Weekend up, weekend down: On the Chatwood implosion, Vlad, Pearson, Astros discourse, injury news, border issues, bad umpiring, prospects, catching, and more!
The Jays hosted the Astros in Buffalo this weekend and, frankly, it could have gone better. So let’s talk about it with a full weekend edition of three up, three down!
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Friday
▲▲▲ This dude
With apologies to Randal Grichuk’s towering home run, this was by far the best moment for the Blue Jays in Friday’s 13-1 loss.
The Jays got to Zack Greinke for four runs in four innings the previous time they had faced him, and so went into this one with some hope that they might be better positioned to win a duel between two very good pitchers. It, uh, didn't quite work out that way. Grienke's complete game was the first for an Astros pitcher since the Jays were no-hit by Justin Verlander in September 2019. Yeesh.
Having Jays fans in the stands cheering the team on, though? Truly outstanding. Even in a blowout! And even if they can’t be on the Canadian side of the border.
▼ Ryu’s bad day
I don’t think we need to dwell on it too much, but Hyun Jin Ryu had his worst start of the season in this one. Such a shame, too, as it not only deprived us of a great pitchers’ duel with Greinke, but made for an ugly debut for Ryu in front of actual Blue Jays fans.
Yes, I know there were smatterings of Jays fans in Dunedin, but not enough! Particularly in Ryu’s starts, which happened to come up against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays — teams that are well supported in that part of Florida. This was the first taste a lot of Jays fans were able to get of Ryu in person, and it certainly wasn’t a great one.
▼ The Chatwood implosion
Tyler Chatwood has had exactly three bad outings for the Toronto Blue Jays, which makes it extremely funny to me that I've already seen takes that he needs to be designated for assignment, and that when I implored those people on Twitter to actually watch a season of baseball, there were Chatwood truthers coming out of the woodwork to agree with them.
Mind you, these weren't huge groups of Jays fans. But they're out there. And the thing is, they're not wrong that Chatwood has been maddeningly uneven in his career. We can't just look at him as a dominant reliever who materialized out of thin air at the start of this season. But he is a different pitcher in that role than the guy he was earlier in his career. For one thing, he's throwing either his sinker or his cutter more than 85% of the time. His four-seamer, which was his most-used pitch in six of his eight seasons before 2019, is now used just 7.1% of the time. He's seen a velocity increase, too, with his sinker currently coming it at 95.2 mph on average — the second highest mark of the 31-year-old's career.
Eliminating some of the lesser weapons from his arsenal and getting a bit of a velocity boost from working in short bursts were key reasons why the Jays’ decision to sign him as a reliever made sense. Early on, they sure looked smart for doing it. Lately? Quite a bit less so.
So what’s the hell is going on? There are so many ways to try to dissect it, but here are a couple things that have jumped out at me:
• Since the game on the 23rd against Tampa when things went sideways on him just 27% of the sinkers he's thrown have been in the strike zone. Prior to that 48% went for strikes — a much better percentage if you're trying to keep opposing hitters on their toes, or if you’re relying hitters not being able to recognize the sinker from the cutter until it’s too late.
• Since the 23rd, Chatwood's average release point has been down, and the sinker, in particular, has been off. Interestingly, though he pitched well at the start of the season on either side of an IL stint, his period of dominance started April 27, when he struck out four batters over 1 2/3 innings in what was his first multi-strikeout game of the year. That stretch overlaps exactly with his highest release points.
Could it therefore just be something physical? It is perhaps not a coincidence that the 12 1/3 innings that Chatwood logged over those 25 days was the 10th highest number among the 380 relievers to pitch during that span. Though the Blue Jays certainly don’t need any more injured relievers, an explanation like that would at least be simple — and, one hopes, fixable.
Then again, maybe it’s mechanical.
Chatwood came in to face José Altuve in the ninth inning on Sunday, and though he wasn’t necessarily sharp with his command, he managed to strike a very good hitter out. Hopefully a step in the right direction.
▼ Nate Pearson
Obviously Nate Pearson didn’t have anything to do with the Jays’ disaster on Friday. But he did pitch in a Triple-A game for Buffalo/Trenton. And it, uh, didn’t go so well. Lasting just four innings (plus two batters in the fifth), Pearson threw 82 pitches, 55 of which went for strikes. He also struck out eight and allowed only three hits. That's the good news.
The less good news? Pearson's second inning started with a four-pitch walk. He struck out the next batter, but not before uncorking a wild pitch that allowed the runner to move to second. Two of the three hits he allowed on the day then followed: an RBI double from Khalil Lee, then a homer to left-centre off the bat of Cheslor Cuthbert. He limited the damage from there, but not exactly in a tidy fashion — his two strikeouts to end the inning came on either side of another four-pitch walk and a hit-by-pitch.
Pearson rebounded in the third and fourth, striking out five of the six batters he faced. But the fifth was again a problem, as he allowed a lead-off single and then hit another batter — actually, the same batter he'd hit in the second, Drew Jackson — before being lifted. His replacement, Jackson McLelland, allowed those two runners to score (one via a wild pitch, another via a home run), which put two more earned runs on Pearson's line, giving him five for the day.
The dominant guy that we know Pearson can be is clearly still in there, but it also seems clear that he’s still not ready to come up and help the Blue Jays.
Saturday
▲ Vlad
Ho hum.
But, of course, Vlad’s outstanding Saturday contributions weren’t limited to his work at the plate. He’s been nearly as much of a revelation in the field as he has been at the dish this season, which says a lot. A legitimate MVP candidate at 22 years old — a year younger than Baltimore’s best prospect, Adley Rutschman, who is currently in Triple-A — and all the tools to keep it going a long, long time. What a world.
▲ Maligned veterans
Specifically, of course, I mean maligned veterans Ross Stripling and Joe Panik. And who, precisely, has maligned these players? Well, me, for starters. Less than an hour before Panik’s crucial three-run shot in the fifth on Saturdy, I was tweeting about how much his presence every day has made me miss Cavan Biggio (of all people!). Stripling I’ve been easier on, I think, but what Jays fan hadn’t thought the worst about him prior to the recent mechanical changes that seem to have potentially — and I mean this quite literally, based on the way he was going early on this season — saved his career.
So kudos to both of them for getting the job done in a big way in what ended up being the Jays’ only victory of the series.
▲ That throw
Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s defensive abilities leave a lot to be desired. For example, on Sunday he played a ball with a 99% catch probability off the wall, gifting Alex Bregman a double, and the Astros an important insurance run when he came around to score two batters later. But when Gurriel excels in the outfield, hoo boy. He really excels.
"Gurriel's throw was as good as any that I've seen while I've physically been in the field," Ross Stripling said after the game. "I didn't even go to back that one up because I figure (Straw) was probably going to score."
▼ Having to watch Rafael Dolis close out a game
I tweeted out something about this at the time, and let me be clear here. Dolis is really good and the Jays are lucky to have him. I don’t exactly trust him to close out games the same way I do, say, Jordan Romano, because things tend to get adventurous when he’s on the hill. And when that adventurousness is paired with how slowly he works it can obviously lead to some seriously painful outings. Saturday was hardly Dolis at his worst, and he got the job done in the end, which is what counts. But it wasn’t enjoyable! Don’t @ me.
▼ Astros discourse
Wait. Are those the same Dodgers who just signed a pitcher who seems to have openly cheated his way to a Cy Young Award and a $102 million contract? The organization that tried to cover up an allegation of sexual assault, or that figured most prominently in a dossier of evidence about corruption in international recruitment that sparked a U.S. Department of Justice investigation in 2018?
I get that it’s maybe “fun” to pick on the Astros, and I’m certainly no fan of the way they’ve been run. The recent stuff to surface about their trade for the Blue Jays’ former closer, which was objected to by some employees who felt that, based on their knowledge of the incident, his 75-game suspension hadn’t been harsh enough, but was pursued anyway by a GM who told those employees he wanted their baseball opinions, not their moral opinions, is especially galling. I’m definitely not going to tell anyone they shouldn’t think the Astros are bad and awful or that they didn’t cheat. They definitely cheated, and definitely weren’t punished enough for it.
But is this what we’re doing? Reducing badness in a profoundly unethical industry to being about the team that maybe cheated a little more brazenly and in a more sophisticated way in-game than the ones that didn’t catch on or didn’t get caught?
I’m sure its intention is more innocuous than that, and I don’t expect fans to start bringing signs that read “Pay Your Minor Leaguers!” to ballparks or anything, I just think we need to stop falling into this trap:
Granted, MLB wasn’t exactly turning a blind eye to digital espionage the way it once was to PEDs or has been until very recently to pitchers doctoring the ball, but they weren’t exactly making it difficult to pull off either. The “man in white” hubbub was a decade ago and the league did what, exactly, to safeguard the integrity of team’s signs? As is always the case, this stuff is not nearly as black and white as MLB’s preferred narrative would suggest.
Also yes, I know that I just singled out a specific player for cheating, but (1) that’s because it’s very funny to me that he’s going to have to either go back to pitching au naturel or face suspension (his four-seamer was 222 rpm below his season average on Sunday, by the way), and (2) I fully understand that he’s just the tip of a very big iceberg MLB has allowed to exist.
Anyway, I’m glad that, with Houston leaving town, that’s all over for now. Especially because the Astros’ side of this discourse is somehow even worse.
▼ Black hole behind the plate
Reese McGuire's start on Saturday was his third in four games for the Blue Jays, suggesting that Danny Jansen's position atop the Jays' catching depth chart was a bit precarious. I say "was" because, after Sunday's game, it's certainly in danger.
Jansen strained his hamstring on a play in the bottom of the third inning against Houston at Sahlen Field, and while there's no official word yet on whether he'll need a stint on the injured list, it's not difficult to imagine the Jays playing it safe with the injury, thereby allowing themselves to get a different look behind the plate. Riley Adams is on the 40-man, and was in the majors briefly earlier this season. After hitting three home runs over the weekend, his Triple-A slash line for the season sits at .250/.410/.600.
How his bat will hold up in the majors I'm not sure, but it's not like the bar to clear is very high at this point.
Sunday
▲ The Jays are always in it!
The Jays played a pretty sloppy, shitty game on Sunday. Defensive miscues, a collision, brain cramps, a Steven Matz start. And yet they still managed to keep themselves in this one. I will acknowledge that’s a pretty lukewarm positive to take from the game, but it’s honestly the best I’ve got!
▲ Prospects
There were some good outcomes for Blue Jays' minor leaguers not just on Sunday, but throughout the weekend. Some highlights:
• Neither are prospects, but encouraging rehab efforts from Cavan Biggio and Thomas Hatch for Buffalo on Sunday. Biggio (1-for-4) homered, while Hatch threw two no-hit innings, allowing just one walk and picking up a strikeout.
• Kevin Smith had a double Sunday, and Riley Adams had a hit, as both continued hot starts to the minor league season. Smith and Adams each homered on Saturday, with Adams blasting two on Friday as well.
• Uh, also the important bats in Double-A have been getting it done lately.
▲ The injury report
Weird to see the words “the injury report” with an up arrow next to them, but it was actually a good day in that regard for the Jays on Sunday. (Danny Jansen’s hamstring strain excepted.)
As mentioned above, Cavan Biggio and Thomas Hatch made progress in their rehab assignments. We also learned that Ryan Borucki pain free. Most importantly, though, George Springer seems to finally be making some real progress.
Personally, I expect him back in about five days from Saturday — i.e. toward the end of the week. And I base this on some insight from the only person I trust on this issue: George Springer.
▼ Steven Matz
(Fart noise.)
▼ The bottom of the 3rd
I know I can only say this because our expectations of Vlad at this point are incredibly high, but the bottom of the third inning on Sunday felt like a real missed opportunity for the Blue Jays. That was the one where, down 4-1, the Jays got a gift of a lead-off double from Houston centre fielder Chas McCormick, who dropped Danny Jansen's line drive resulting in a double. Marcus Semien then bounced a ball past the pitcher. Jansen, assuming the ball would go for a hit, took off for third (injuring his hamstring in the process) and was smartly thrown out by Altuve. A Bo Bichette groundout moved Semien to second and brought up Vlad with two outs.
Now, Vlad's been great lately but he's obviously not literally hitting everything. Still, you have to feel good about the Blue Jays' chances whenever he comes to the plate these days. That was true of this at-bat, too. At least, until home plate umpire Chris Conroy changed the entire nature of it with a horrible called strike.
It would be wrong to say this cost the Blue Jays the game. It was a small thing — a matter of inches — and one of many moments that could have made the difference. But I thought it was a pretty big one.
Vlad struck out.
▼ More border teasing
On Sunday afternoon, CBC News tweeted some good news for the Montreal Canadiens and Winnipeg Jets, reporting that the federal government “has approved a travel exemption for the final 2 rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs that would allow NHL teams to cross the Canada-US border without quarantining. Players and club personnel will be subjected to enhanced public health measures.”
“NHL players and team personnel will cross the border using private planes, and will be subject to pre and post-arrival testing in addition to daily COVID-19 tests,” a subsequent tweet added. “The players will have to live in a modified quarantine bubble and there will be no contact with the general public.”
So… is this good news for the Toronto Blue Jays?
Since I wrote about this back on Thursday, and don’t particularly want to repeat myself, I’m still going to say no! Or, at least, it’s not the wonderful news for the Jays that it sort of looks like it might be.
I’ll say here what I said on Twitter about it: Imagine being a Jays player, fully vaccinated, going out in Dunedin, Buffalo, and on the road like pretty much normal, having family with you, then being asked to go live in SkyDome Hotel jail for three months with no one but your teammates. Pass!
That is to say: I don’t think this solves the Blue Jays’ border issue just yet. Because they’ll be travelling back and forth across the border, I assume that the home teams in this scenario will be required to follow all the same strict protocols as the visitors. If you’re a Blue Jays team out there already tasting freedom — even if it’s just the freedom of being in Buffalo — I think that’s going to be extremely hard to give up.
It at least feels like we’re getting there though.
Top image via the Toronto Blue Jays/@BlueJays