Don't Get Used To It

That game was cool and all, but I've got a couple of things to say about it that will probably get a bunch of people upset with me.

First, I'm glad this game was against the Mariners and not some team with a good offense, because Alvarez, despite allowing 6 hits and 1 earned run, definitely didn't have his best stuff, and he really wasn't all that close with his command (three walks?!?!).  Fortunately, he knew it, and, moreover, it didn't matter a whole lot against the Mariner offense.  If this was a game against another AL East team, he'd have probably allowed about 80 runs.  This is my biggest problem with fip/xfip, because missing the glove as often as he did last night should lead to a bunch of hits and runs, but it didn't, though Alvarez wouldn't be a good barometer for that, since his fip is almost 6, mostly due to not striking anybody out ever.  All's well that ends well though, I suppose.

Second, the Jays have won 2 in a row, and really should have won the first of this series, and they did so by scoring 7 runs in yesterday's game, so maybe it's kind of starting to come around, right?  Yeah, well.  Welcome to town, Texas.  I have literally 0 hope for this series.  Texas is just way, way too good, top to bottom.  I've written all kinds of nonsense about how good this team, so I'm not going to do it again, but whatever.  I'd really love to see Drew Hutchison not start against Texas, because it can't be good for the development of a pitcher to get shelled in front of his home crowd in his third career start, but I doubt that's going to happen.  Either way, I have little faith in that one being very pretty.

Edwin Encarnacion gets the Zaunhead for his game last night.  He was 1 for 1 with a homer and 2 walks and probably some kind of sac fly or something like that, but I dunno.  Since Jason Vargas is a lefty-shitballer, I predicted to my girlfriend that Edwin would homer if Vargas didn't get yanked after 5 innings due to pitch count considerations.  He did not disappoint me.

Naturally, Edwin batted behind Adam Lind, who, versus a lefty, went 0-for-4, to the surprise of nobody.  I really hope it's becoming more evident to Farrell, or at least somebody who has an influence on him, that both Adam Lind and Francisco Cordero really aren't good fits for the roles that they're currently filling.  We're obviously dealing with some pretty small samples for this season, but it's not exactly a big surprise that either of these guys are struggling, and they shouldn't be given miles of rope in high leverage innings and the cleanup slot respectively.  Lind is a full-on platoon player and should never be given AB's vs a lefty, and Cordero just simply shouldn't be in the game in any high-leverage spot when Janssen, Frasor, Oliver and Perez are available.

Stuff
Rajai Davis is probably out for tonight, but the XRays came back negative.  He was hit with a ball sliding back in to third base avoiding a pickoff.

Apparently Travis Snider's MRI came back negative after he jammed his wrist the other day.  He'll still probably be out for another few days, up to a week.  Note that there's no source attached to that, so it's not a sure thing.


Jason Frasor approves of the CBA changes.

A highschool kid Randy Johnson'ed a bird the other day.

Driveline Baseball looks at Michael Pineda's injury from a biomechanic standpoint.

The internet's favorite pitching prospect posted a youtube video about his baseball mindset.

No Josh Hamilton tonight for the Rangers.  He tweaked his back last night against the Rays, but it's not like that fucking matters a whole lot now, does it?

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Encarnacion DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Drabek P

Rangers
Kinsler 2B
Andrus SS
Young 3B
Beltre DH
Murphy LF
Cruz RF
Napoli C
Moreland 1B
Gentry CF

DARVISH P

Better

Thanks buddy.

I gave him a Zaunhead because he did good.  I noticed that he wasn't actively pitching down in the zone, looking for groundballs.  I'm wondering if they're going to have him pitch low against good lineups and just go out and dominate shitty lineups like the Mariners.

Anyway, I'm hung over like a bastard, so this is going to be rather brief.

John Lott says that AA had a little media chat this morning, and kind of shit on the idea that they're actively searching for a bat or pitcher. Onwards.

Some guy mooned the camera and probably the entire world while Bryce Harper got his first career hit.

Nate Schierholtz dove at a baseball nothing yesterday.

Farrell has Lind batting cleanup against a lefty today, probably because he got a hit or two yesterday.  Fucking moron.  Don't worry about Edwin crushing.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Encarnacion DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Mathis C

Alvarez P

Mariners
Figgins LF
Ackley 2B
Ichiro RF
Liddi 1B
Seager 3B
Saunders CF
Olivo C
Jaso DH
Kawasaki SS

Vargas P

Outrage, Outfield Prospects, and Outright Releases

Bastards.  That, again, wasn't really a performance worth being all that excited about, but I suppose we can look for a silver lining in the fact that they finally scored some runs against a bad team, and that Ricky Romero was pretty good out there, before getting whatever the opposite of bailed out is by his defense and bullpen.  That loss is on Brett Lawrie and his questionable defense, though JP's throw behind the runner didn't exactly help things out either.  Adam Lind probably should have had the throw if he's going to be a major league 1B.  JP was safe at home in 7th inning, by the way.

So yeah, a lot of if's and but's about that game.  That's just kind of the way things go, and every team is going to have this kind of bullshit happen to them at some point over the course of a season, it's just always frustrating when it happens to your team, especially when it's a tight division and you need to squeeze out every win.  TheAck sums it up pretty perfectly here.

I said it on my twitter last night, but I'll say again that I feel like Bautista is right there, ready to break through.  He just seems to be fouling everything straight back, so maybe there's a little mechanical inconsistency there or something that's stopping him from squaring up on the ball.  You always hear Tiger Woods talking about how he's "close" week after week, and then he finally breaks through and putts well, winning a big tournament by 7 shots.  Jose is close.  And again, if a slumpy start to the season is a .341 OBP, I can live.

I guess we can give Thames a Zaunhead for his game last night.

Elsewhere, the Angels have released 38-year old fringe hall-of-fame candidate Bobby Abreu, and have called up top prospect Mike Trout to fill the roster.  Mike Scioscia has said that Trout will definitely play, but we don't know exactly what that means, considering the lack of playing time for Abreu before the release.  They also said that Abreu could get 400 AB's this year, and he was on pace for about 230 before his release.

It's easy to say that Vernon Wells should just hit the pine, because it's not our money that would just be wasting away on the bench.  Trout needs to play everyday in the same way Brett Lawrie does, but it's a whole lot easier to give Lawrie time at third when the alternative is Edwin Encarnacion or Jayson Nix, but Trout is being blocked-ish by Torii Hunter, Vernon Wells, Peter Bourjos, Mark Trumbo, Kendrys Morales, etc.  If Trout is just replacing Abreu, he's not exactly getting a bunch of AB's (Abreu has 27 so far this year).  There are alternatives, such as releasing/benching Wells or Hunter, demoting Peter Bourjos, or finding some kind of trade alternative.

If that wasn't enough, Ryan Zimmerman was placed on the DL yesterday, and the Nationals responded by calling up the second coming of the lord, Bryce Harper.  I'm not entirely sure where they plan on playing him (probably RF, moving Werth to CF), or who goes to 3B (Morse? Laroche?), but that hardly matters at all now, does it?

Harper is 20 years old, and was drafted 1st overall two years ago, after finishing highschool a year early so he could play college ball isntead of highschool.  I highly doubt he's full-on ready for the majors, but I don't care; with Trout and Harper both making their debuts today, not to mention the fact that Stephen Strasburg is starting for the Nats, this is still a must-see day of baseball.

Stark: Jays Diligently Searching

Preface: Small sample alert, and a bunch of baseless speculation.  A dangerous combination.

A nice fresh piece of stuff comes from Jayson Stark at ESPN.  He starts with a little soothing relaxation about the Orioles' series before sneaking a quick little tidbit in about Alex Anthopoulos and the Jays' front office plans going.  Stark comments that this is a team to watch out for, even after a garbage three game set in Baltimore, and that they're "hunting diligently for another masher and another top-of-the-rotation arm."  I touched on this last week, but I kinda call bullshit here.

Kinda.

I think we all know by now that AA isn't going to freak out about anything after 19 games, positively or negatively, about his team or any other (i.e. the Boston Red Sox' slow start and injury situation).

Moreover, I think any available pitcher or masher that makes a proper fit for this organization was already traded (or extended, in the case of John Danks) this past offseason, with the exception of Matt Garza.  Trading Garza at this point in the season doesn't really make a whole lot of sense for the Cubs, since they'll probably get the same(ish) return at or around the trade deadline anyway.


It's mostly a thinking-out-loud kind of thing, but I'm wondering if the fact that both the Yankees and Red Sox have worries going forward might change anything.  The Red Sox don't have much of a rotation behind Jon lester, they have both Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford out for the foreseeable future, and have gotten a Rauchian performance out of their bullpen so far, but it's still easy to suggest that we don't overreact because there are other teams still hanging around, and the Red Sox can still bounce back (they're only like 3 games back with 143 to play).  But uh, what if the Yankees can't hang either?

Obviously we're not going to write the Yankees out after 19 games, especially when they've looked pretty good so far against every team that isn't the Texas Rangers, but suddenly, with the news of Michael Pineda being out for the rest of the year, the Yankees have a pretty scary situation brewing in their rotation, especially if another injury occurs.

With two big bats out of the Red Sox lineup, and a questionable rotation in New York (and some shaky business going on with the Angels, by the way), could AA being looking around just in case nobody picks up their socks?  Like I said, I doubt anybody is really ready to pull the trigger on dealing away an impact bat or front-end pitcher at this point in the season, so I wouldn't expect anything to happen for a little while anyway, but if the Red Sox, Yankees and Angels are all taking a step back relative to where we thought they would be, the Jays could certainly threaten for the wild card with another piece or two.

I think AA's plan would involve a guy that they can stick in to the lineup for a couple of years, as opposed to a 1-year rental guy, so the whole Red Sox/Yankees/wild card thing might not even matter as far as this trade thing goes, but I think the point still stands.  AA is always looking around, whoring himself out for value anyway, so he could totally just be scouring the market for anything useful as he typically would, and someone just happened to notice and monger a rumor, but it's definitely something worth thinking about.

(And yes, I do realize that irony of talking about playoffs immediately after making two posts that talk about how disappointed I am with the team after the last three days, so don't bother.)

Enough Stuff to Make a Post

Just a quick comment on yesterday's game and post before we get moving here.  Yesterday's post was mostly in jest, in the sense that I'm not actually going to let myself get overly upset over 3 games, even if they were all terribly contested losses.  I know that it doesn't have a whole lot to do with anything, but if, instead of going W-W-W-W-L-L-L, these last two series were made up of some kind of combination of alternating wins and losses or some non-sweep scenarios, but still finished with a 4-3 sample, I doubt I'd be complaining in this manner.  The fact of the matter is that the Orioles are playing at their peak right now, and the garbage is sure to come sooner or later.  I think we can all agree that the O's pitching staff isn't really as good as the Jays offense made them look over the last three days (or at any point so far this season), and that this Blue Jay offense hasn't really woken up yet.

I won't pussyfoot around it; the Jays haven't really played all that well so far in the regular season, save for some really nice defense, Edwin Encarnacion tearing the cover off the ball, and some nice performances by the starting pitchers in games where the offense didn't show up.  Basically, the Jays are currently 10-9, and they haven't really played to their abilities yet.  This is the kind of team that, once they finally click it together, is going to score a lot of runs and win more than their fair share of ballgames.

Let's try to keep from jumping off the bridges.

Having said all that, I think I forgot to dole out some Zaunheads lately, which, combined with getting in to a habit of saying "such and such gets a Zaunhead" and then forgetting to record it on the scoreboard... basically there should be 19 Zaunheads and 19 tally marks on the scoreboard right now, and there aren't, even if that's just a product of yesterday's rushed post.  I might go through at some point and try to verify this whole thing, but if I end up being too lazy to even bother, I think we can just say that nobody has really earned one over the last three days, save for maybe Hutchison, and leave it at that.


Stuff
Apparently Travis Snider left the 51's game last night with a jammed wrist.  Enough of this nonsense.  Drew at DJF talks about that one.

Are you embarrassed to be a Blue Jays fan?  No?  You should be now.

MLB.com looks at the Rays and their shifts, with a bonus Blue Jays mention.

Beyond the Boxscore looks at Yu Darvish's pitch repertoire, and more specifically, at a nasty shuuto pitch, or essentially a screwball/reverse slider/super 2-seamer thingy.


Ken Rosenthal went with a Jim Bowden-style "Fix the Angels" article.  This one actually makes a little more sense, probably because Rosenthal isn't senile yet, but these types of posts are almost always "get-rich-quick" schemes.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B*
Edwin DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Romero P

Mariners
Ackley 2B
Ryan SS
Ichiro RF
Smoak 1B
Montero DH
Liddi 3B
Saunders CF
Olivo C
Wells LF

Beaven P

*John Farrell, on 24 April: "Encarnacion "has emerged as our four-hole hitter right now ... That's the way we're going to go."  That lasted.

win

I'm not putting any effort in to these fucking twerps until they win a game against the Baltimore Orioles.

(Actually I just got home and don't feel like writing stuff.  Good luck Hutch.

Brett Cecil is out with a groin strain, and will miss his next start.

Dustin McGowan has been shut down with inflammation in his shoulder.  Sounds fucking awesome.)

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Lawrie 3B
Bautista RF
Encarnacion 1B
Thames LF
Francisco DH
Davis CF
Arencibia C
Vizquel 2B

Hutchison P

O's
Reimold LF
Hardy SS
Markakis RF
Jones CF
Weiters C
Davis 1B
Reynolds 3B
Johnson DH
Flaherty 2B

Matusz P

Depression

I think it has finally set in: this team is 1-3 against the Baltimore Orioles this season, and they probably deserve it.  I don't think there has really been a loss out of those three that I can look back at and say "Man, they should have won that one", though they had Tommy Hunter on the ropes pretty hard last night.  Usually when you get a mediocre pitcher like Hunter to throw 61 pitches through three innings, especially when he can't hit the glove to save his life, there should probably be a handful of runs scored at one point or another.  Of course, Kelly Johnson (ZH) was the only person to go out there and look like he didn't just wake up after a night of drinking, so that's how you can solve that one.  Of course, Henderson Alvarez was pitching, which means that the Jays were never going to score any runs anyway.

Ah well, I'm not going to dwell on it too much.  It's a long season, and there is bound to be a game like that every now and then, where even an offense as strong as this one just gets kind of stymied and can't really get the wheels turning.  We can come up with any number of factors to blame this one on, ranging from a late flight out of KC causing fatigue, to having all the players worried for their lives, since they're in Bodymore, Murdaland and anything in between.  It's just frustrating to lose to a team as meh as this one.  Again.

From the sounds of it, Eric Thames was absolutely distraught for about 20 minutes after the game, knowing that his non-catch of the Matt Weiters homerun was ultimately the difference in this game.  To me, it didn't look like he helped it over the wall, by rather was reaching up to steal a homer, but that doesn't seem to matter (nor was there a replay conclusive enough to show anything definitive).

'I was at the top of the wall and I reached up to catch it and it was off my glove and into the seats. It's as simple as that.  It all happened so fast. In my glove. I heard the crowd and I looked up saw it was in the seats. Of course, intense anger. Off the bat I had a feeling it was going to be one that I had a chance to rob, and it was, didn't bring it down.''

That probably won't do him any wonders for the Blue Jays Power Rankings on Tao of Steib, in which he ranks dead last, hilariously, might I add, behind the likes of Snider, Vizquel, Evan Crawford, and most of the minor leagues.

Stuff
When I went to find a link to that Power Ranking thing on Tao, I actually found a nice little rant on the Thames/Snider situation, so have a double dose of Tao today.

Mike Cormack of Sportsnet jumps on the pitch-framing bandwagon, and relates it to the current Blue Jays catchers.

Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star gives Kelly Johnson a nice little handjob when comparing him to other AL 2B's.

Jim Bowden of ESPN (insider) clearly lost his mind several years ago, and just in case anyone forgot, he'd like to offer 5 tips on fixing the Red Sox after their 6-10 (or whatever) start.  Excerpt:

1. Deal C Jarrod Saltalamacchia and catching prospects Blake Swihart and Ryan Lavarnway to the Arizona Diamondbacks for C Miguel Montero 

Just remember that there is probably a reason why Jim Bowden doesn't have a front office job in Major League Baseball anymore.

Tango gets all smart and technical with his computer mumbo jumbo to tell us what the Royals' 12-game losing streak means, historically.

Ryan Zimmerman might be headed to the disabled list.  Possibly related, the Nats have announced that they will not use a 6-man rotation once Chien-Ming Wang returns from the DL.  I suppose that means that they'll try to move somebody (probably John Lannan) for a stopgap 3B/INF type.

In other injury news, Carl Crawford is going to see Dr. Andrews about his elbow.  I don't wanna go starting rumors, but that could be Tommy John.  Wonder what Jim Bowden has to say about that one.

Jason Hammel pitches for the O's again tonight.  He pitched against the Jays earlier this year, lasting 5 innings and giving up 2 runs.  Looks like Nolan Reimold is still out for the O's with a neck issue, and Robert Andino has left on paternity leave.  The O's called up Jason Berken to fill the roster.  Kyle Drabek goes for the Jays.  He faced Hammel that night (I think), and was actually pretty good, pitching in to the 8th, allowing 1 earned run. Someone better be fucking with me when it comes to this lineup card.  Gotta split them lefties (against the team that only has 1 lefty in the bullpen)!

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Thames LF
Encarnacion 3B
Lawrie DH
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Drabek P

Orioles
Chavez LF
Hardy SS
Markakis RF
Jones CF
Weiters C
Davis 1B
Betemit 3B
Reynolds DH
Flaherty 2B

Hammel P

Henderson Alvarez, Going Forward

I'll preface this by saying that (1) There's nothing wrong with having a guy who can go out there and eat a bunch of innings, get a whole bunch of groundballs, and not really ever have to worry about walking too many guys, (2) he's only 22 years old, and most certainly has room for improvement, and (3) I don't think I have much of a conclusion that I'm reaching for here since I don't think I'm smart enough to judge him as a pitcher, especially considering points 1 and 2, but I'm really starting to wonder about Henderson Alvarez' ceiling as a pitcher in the AL East when he can't generate any swings-and-misses.

Now, before we lose our heads here, our sample of major league games is 14 starts, good for 90 IP.  Over those 90 innings, Alvarez has accrued 48 strikeouts (4.8/9ip), while walking just 14.  There's obviously nothing wrong with that ratio of K's to BB's, and when he's getting the kind of groundball rates that he's put up over the small sample, he's been marginally successful (though he's hit 3 batters so far, which artificially deflates his BB number), and I doubt I'd even be writing this if the team would just score some fucking runs for him.

*So what's your point Grady?*

Frankly, I'm just sitting here at work, bored stiff since I've had literally nothing to do all day, and I got to thinking: Has anybody ever succeeded in the AL East missing so few bats?  Alvarez has a 4.4% whiff rate, down from 6.6% last year, which is astonishingly low for someone who sits around 93MPH and touches 96-97.  Obviously velocity isn't the only factor to consider when evaluating whether a pitcher can dominate top-tier hitters, and neither is strikeout percentage.  I mean, to this point in the season/ his career, Alvarez has been just fine, inducing infinity groundballs per outing, getting in to the 7th inning or better each time out this year. I struggle to believe that a 4.4% whiff rate is sustainable with that velocity and movement, and I don't even know if that's really a big problem in the grand scheme of things.  Obviously, a strikeout is better than a groundball (grounders don't always equal outs, and runners can advance on groundouts), but grounders are still pretty good as far as getting guys out, especially with the way the Jays have been playing defense so far this year. Still, based on his unusually high groundball percentage, I think we can come up with a few conclusions about what his future may hold as a pitcher, assuming that GB% is at all in the area of his true talent level going forward.

The first is that his homerun rate (20.8 this year, 16.9% career) will regress.  Playing in the AL East, and having half of his innings come in the Skydome should mean that his HR-rate will be higher than your average park-neutral groundballer, but it should still stay right around league average (12.5% last I checked).

Using this custom chart on Fangraphs as a reference, of qualifying pitchers in 2011, the only groundball-heavy pitchers (47.5+%) who posted HR-rates higher than 12.5% were AJ Burnett, Chris Volstad, Mike Leake, Brett Myers, Ricky Romero, and Fausto Carmona.  It doesn't take rocket appliances to figure out that a higher GB% equals a lower FB%, and a lower FB% equals fewer homeruns.  Having said that, Hendy's groundball percentage is absurd, and is probably very unsustainable.  There are usually only a handful of guys above 50% over a full season, so anyone getting above 60% is just an anomaly that will reset itself over time.  Still, groundball frequency has a lot to do with pitch movement and location, and Alvarez has lots of movement on his fastball(s), and seems to have pretty good command of the zone.

Next, we can compare swinging strike percentage and the related fastball velocities.  Again, fastball velocity doesn't automatically equal whiffs (and actually, might be pretty unrelated, though that link is about 4-seamers), but it is harder to make contact with a 100MPH fastball than it is a 90MPH fastball. Looking at pitchers with similar whiff rates over the last three years, (between 6.9 and 4.8%), the only really good comparables to Alvarez are Ivan Nova and Justin Masterson.  Both happened to have a GB% over 50, vFB in the 92-range, and whiff rates of 6.6 and 7.5% respectively.

Something that we have to keep in mind, when looking at Alvarez' profile is that he is now facing major league hitters, who aren't simply fooled by a mediocre breaking ball, or can't catch up with hard stuff.  Even the worst of these hitters can still hit a 94MPH fastball with movement if they know it's coming, which, to me, is the big problem with Alvarez. Alvarez isn't exactly polished as a pitcher, going from A-ball to a 21 inning salute in AA to being a full-time rotation dude.  He doesn't have anything that could really be considered as a knockout secondary pitch to compliment his (pretty good) fastball, so until that develops, we've found the meat of the (possibly non-)issue, and working on developing that in the AL East probably isn't a great idea.  The slider and changeup are definitely there (as in, they exist), but are far from polished.  We're seeing a lot of sliders in the dirt and a lot of changes missing way outside to lefties (and this could be by design, given the movement), but I'd say he's predominantly relying on the fastball, to the point where most batters are sitting on it in most counts and forgetting about the rest.

Basically, this was just a wordy, roundabout way of saying that Henderson Alvarez needs to sharpen up the slider and/or changeup if he's going to get more swinging strikes and be successful in the AL East.  There are too many good hitters (not to mention unfriendly ballparks) to allow that much contact.  If he doesn't evolve in to the type of guy who will miss a crap-ton of bats in the future, it's not like he becomes useless, and it really appears that Brandon Morrow is actively working lower in the zone (small sample alert), trying to induce more groundball contact at the expense of his whiff-rate and strikeouts, so this might just be something that the Jays' management is working on with their pitchers, making me and this post essentially useless.  It's not like Morrow wasn't really homer-prone though, which isn't exactly a problem someone with a GB% of >50% (i.e. Alvarez) should ever have.

I dunno, just thinking out loud.

Bloltimore

He looks smart, doesn't he?  Well folks, it's not all smoke and mirrors.  According to John Lott, Edwin Encarnacion is now firmly cemented as the #4 hitter, moving Adam Lind to fifth against righties and "who fucking cares?" against lefties.  So yeah, it took a while, and it's still a work in progress, but that's not bad.

What else?  The Jays are in Baltimore now, having left late last night and probably getting in at fucking 2AM or something.  Fortunately, it's Baltimore, and that's where the Orioles play.  It's not that they're terrible, it's just that they don't have any pitching whatsoever, which makes them completely useless, especially in this division.  And hey, the Jays just took 4 straight from a team that has a good lineup and no pitching!

If it wasn't bad enough for them, Nolan Reimold will probably be out for tonight's game, and will be day-to-day going forward, as he has a strained neck and spasms.  Robert Andino will also be out after tonight's game because he made a baby and that shit is set to drop any minute now.  Finally, "ace" Jim Johnson is probably out for at least tonight's game, since he spent last night in hospital with the flu.  I assume they're going to try and quarantine him away from the rest of the team so they don't all get the shits, but I can't confirm or disconfirm that.  All of that stuff came from this link.

Five in a row?

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Edwin DH
Lind 1B
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Thames LF
Mathis C

Alvarez P

O's
Chavez LF
Hardy SS
Markakis
Jones CF
Weiters C
Davis 1B
Betemit DH
Flaherty 3B
Andino 2B

Hunter P

This Beat Goes On

I mean, they're the Royals, but a sweep is a sweep, especially when it is of the 4-game variety.  The Royals just  opted to bunt a lot and run their way in to the ground, and it didn't hurt that the only decent pitchers that the Royals have can be found in the bullpen.

Anyway, Kelly Johnson had himself a real bastard of a game last night, with a homerun, two walks, and a real defensive gem.  I hope the butthead that left a comment on this post saw that game (though Hill has 0.5WAR already this year, compared to KJ's 0.7, sooo....).  (The .gif is a quick look if you somehow missed it (courtesy of fangraphs, via blue jay hunter).  Anyway, that's a Zaunhead.

I thought that Brandon Morrow looked good not great, but I think his evolution in to a guy who doesn't strike out 10 guys per game isn't quite finished yet.  Morrow got 12 groundball outs, striking out only 3, but walking just one.  I'll gladly trade the strikeouts for fewer homeruns allowed, but obviously if he's only striking out 4 guys per 9, the walkrate has to drop as well.  He's probably been unlucky this year as far as homeruns go, but it's been three starts and his profile as a pitcher has changed a little bit (more curves, fewer 4-seamers, etc), so we might have to give him a bit of time to get used to himself.

So yeah, 4-game sweep, albeit against a team who has lost like 11 straight games or something.  Next up is Baltimore, and uh, how about we get a better effort this time?

Stuff
Sergio Santos saw a doctor yesterday, and the news was about as expected.  The MRI showed nothing broken or messed up, but just inflammation in the shoulder. He'll be shut down for 10-14 days, which means he should be gone for about 3 weeks total, give or take, after everything is said and done with regards to building back up endurance and rehab stints in the minors and whatnot.  I'm not quite sure if three weeks is long enough to Francisco Cordero to suck hard enough to lose his closer role or not, but I'm guessing I'll be pretty frustrated with this dude before too long.

John Farrell was on the Jeff Blair show yesterday morning.  I've yet to listen to this, so I don't really know what to expect, but here it is.  Related, Jon Morosi was on the same show on the 20th.  I also haven't listened to that yet, but it's probably worth a listen, and is certainly worth linking.

Jair Jurrjens got sent down to AAA Gwinnet after his disaster of a start to the season.  Jurrjens was part of several trade rumors this offseason, and I know that more than one person on my twitter feed was calling for AA to go out and get him.  Jurrjens, of course, stinks and is finally regressing to a performance that better represents his rate stats.

Fangraphs has a quick look at Shaun Marcum and his bevy of offspeed junk.

Young Ricky Swagger

Nice, that's nice.  Richard Romero with 8 innings, 5 hits.  Really, just one rough inning, and even then, one of the runs was a function of a botched double play throw by Yunel Escobar.  Usually, I'd give the Zaunhead to Ricky, just by default for going 8 innings, but Jose Bautista got on base 4 times.  Some slump.

Morrow tonight against Bruce Chen.  It would appear that Farrell didn't want to give Lind back-to-back days off with consecutive lefties, but he's finally come to his senses and moved Lind down a bit in the order.  I am beyond speech.

Some gif's for you, including a gif of the year candidate, since I don't really have a whole lot to link for you this afternoon:

#1: Aubrey Huff's disappearance, explained.

#2: The Brett Lawrie padded high-five.

#3: A guy on TV

That's enough.

Lineups, courtesy of the Jays themselves.  I'm really not doing much of my own work today.

First Career Win

That kind of performance shows you just how much meaning the win has for a pitcher.  Drew Hutchison, in his major league debut, went 5.1 innings, allowing 5 runs on 8 hits and 3 walks, but because Luis Mendoza was slightly more terrible, Hutch gets a W beside his name.

I'm pretty amazed that Hutchison was even given the chance to come back out for the 6th inning, since he was clearly kind of gassed, and was having a fair amount of trouble finding the zone.  I haven't looked at his heat maps or pitchf/x charts or anything yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say he threw too many balls, which led to a lot of working behind in the count, which led to fastballs down the middle of the plate, which led to Alex Gordon taters.  I'm sure there was a babip issue there, seeing as Alcides Escobar had four hits, but meh.  In hindsight, it was cool to get 4 innings out of Villanueva and Oliver, especially if Santos is down for two weeks.  I thought it was weird to see Oliver go 1.2IP, but it turns out he only threw 16 pitches, so whatever.

I'm not sure if anybody else noticed, but Colby Rasmus spitting hot fire lately, and earned his 4th (!) Zaunhead of the year with last night's performance.  The bottom 3 of the order (Lawrie, Rasmus, JPA) went 7-for-12, accounting for half of the hits, meanwhile Jose Bautista was 0-for-5.

I was wondering why Sergio Santos wasn't brought in to finish the game once two guys got on base in the bottom of the 9th, but that's been put to bed; Santos was placed on the 15-day DL with shoulder inflammation.  That isn't good news.  Apparently Francisco Cordero will be the closer in his absence, and Evan Crawford has been recalled from AA New Hampshire.

Sergio Santos was placed on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder inflammation, Evan Crawford recalled atmlb.com/I2BkAV via @bluejays
— Blue Jays-Official(@BlueJays) April 22, 2012

Ricky Romero goes against Danny Duffy today in an afternoon game.  I don't know a whole lot about Duffy, but apparently he got tagged last June against the Jays?  I certainly don't remember that, but I'm seeing 5 runs and 8 hits over 4 innings.  Either way, he's looked good so far this year with a couple of strong outings against Oakland and Detroit.  He's a lefty, so expect Rajai Davis to play.  Romero has been bad, good and bad over his first three starts respectively, so this one should be good unless I'm bad at patterns.

Stuff
JP Arencibia and Brett Lawrie do a joke interview.

You can watch all 27 outs from Phil Humber's perfect game in about 6 minutes.  What the fuck are you swinging at Brendan Ryan?

Yesterday's Red Sox-Yankees game is a thing of beauty.


Source: FanGraphs

And speaking of the Red Sox, they acquired Marlon Byrd, and his -59 wRC+ to replace Jacoby Ellsbury, in exchange for Michael Bowden and a PTBNL (seriously?  Another PTBNL fiasco with these two teams?).  The Cubs will be paying most of Byrd's salary.

Lineups will be up when they're up, I guess.


Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Vizquel 2B (note: What?)
Bautista RF
Edwin 1B
Rasmus CF
Lawrie 3B
Francisco DH
Davis LF
Arencibia C

Romero P

Royals
Bourgeois CF
Gordon LF
Butler DH
Hosmer 1B
Betancourt 2B
Francoeur RF
Moustakas 3B
Quintero C
Escobar SS

Duffy P

Hutch

Fast.  I had heard that Adam Lind was out, and that Eric Thames would be batting 5th for some reason (presumably to stagger lefties and righties... I don't think this matters nearly as much as you think it does Johnboy).  Someone lied though.  Kansas is countering with Yuniesky Betancourt in the leadoff spot, since they would prefer to ease Hutch in to his big league career with an out.

Phillip Humber threw a perfect game against the Mariners today.  Typically, I'd say something like "It doesn't count because it's Seattle" but now that I think about it, the only perfect game that would count in the last few years would be Dallas Braden's against the Rays.  Still, pretty sick.

Give JP the ZH for yesterday.

Cecil to the 7-day DL with a groin strain.

Good luck kid.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Edwin DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Hutch P

Royals
Betancourt 2B
Gordon LF
Butler DH
Hosmer 1B
Francoeur RF
Pena C
Moustakas 3B
Escobar SS
Maier CF

Mendoza P

Tampa Bay Ray Stay Away

Too much fucking Tampa.  Their style is both entertaining and effective, but just don't do it against the Jays man.  At least it's just the Royals this weekend.  Anyway, I'm sleepy from working today and I'm probably going to go drink a bunch now, so this will likely be brief.

If I'm not mistaken, Edwin got on base three times yesterday (ZH), and nobody else really went out of their way to look good after the third inning or so, save for JP Arencibia, who, as it happens, couldn't catch a throw from RF.  Henderson Alvarez looked pretty mediocre, and didn't really get much help from John Farrell, who, again, didn't yank his homer-prone starter until it was a little late.

I think the big news du jour is the revelation that tomorrow's starter will be Drew Hutchison, the 21-year old 2009 5th rounder.  I talked a bit about Hutchison yesterday, though I didn't think it would mean anything since I figure he shouldn't be called up yet, given his 230-ish professional innings, including 30 or so above A-ball.  But, if they think he's ready, who am I to say anything different, right?  All I can do is snark on the internet when it all goes awry, since I wasn't sitting there telling everybody that he should come up.  It's not like there's any option that's a whole lot better; in a perfect world, you're bringing up someone who gives the team a chance to win without mortgaging the future development and service time, but all the options were either crappy, or young and slightly raw.  If they really wanted Joel Carreno to pitch, they'd have probably altered his throwing calendar in some way.

The Jays optioned Evan Crawford to AA New Hampshire to make room for Hutchison (or they will, if they haven't yet), and transfered Jesse Litsch to the 60-day DL to make room on the 40-man.

It looks like Brett Cecil left his start last night after the first inning with an apparently groin strain, according to Barry Davis of sportsnet.  Not sure how serious it is.

By the way, just as a little reminder and a sort of "relax, it's still early" kind of thing, tonight's pitcher, Kyle Drabek, looked pretty good after two starts last season, before shittiness set in and he went crazy before getting sent down.  This isn't to say that Drabek hasn't figured out the control/command issues, but two starts just isn't very much in the parlance of a season.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Encarnacion DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Drabek P

Royals
You don't post your lineup, I don't put it up.  Fuck you.

Getaway Day Preview

Hendy tonight.  Hope he keeps it going in the right direction.  He'll take on Jeremy Hellickson, against whom, Jose Bautista is a career 4-for-5 with a tater.  How's that for a sample?

Some stuff for you before we get to the lineups.  First, it would appear that Saturday, when the Jays need a fifth starter to come up, they plan on using either Jesse Chavez or Drew Hutchison, according to Gregor's twitter.  Other candidates included Aaron Laffey, Brett Cecil, and Joel Carreno.  Chavez was DFA'ed by the Royals in October of last year, and claimed by the Jays.  They then DFA'ed him, but got him through waivers to outright him down to AAA, so he'll need to be added to the 40-man if he pitches.  Hutchison was drafted in 2009 in the 15th round (late due to signability issues), and is 21 years old.  He's made 6 starts in AA New Hampshire between this year and last, and has an ERA under 2 over 31 innings, where he has a WHIP under 1 and a 33:5 K-to-bb ratio.  I expect Chavez.

Looks like we might be getting a Rays fan to come to the dark (i.e.: blue) side.

I don't really have anywhere to confirm or disconfirm this, but I'm hearing some rumblings about the roof at the dome being open.  Apparently it was open all day today, which happens every now and then.  Obviously, the issue is whether or not it is warm enough now and will remain warm enough in to the evening/night in Toronto.

Lineups
Jays

Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Encarnacion DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Alvarez P

Rays

Jennings CF
Zobrist RF
Pena 1B
Longoria 3B
Scott DH
Joyce LF
Keppinger 2B
Molina C
Rodriguez SS

Hellickson P

That Thing I Said...

... about the offense coming alive?  Yeah, heh.  It looked like this one was going to be a big old marathon full of homers and constant runs, but then Toronto was like "nah, we're not in the mood, you guys go ahead", which sounds a lot like my idea of what sex is.

I mean, to further my rapey sex analogy, it wasn't really as bad as it sounded, because for 8 innings, the game was reasonably within reach, and probably could have been closer had Morrow been yanked earlier the way he should have.  The Jays had 2 men on in the 8th inning and certainly could have made a game of it, but Tampa got out of that inning and then scored like 6 runs in the 9th just to kind of finally say "listen, I'm tired and going to bed, but I'm getting laid first.  You can either enjoy it, or we're just going to rape you" and Farrell, not in the mood for a rape, said "Why don't you have Carlos Villanueva?"  Villanueva, having not pitched since like the 2nd game of the season, was all dry and cobwebbed down there, and needed some foreplay, which explains the walks, and then immediately took one to the asshole when he wasn't watching.

So yeah, that small sample narrative about the Rays having scored like 26 runs in their last 7 games can be put to rest, and so can the one about the Jays having some outrageous run differential through their first ten.

Having said that, the Jays put up 12 hits last night (plus two walks), so I'd hesitate to say that offense is the problem, even if they did only score two runs.  Sometimes that kind of thing just happens and double plays get in the way, and sometimes you just get a guy or two on base every inning, only to get Joe Morgan mad by not hitting well with runners in scoring position.  If we can let cooler heads prevail on that piece of silliness, I think we can all agree that if you get 12 hits and 2 walks, especially against a pitcher like David Price, the runs are going to come at a higher rate than 2 per game.

Don't look now, but Yunel Escobar had 4 hits last night (ZH), and Colby Rasmus hit the ball hard twice.  Escobar, after starting like 2-for-23 or something, has the batting average up to .263.  Rasmus, meanwhile, is up to .231, which is higher than Kelly Johnson, by the way.  Bautista got on base three times, and Luis Perez threw two perfect innings, striking out four.  It's not all bad, kids.  And I may as well remind you now that even the best team in the league this year will lose 60-ish games, so one loss, in the grand scheme of things, blowout or not, doesn't really amount to a whole lot.

Stuff
Alex Anthopoulos spoke with Jim Bowden of the MLB Network (MLBTR thread here), and said that he'd like to add another impact bat, more so than adding an impact arm to his rotation.  Interesting.  Obviously, these things can change with performances and injuries, but reading between the lines, and I'm not entirely sure where he's looking to add, the obvious points of focus can be 1B/DH and left field.  I would be shocked if Edwin were going anywhere, but I can certainly see AA getting tired of Adam Lind, if he doesn't regain his 2009 form quickly.  If Lind is the guy getting dumped in this hypothetical scenario, there are alternatives to bringing in a strict 1B.  Edwin could be moved to 1B to make room for another DH-type, or Bautista could go to 1B to make room for another outfielder, assuming that's the eventual plan with him (which, if it isn't, it should be, based on absolutely everything but his arm).  Of course, if they don't think Snider is ready to come up, and Thames keeps being his mediocre self, they could throw another LF in to the mix.  I'm not sure who would be available at the moment, but after a month or so, we should be able to at least get an idea about which teams are going to quit on us and make some guys available.

Doug Walton is a Jays Producer for sportsnet, perhaps?  I say that just judging from his twitter handle, but he drops a little blast of interesting on us:

Travis Snider leads PCL in OPS...has more walks than strikeouts #Jays
— Doug Walton (@JaysProducer) April 19, 2012

Now, this OPS business doesn't tell us a whole helluva lot, seeing as Snider has seen AAA in parts of four separate seasons, piling up 605 PA's according to his baseball-reference page, and they play in the Arlington of the AAA leagues in Las Vegas, but it's certainly a little encouraging.  That walks>K's thing is always nice to hear as well, but again, probably isn't a whole lot more than white noise.  It's something though, I suppose.

If you missed it, Matt Cain and Cliff Lee had some duelling shutouts last night. Lee actually threw 10 innings and 102 pitches, only to come out of the game and immediately see his team lose.  Cain answered with 9 innings of 2 hit ball (that makes 3 hits and 1 walk over his last 18 IP/two starts).  This 11 inning game lasted an hour less than the 9 inning Jays game.

Here's your official 2012 draft order.  We kind of knew what to expect, thanks to the internet, but we can rehash.  The Jays will pick 17th overall, thanks to their record last season, and will then pick 22nd overall due to their inability to sign Tyler Beede last year.  They'll get three more picks in the compensation round; 50th overall for losing Frank Francisco, 58th overall for losing Jon Rauch (getting compensation for "losing" Jon Rauch doesn't sound right), and 60th for losing Jose Molina.

Apparently hitting a baseball is "Clearly impossible", according to a professor at Yale.

Finally, here's a gif of Bautista's padded high-five with Lawrie the other night.

Offense Comes Alive

Is this an original idea?  Google didn't really tell me much when I typed that in, but I can't possibly believe that I'm the first person to come up with such an idea.  Either way, four partially-related thoughts:

Anyway, yeah that was nice.  You can always rely on a good batch of offense when Jeff Niemann comes to town.  That Bautista homer was a fucking blast, and he just looked like he had a nice little game for himself anyway, no matter what the stat sheets say.  The timing and approach looked a little better, plus he had a cute little play to throw out Carlos Pena at 2B in the first inning.  As referenced yesterday, Adam Lind continues to demolish Jeff Niemann.  Lind actually had three hits and a walk last night, and is probably going to need to get himself a Zaunhead.

I'd like to point out that, despite going a combined 1-for-7 (plus a walk), both JP Arencibia and Colby Rasmus got some good swings in and hit the ball pretty hard.  JPA even complained on twitter about hitting the ball hard three times and having nothing to show for it, and I'm pretty sure I pointed out the other day that Rasmus has an xbabip (expected babip, based on line drive%, groundball% and flyball%) of like .400, but a babip of like .200.  So yeah, it's early, and we should be able to look past the batting averages of .200 and .063, since the balls are going to start falling in if they keep hitting them hard.  That, plus defense.  I might make a whole post out of this soon, but I'm not going to shit my pants about it after 9 games or whatever when even a full season isn't a big enough sample for stuff like babip.

Ricky didn't appear incredibly sharp last night, but this post at DRaysBay will explain that, at least partially.  I'm not sure if this works perfectly, since Romero is one of those reverse-splits pitchers, but the point is still the same: Romero's changeup is neutralized against lefties, though he's counteracted that with increased curveball use so far this season (at least he did against the Red Sox).  It's a good read, and is just another example of how far ahead of the game the Rays are.

Umm, Mr. Farrell, can we speak candidly, for a moment?  Top of the 8th inning:

Pitcher Change: Francisco Cordero replaces Jason Frasor.
1.Carlos Pena singles on a bunt ground ball to shortstop Yunel Escobar.
With Evan Longoria batting, wild pitch by Francisco Cordero, Carlos Pena to 2nd.
2.Evan Longoria flies out to right fielder Jose Bautista.
3.Luke Scott walks.
4.Ben Zobrist strikes out swinging.
5.Matt Joyce called out on strikes.

What the fuck is this shit? Oh right, Cordero is the "8th inning guy".  Seriously, get your lefties in to the ball game against the good lefty batters.  Perez vs. Pena, Cordero/Janssen vs. Longoria, Oliver vs. Scott, Zobrist and Joyce.  This is fucking easy and makes me furious when major league managers, getting paid multiple million a year, get this so terribly wrong.  The worst thing is, if it were the 7th inning, this almost certainly would have been handled correctly.

Rays come to town

Quickly now, I'm going to go try and sneak in a few holes at the local pitch n' putt.  Ricky tonight.  And Tampa isn't very good against lefties!  And Ricky crushed the Rays last year!  That means they win tonight.  And yes, I'm aware of what the Baltimore Orioles did last year, but that didn't count, so fuck you.

Anyway, that stuff about Ricky Romero and last year, and I'm plagiarizing this from the Yahoo! preview of the game... Romero went 3-0 against the Rays in 6 starts last season with a 2.02 ERA, holding Rodriguez, Zobrist, Longoria, Jennings and Joyce to a .088 average.  Carlos Pena and Luke Scott are 2 for 22 career against Romero as well.

Jeff Niemann, on the other hand, sucks.  Adam Lind is like 12-for-22 or something like that vs. Niemann over his career.

Day off for former Jay Jose Molina.

Stuff (AKA things I read at work today)
Notgraphs strikes again.  Are you a Jays' fan?  Of course you are.  Unless you're reading this as a personal favor to me.  Which you shouldn't.

MLB Daily Dish talks about how it's time to either play Travis Snider or to trade him.  No kidding.  He's only 24 though.

Dave at fangraphs knows why I hate watching Red Sox games.

Not that anyone cares, but an update for my fantasy teams.  I'm leading 1, 2nd in 3, 3rd in 1, and dead last in 1.  That last one has Tim Lincecum.  Ugh.

Lineups
Rays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Encarnacion DH
Thames LF
Lawrie 3B
Rasmus CF
Arencibia C

Romero P

Rays
Jennings CF
Pena 1B
Longoria 3B
Scott DH
Zobrist RF
Joyce LF
Rodriguez 2B
Brignac SS
Gimenez C

Niemann P

Kevin Gregg, ladies and gents

Kevin Gregg makes me feel better about like 90% of life's problems.  If  you were watching hockey instead of baseball, the Jays scored 7 runs in the 6th inning last night, most of which after Kevin Gregg came in to the game, turning the game from a 1-run defecit to a complete runaway.  Kyle Drabek was excellent for his second straight start, mostly due to pitching against Baltimore, but also not walking a bunch of guys the way he did last year.  Edwin Encarnacion had 2 hits and a walk in 5 plate appearances, including the homerun the started the whole rally, and he'll get the day's Zaunhead.

I'd like to touch a bit more on Kevin Gregg's hilarious outing and general shittiness.  Gregg entered the ball game after the Edwin homer, where the O's had a 26.4% chance of winning the game, according to Fangraphs.  A 1-run deficit isn't the end of the world, so that 26% is well within reach with a few innings left in the game.  Gregg entered the game, and immediately allowed Jeff Mathis, the worst hitter ever, to reach on a single, scoring Ben Francisco.  Yunel Escobar and Kelly Johnson hit back-to-back RBI doubles, before Jose Bautista walked.  Edwin Encarnacion then walked to load the bases, and Brett Lawrie was hit by a pitch, scoring a run.  Ben Francisco finally grounded out for Gregg's first out, and a standing ovation from trolling Jays' fans.  Overall, Gregg subtracted 25.4% from the Orioles chances of winning, for a massive meltdown, helping the Jays more than any of their own players.  I feel like I should give him the Zaunhead.

The Jays offered Gregg arbitration after the 2010 season, which he turned down, in order to sign a multi-year deal with the Orioles, where he signed for 2 years and $10MM, plus a $6MM club option for next season.  Gregg was a type-B free agent, by virtue of getting saves, probably, and was worth a compensation pick in last year's draft.  The Jays chose Dwight Smith Jr. with that pick, and it would only be fitting that he becomes a superstar.

Anyway, it's an offday today, before the Rays come to town.  They're pretty busy getting destroyed by the injury plagued Red Sox, who have scored 31 runs so far in that series.  Probably a pretty good time to play the Rays.

Stuff
Speaking of the Red Sox, Bobby Valentine said this about his starting third baseman:

I don't think he's as physically or emotionally into the game as he has been in the past for some reason. But [on Saturday] it seemed, you know, he's seeing the ball well, got those two walks, got his on-base percentage up higher than his batting average, which is always a good thing, and he'll move on from there.

 Are you serious?  Why would you say that?  In Boston, of all places.  Bobby being Bobby.

The Dodgers got a triple play last night, helping them move to 9-1 on the season, mostly thanks to playing the San Diego Padres  in 6 of those games.  This one is in .gif form.

Nowhere Plans' baseball power rankings are up.  I think this is going to be a weekly thing, but maybe not.

Finally, Giants' closer Brian Wilson appears to be out for the season with elbow issues.  He'll probably be going for Tommy John, again.

Catching Up

Got too drunk! Needed sushi!  Didn't write!  And really, uhh... uninspiring play, so fuck it.

Zaunheads going back to Friday's game... you see, here's the problem; we can look at the win probability leaderboard from fangraphs and see that Adam Lind was the Jay with the highest WPA, despite going 0-for-3 with a walk, but fuck him.  Going by process of elimination, Rasmus and Bautista were the only people to get on base twice, and even Bautista had a negative WPA.  Rasmus was the best of a bad thing, I guess, so he's going to get it, even if I feel dirty about it.  John Farrell, by the way, really mismanaged his bullpen, leaving Darren Oliver in there for way too long.

Next, for yesterday's game, Rasmus was clearly the best Blue Jay on the field, with 3 hits and a nice little catch in CF.  Don't look now, but Rasmus is your runaway Zaunhead leader for the season, thanks to his ever-elusive double-Zaunhead.  I'm not sure that makes his doubters a bunch of jerks, or just tells us that this offense really has to pick up their pants, or if it's some combination of both.  Shows you how the small sample of 7 games matters-- he's batting .214/.258/.393 on the season, thanks to a rough start.  Kelly Johnson, meanwhile, has only 1, despite being the Jays leader in HR's, runs, WAR, and probably everything else.  Basically, ZH's are completely useless and just for fun, kind of like RBI's.

 Hey, Brett Lawrie: If you don't mind, try not to steal home with Jose Bautista up, the bases loaded, and 2 outs in the inning.  Hammel is a shit-baller, and the runs are going to come if he keeps throwing straight 90-MPH fastballs over the middle of the zone, so let's try and allow the best hitter on the team to do his thing out there, huh?  There are a few quotes here on the situation from Lawrie and Farrell.

Stuff

For those wondering, #bluejays closer Sergio Santos was in the clubhouse following Saturday's game is active for Sunday vs. #orioles.
— Mike Cormack (@MikeCormack) April 15, 2012

So there you go.  Santos has been activated from the paternity list, so I assume everything went well with that childbirth thingy.  Aaron Laffey has been sent back to AAA without even appearing in a game.  Evan Crawford was called up the other day when Santos went on the PL, but gets to stay at the expense of Laffey.

It appears that Brandon Morrow was suffering from blood-sugar nonsense Friday night, thanks to his diabeetus.  Excuses excuses.


Dustin Mcgowan is set to resume throwing, according to Gregor.

A really nice piece at Baseball Prospectus about command and control, from Adam Sobsey.

It was Gregg Zaun's birthday yesterday, and I'm going to guess that he got laid.

I think today is the Jackie Robinson day, where everybody wears his number 42 and probably gets a nice big video package memorial thing.


Today: Drabek.  Let's try and beat Baltimore today, please.  I'm guessing Nolan Reimold is this year's version of JJ Hardy, in terms of fucking the Blue Jays hard.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Edwin 1B
Lawrie 3B
Francisco DH
Rasmus CF
Davis LF
Mathis C

Drabek P

Orioles are taking forever to announce their lineup, so I'm guessing
Reimold LF
Hardy SS
Markakis RF
Jones CF
Weiters C
Betemit 3B
Reynolds DH
Davis 1B
Andino 2B

Jays vs. O's, Friday the 13th

"Hey Brandon, you're facing a tough team tonight... pfft hahaha."

Yeah, so JJ Hardy isn't getting the weekend off.  Shit break, I know.  Whatever.  Anyway, as recently mentioned, Sergio Santos is away from the team for a few days, and the Jays have reportedly placed him on the Paternity List, which, at last check, is a real thing.  The paternity list is kind of like a little mini-disabled list, which allows them to call up another player in his absence.  Evan Crawford is the lucky fella this time around.  He's had three appearances in AA New Hamsphire and has pitched 4 innings of shutout ball over three appearances.  Joel Carreno was sent down to the minors less than a week ago, which precludes him from being called back up (unless an injury occurs) for 10 days.

MLBTR calls this a make-or-break year for Adam Lind.  I dunno man, he had a good season in 2009, he should be given another couple of seasons to make sure...

If you were at the home opener, you can find yourself and tag a picture of your drunk ass, and then tell reddit about it.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Encarnacion DH
Lawrie 3B
Thames LF
Arencibia C
Rasmus CF

Morrow P

Orioles
Reimold LF
Hardy SS
Markakis RF
Jones CF
Weiters C
Betemit 3B
Reynolds DH
Davis 1B
Andino 2B

Hunter P

First Place (tie)!

It's convenient that I didn't write anything yesterday, because the Rays lost to the Tigers, giving me a topical title, since that put them back in to a tie for first in the AL East with our Toronto Blue Jays.

Just a few housekeeping items today, since I probably won't be around when lineups get posted, but who knows.  We owe Ricky Romero a Zaunhead, and Sergio Santos an apology for Wednesday's game.  Romero looked a little shaky in the second inning, giving up a few hard liners in the 2nd inning, if I remember correctly, and then obviously the walks in the 9th, but he was pretty fantastic for the rest of it, getting 17 consecutive Red Sox out at one point.  Sergio Santos also came in slammed the door.  His appearance had a leverage index of like 3.91 or something ridiculous like that, and he just went and got a strikeout and groundout. So yeah, call for his head after two appearances all you want, just make sure you shut your damn mouth immediately afterwards.

Anyway, Baltimore comes to town tonight for a weekend set.  They started the season 3-0, by virtue of playing pretty well, and playing three games against the Twins.  They answered that hot start by getting swept by the Yankees, though they did a nice job of getting the Yanks to use up some bullpen arms.  Brandon Morrow, Henderson Alvarez, and Kyle Drabek will pitch these three games for the Jays.  Tommy Hunter goes for the O's.  Hopefully JJ Hardy gets the weekend off.

Stuff
Something Jays-related that I read yesterday while at work was this piece about Blue Jay prospects by Jason Parks (@professorParks on twitter) of Baseball Prospectus.  Really taking the negatives here, but meh.

Fangraphs examines Tim Lincecum's early season struggles.

A couple defensive blunders were captured in .gif form last night.  First, Torii Hunter runs in to a wall:

And then Matt Garza, looking to close out his complete game, misses 1B by 12 rows.

Finally, fun factoid of the day: Madison Bumgarner and Jamie Moyer faced each other in the COL-SF matchup.  Moyer, 49, is 27 years older than Bumgarner, 22.  That is the largest discrepancy in age between two opposing starters since 1965.  These hilarious Moyer facts just never quit.

Getaway Day

That was a fun little beating, huh?  It was definitely fun to see Kyle Drabek pitch well for the first 5 innings, though he really lost the zone in the 6th.  I'm not sure if that was something mental or if he was getting fatigued or what, but it would definitely be nice to see him stretch out and get deeper in to ball games.  I found that he was really losing control from the stretch, though that might just be some kind of selection bias.  I'll give Edwin Encarnacion, though he did a lot of his damage in situations that weren't exactly high leverage, but whatever, he was 2 for 3 with a walk and a tater.  And those steals!

I'm not overly fussy about what I'm seeing from Jose Bautista, but I'm sure he's eventually going to get a hold of one of those pitches that he's flailing at smash one 500 feet, but until then, I'd say he's pressing (according to my twitter feed, I'm not the only one who thinks that either).

One more against the Nomah's.  Ricky Romero gets the start today against Jon Lester. Lester has historically beaten the shit out of the Jays, though this edition of the Blue Jays doesn't necessarily have anything to do with those numbers, since he's had Corey Patterson and Lyle Overbay dragging those numbers down.  Romero, on the other hand, has a career ERA over 7 against the Red Sox, which probably means more than the Lester stuff, considering Ortiz, Ellsbury, Pedroia, but again, not that much stock should go in to this.  Afternoon start today, btw.

Sergio Santos will leave the team after today's game to be with his wife, who is set to give birth to their third child.  He's supposedly going to be back with the team Saturday, but will miss Friday's game against Baltimore.

Colby Rasmus is going to get a day off, with the lefty pitcher throwing for Boston today.  I think I'd rather let him play again, and sit Thames considering the way Rasmus has been hitting the ball for the last two days, but this isn't really a big deal either way.  Thames has already gotten a day off, and Rasmus can come in later on as a defensive replacement for the hilariously bad-at-defense Thames if necessary.  Adam Lind will get himself a day off too, but as far as I can tell, neither are injured in any way.

Finally, Mark Reynolds is good at defense:

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Encarnacion 1B
Francisco DH
Lawrie 3B
Thames LF
Arencibia C
Davis CF

Romero P

Nomah
Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Youkilis 3B
Ortiz DH
McDonald RF
Ross LF
Aviles SS
Shoppach C

Lester P

Reds Extend Phillips

I'm just going to make this your preview post for tonight's game, because I'm lazy like that.  The Reds have decided to give Brandon Phillips 6 years, and $72.5MM, locking him up through his age 36 season.  I, for one, chuckle at this deal, and think that Phillips got a complete steal with this one, especially when you consider what Ian Kinsler signed for earlier today/last night, and find it pretty hard to believe that the Reds will find any surplus through this contract (assuming a vacuum; this could have some kind of affect on a TV deal, or maybe they can justify it if they win a world series over the next two seasons).

Phillips is noticeably a worse player than Kinsler is when comparing WAR, as well as most of your other stats (though Kinsler has the advantage of playing half of his games in a bandbox, he also has tougher competition).  Kinsler has been worth ~5WAR/season over the last three years, with some excellent defense, and is a year younger than Phillips, so it's not really a surprise that Kinsler is getting a better annual value.  Phillips, meanwhile, has been worth ~3.5WAR/season over the last three, with a significant edge in games played.

In order for these contracts to be worthwhile to their respective teams, both will need to provide about 13 wins above replacement, which doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering the 5 and 6 year contracts.  It's not that I think the Phillips deal is bad for the Reds, it's just that the Kinsler deal is so much better for the Rangers, especially considering the fact that they're a better team already, and that Kinsler is a year younger.

As it stands right now, I can see Kinsler being worth 15+ WAR over the course of his deal (though that becomes much less likely if Kinsler moves to the outfield, as Dave Cameron from fangraphs suggests), giving a nice surplus to the Rangers, whereas Phillips I struggle to give the same prediction.  The Rangers have a better team right now, and that makes it a much more reasonable choice to extend Kinsler, since they can feasibly pay more than market value for a win (even if they probably won't).  The Reds are pretty good, and will contend this year, but I'd definitely give the Rangers a better chance at winning a championship over the course of these two contracts, especially when the Astros switch divisions next season.

Simply, the Phillips deal is right around market value, so it isn't that bad at all in a vacuum. Relative to the Kinsler deal signed less than 24 hours earlier, however, this deal stinks.

Tonight
Jays v Red Sox again.  Kyle Drabek will pitch for the Jays, and hopefully can keep things under control and all that junk, instead of giving us more of what we got last year.  Daniel Bard will pitch for the Red Sox.  I don't expect dick from Bard this year, in his first year as a starter.  He was unimpressive all spring (yeah, I know), and was also unimpressive when he used to be a starter before being converted to the bullpen (before being converted to a starter).  It seems as though he was working on a changeup last year, and I can only assume he's been working on it even more this spring.  For his sake, I fucking hope so, because he's not going to survive in the AL East as a fastball/slider guy if he's only throwing his changeup 7% of the time, or however often it was that he threw it last year.

I watched PTI yesterday, and Tony Kornheiser said that the most important thing for a playoff team is a closer.  Naturally, I facepalmed, but he went on to say that he worries about the Red Sox because they don't have a closer.  Not because the rotation isn't very good, but because they don't have a closer.

I also watched some of primetime sports today, mostly because I wanted to hear what that idiot had to say about the Jays game yesterday.  Instead, he had one of  the Dragon's Den guys on and they spoke for about 20 minutes about not sports.  Not sure how everything went after 5PM, because that was about all I could handle.  As an aside, I'd like to posit that Pedroia gets pitched soft and away, for a change, instead of letter-high fastballs.

Lineups
Jays
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
EE DH
Lawrie 3B
Thames LF
Arencibia C
Rasmus CF

Drabek P

Red Fux
Ellsbury CF
Pedroia 2B
Gonzalez 1B
Ortiz DH
Youkilis 3B
Sweeney RF
Ross LF
Saltalamacchia C
Punto SS

Bard P

On Santos

I'd just like to wax on about (what I assume is) a bunch of people calling for Sergio Santos' head before it really starts.  Yeah, blown saves are irritating, especially after last year's Jon Rauch debacle, but we're four games in to the season.  Let's just remember back to last season, where we had Frank Francisco stinking up the joint for the first two months of the season, before really settling in and being an excellent reliever to finish off the year.  This kind of thing happens, especially with a (relatively, in terms of how long he's been pitching) young, raw pitcher and a potent lineup.  He's going to strike out a shit load of guys, and he'll have his struggles with control; it comes with the territory.  He's also going to have a lot of breaking balls in the dirt, because that slider is goddamn nasty.  Let's give him a while before we shit all over him, no?

Having said all of that, yeah, that sucked.  If this team is going to contend, this is the kind of game that they'll have to win.  Which, I suppose, they did twice in Cleveland, so...  Call me old fashioned, but this is about what I've expected so far, save for maybe a little bit more offense.

I'm glad to see that Colby Rasmus finally showed up.  I really think that he's the guy that we're going to need to have the most patience with, but as long as he can keep that defensive awesomeness up, I'll be just fine with him, and all the offensive contributions will be gravy.

Elsewhere around the league, Ian Kinsler and the Texas Rangers agreed to a 5 year, $75MM contract extension last night.  The deal is for $70MM with an option, and the option comes with a $5MM buyout.  Kinsler only needs to be worth about 13WAR over the course of the contract for the Rangers to break even on this one, and seeing as he's been worth 11 fWAR over the last two seasons, despite missing a bit of time, I think this one is a pretty safe bet.  Excellent work by Jon Daniels here.

Also happening in extensionland last night was a deal between the Indians and Joel Carreno-killer Carlos Santana.  He agreed to a 5 year, $21MM contract, taking up his final five years of team control (and an option for his first year of free agency).  Jonathan Lucroy agreed to a 4 year, $11MM deal with the Brewers recently, and Santana is significantly better offensively.

Yu Darvish disappointed last night, throwing 42 pitches in his first inning, and allowing 4 runs.  He settled down after that, getting in to the 6th inning.  Way to spend wisely!