walked five batters, in addition to giving up 11 runs on 12 hits. It was ugly. You had to feel for him.
I mean, Raimel Tapia hit a home run for gods sake! That actually left the ballpark! And by a pretty good margin!
Tapia’s previous one was that inside-the-park grand slam in Boston back in July, in the 28-5 game — which is exactly the kind of hiding that this one felt like it was going to be, until the Rangers slowly started clawing their way back into it.
Zach Pop, Anthony Bass, Adam Cimber, and Tim Mayza all made appearances at the end of this one, as the score got just a little bit too closer for comfort. Not exactly ideal given that the Jays had a bullpen day upcoming on Sunday, and now face five huge games in four days with the Rays — including a doubleheader on Tuesday — followed by three more important ones against the Orioles!
Mayza’s appearance was at notable for a pretty nifty display of athleticism, at least.
Down: Sunday: Jays 1 - Rangers 4
Opener Trevor Richards was only able to record a single out in this one, and though David Phelps bailed him out and kept only one run on the board for the Rangers, that bottom of the first inning was a bit of a sign of things to come for the Jays. It would be a frustrating day.
Yusei Kikuchi ended up in the game, hoping to give the team at least a few innings while continuing to try to get himself back on track. But, though he was able to find the strike zone somewhat, he didn't look all that much better than any of the other times we've seen him — and he was punished by an Adolis García blast into the left field seats for a pair of runs.
After some fine middle-inning work from Pop and Julian Merryweather (no, really!), Anthony Bass entered with the Jays down just two in the bottom of the eight, then promptly — and somewhat uncharacteristically — coughed one more up.
Getting through seven innings with just three runs allowed on a bullpen day would usually be a pretty good outcome, but not on Sunday, as the Jays' hitters were befuddled by the surprisingly good Martin Pérez (who was, uh... surprisingly good), and also by umpire Rob Drake's wacky strike zone.
Easy as it would be to exclaim something like "Hate the Drake!" here, and yet again blame an umpire for the Blue Jays’ troubles, the reality is that his zone was really no worse for one team or the other in this one.
Plus, Rangers catcher Jonah Heim is particularly adept at stealing strikes, and... well... when you go into a game aiming to get innings out of Richards and Kikuchi, it's pretty hard for me to be sympathetic to the idea that a loss of any kind is an unfair outcome.
That didn’t stop the Jays’ bench — pictured at the top of this post — from getting a bit ornery about balls and strikes though!
Where things are standing
The Jays’ loss on Sunday may kept the Orioles’ fading hopes alive, especially with the tough Rays in Toronto this week, but Baltimore remains in a tough spot. And I don’t just mean Baltimore! HEYO!
Over the last 10 games the Jays have had the most success of any of the AL Wild Card contenders, and the race between them, the Rays, and the Mariners is now incredibly tight, as you can see…
The Rays are now 5.5 games behind the Yankees for the AL East lead, after losing two of three to them in the Bronx this weekend. Time is running out for either them or the Jays to catch New York, but there is still very much all to play for right now. Exciting, isn’t it?
Here’s where all the relevant teams will be over the coming week:
• Toronto: Five home games in four days with the Rays, followed by three home dates with the Orioles on the weekend. HAVE YOU HEARD? PRETTY HUGE!
• Tampa: Visiting Toronto for five in four days, and in tough after blowing through some relievers after allowing 10 runs in each of their last two games. Tuesday's doubleheader could be particularly tricky. They then go home for a 10-day stand where they'll host the Rangers, Astros, and then the Jays for four starting Thursday the 22nd.
• New York: Are going to be hoping they've righted the ship over the last week, as they head into an off-day Monday, before two in Boston, another off-day, three in Milwaukee, yet another off-day, and then a two-gamer at home with the Pirates to kick off a homestand next week. They visit Toronto for three starting on the 26th.
• Baltimore: Headed down the road to D.C. for a two-game mid-week set before making the trip to Toronto on the weekend. A homestand versus the Tigers (3) and Astros (4) follows next week.
• Seattle: Two mid-week games with the Padres before a three-city road trip that doesn't offer a ton in the way of competition, but has a high degree of difficulty with respect to travel. They'll head from Seattle to Anaheim, to Oakland, then to Kansas City, before coming home for a season-ending 10-game stand against the Rangers, A's, and Tigers. Trap series everywhere!
Lastly…
You can catch my take on MLB’s just-announced rule changes, and the Blue Jays players’ reactions to them, on the latest episode of Blue Jays Happy Hour. For the audio-averse among you, I’ll say that in general I think they’re entirely fine, and feel like they will probably achieve the intended goals of speeding up the game and creating more action defensively by making stolen bases somewhat more prevalent and preventing defenders from sometimes standing in the optimal places on the diamond.
I’m not sure those things are as necessary as MLB seems to think they are, and I suspect there will be adverse consequences we haven’t even thought of yet. But as easy as it will be for many fans to get upset about big changes to chase younger demographics that may already be lost, I think the best of these changes will fade into the background pretty quickly, and we’ll eventually wonder how we lived without some of them.
I’m also OK with the league taking more of an active role in shaping what the game looks like, rather than leaving it up to the invisible hand of the market that has forced reactions like limits on the number of pitchers a team can carry or the number of times a player with options remaining can be yo-yo’d between the majors and the minors.
Are the right people making the right decisions here? I have absolutely no idea. But as long as they’re willing to fix where they go wrong — and you can sure as hell be worried that they won’t be! — I say let’s get weird.
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Merryweather pitched like you always thought he could and I always didn't. Couple more good outings (like not giving up a HR), and I might be convinced. As for new rules, no article or broadcaster has answered a burning question. WHO starts the pitch clock? Umpire? Which base? Or are there job openings at MLB parks for pitch clock operators? And if so, who do I submit my resume to?