Go Time: Fister? Destroy Her

Had planned on watching today's game from the comfort of my god damn couch, and had an idea for a nice big post about the awesomeness of Jose Reyes, but I ended up getting called in to work, so that appears to be out the window.

It's supposed to rain all day in Detroit, which really begs the question as to why they don't have (at least the option of) an indoor/covered stadium there, given the geography.  If it's too cold to play outside in Toronto, it's too cold to play outside in Detroit, if you ask me.

Speaking of cold, did you see how great a job Detroit did at holding that 5-run lead yesterday?  Yeah.

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The Jays have claimed Casper Wells off waivers from the Mariners, and have DFA'ed Alex Burnett to make room/  Burnett was just claimed the other day from the Angels, if I'm not mistaken, but the sheer amount of waiver claims that the Jays have made in the last 6 months are really making me dizzy.  Either way, Wells' addition probably means that we're about to see the end of the 8-man bullpen horseshit.

For Wells' part, he was DFA'ed from Seattle to make room for Jason Fucking Bay, of all people, despite actually having some use.  He can play all three outfield positions, and has hit lefty pitching to a .264/.349/.489 line over his short career.  The Jays will face lefties Chris Sale and Jose Quintana this weekend against the White Sox, games that both Adam Lind and Colby Rasmus can now safely be penciled to the bench for.  Rajai Davis was previously the only other outfielder on the bench, though Brett Lawrie's return will help that as well, with Izturis or Bonifacio coming off the bench to provide some utility.

Speaking of Lawrie, look for him to be back in about 10-14 days, according to John Lott.  Lawrie was taking BP recently, and has been fielding grounders as well.

Go Time: Back to Work

Jose Bautista returns to the lineup today, albeit at DH.  Good.  It's a Jose Bout-time.  Let's get a quick preview in before first pitch.

Three day games in Detroit this week, which is kind of weird.  It's presumably because Detroit is too far north to be playing night games outside, but that might just be me.

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National Post has a thing about Brett Cecil getting his velocity back, thanks to the use of a weighted ball program.  Pretty sure Steve Delabar is doing the same kind of thing, which caused a revival of sorts in his career.  If you've never seen me link to any of his stuff, Kyle Boddy of Driveline Baseball does all kinds of stuff like this, including working with a bunch of high school kids helping them gain velocity and stuff.

Speaking of Kyle, he writes for the Hardball Times on occasion, as I'm sure you've seen linked before.  Well, if anyone noticed anything whacky with Ubaldo Jimenez last week against the Jays, Kyle has a look at some mechanical changes.

JP Arencibia compared coaching styles of John's Gibbons and Farrell, in a talk with Sid Seixeiro, which Stoeten tackles over at DJF.

Lineups
Jays
Reyes SS
Cabrera LF
Bautista DH
Edwin DH
JPA C
Rasmus CF
Davis RF
Izturis 3B
Bonifacio 2B

Morrow P

Tigers
Jackson CF
Hunter RF
Cabrera 3B
Fielder 1B
Dirks DH
Avila C
Peralta SS
Kelly LF
Infante 2B

Sanchez P

Jays Claim Gomez, DFA Bush

The Jays have ended the Dave Bush experiment, as awesome as it was, and have claimed infielder Mauro Gomez off waivers from the Red Sox.  Bush has been DFA'ed, as result, so now the Jays will have 10 days to trade, release or outright him to the minors, assuming nobody claims him off waivers over the next two days.  Which... uhh, yeah.  He gave up four homeruns yesterday.  Bison.

Gomez is 28, and is from the Dominican Republic, which probably explains a whole helluva lot.  He got 50 plate appearances last year with the Red Sox, and hit to a .275/.324/.422 line over that little sample.

Ultimately, this is probably a better use of a roster spot than Bush, and probably Jeffress too, given the command issues.  We can always call him "Gomey" if all else fails, but anytime he shows up and does something good, he can always say something like "MAUR!" with pictures of fat kids and cake and stuff.

Go Time: Dickey Day

Google is telling me that this is an original idea, sponsored by Scotiabank.  And rightfully so, since this is a National holiday or sorts.

Alright, good talk.

Go Time: The Aftermath of the Worst Ever

I don't know how I could do it, but I would really like to look up the worst individual games ever played for this franchise, because what Emilio Bonifacio did last night was probably the worst thing to ever happen to a single Blue Jay ever.

WPA certainly wouldn't work, because practically any blown save of 2 or more runs would have to outdo Boni's performance, simply thanks to the leverage index.  Boni's first two strikeouts and his first error, for example, probably didn't have a massive impact on the outcome of the game last night.  Seems to me as though the other two errors and the other two errors were pretty egregious, at least in comparison.  I'm currently at work, and definitely don't have the time to look such a thing up, nor can I imagine it being all that fun after about 40 seconds, but it might be a project for when I get home.  Still, I can't imagine anyone having a worse game, other than possible doing the exact same thing he did defensively, and grounding in to a bunch of double plays instead of just striking out with guys on base.

Kind of ironic too, that we were all praising Boni for the weakest hit double in franchise history, less than 24 hours earlier.  Again, I'm at work, so I won't do it, but it would be a nice exercise to find all the nice things that were said about him after that hustle double, and to contrast them with all the terrible, vitriolic statements made last night, after three errors and 4 strikeouts, batting in the 2-hole, behind Jose Reyes, who got on base 4 times.

Elsewhere, I thought Josh Johnson was okay, but I'd really like to see a starter get kind of deep in to a game.  Janssen, Oliver and Delabar should all be ready to go after being unavailable for yesterday's game, and Sergio Santos and Aaron Loup didn't pitch last night either.  Cecil, Jeffress and Rogers can come or go as they please, I guess, but I don't think there's a huge worry about any of them.  Rogers looked fucking horrible last night and should probably be DFA'ed to get a position player up here to fill the bench, especially with Jose Bautista still questionable for today's tilt.

By the way, Jose Bautista is questionable for today's tilt, according to Shi Davidi, who says Bautista will either not play, or will DH.

I don't see lineups yet, so fuck it.  Good luck JA.

Go Time: Johnson Day

Meet Josh Johnson.  Specifically, meet those numbers.  He's a good pitcher.  A really good pitcher.  Our really good pitcher.  Good to see you.

Johnson is the proud owner of a career 3.15/3.20 ERA and FIP.  Those numbers are good.  He's also the owner, probably slightly less proud, of a strikeout rate and walk rate that have worsened over each of the last two seasons.  Those are bad things.  Most projections have his k-rate steadying, while his walk-rate improves over the course of this season.  That's a good thing.  Since becoming a regular, Johnson has only reached the 200 inning plateau once.  That's a bad thing.

There are some good aspects to him being on our team, and there are some less good aspects of him being on our team.  Such a thing is fairly typical when it comes to baseball, pitchers and humans in general.  When he's on, he's pretty awesome.  When he's not on, he's probably injured.  It would be nice to see him healthy.

You know who else it would be good to see healthy?  Jose Bautista.  He left last night's game after rolling his ankle over on first base, grouding out in the 8th inning.  Last I heard was from Ben Nicholson-Smith (formerly of MLBTR and currently of Sportsnet), who passed on that Bautista and Gibbons will decide before the game, after the training staff has a look at the ankle, whether or not he'll play tonight.  He won't miss much time, if any.

And finally, John Farrell comes to town tonight.  If I had my own way, I'd just not even acknowledge him, because if I were him, I'd want to be booed by the Toronto crowd.  Let's just move on and be finished with it.  I mean, he's got things bad enough as it is already; he's coaching the Red Sox.

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Where has this guy been all my life?  Cashew Mirman is back with another Blue Jays 8-bit adventure.  Give him a follow on twitter while you're at it.  Anthony Gose apparently ran in to through a wall last night too.

Actual story about Gose running through a wall.

Drew analyzes Mike Trout and Emilio Bonifacio, hustling.

Finally, I'm thinking about making a gif of every Sergio Santos breaking ball this season, if I happen to get bored some day.  Here's a preview of that.

If not, at least ones where he makes someone look silly.

Lineups
Jays

Reyes SS
Bonifacio 2b
Cabrera LF
Encarnacion 1b
Arencibia C
Davis RF
Rasmus CF
DeRosa DH (!!!!!!)
Izturis 3B

Johnson-P


Red Dicks
Ellsbury CF
Nava DH
Pedroia 2B
Napoli 1B
Salty C
Middlebrooks 3B
Victorino RF
Bradley Jr. LF
Iglesias SS

Doubront P

A Quick Look at Buehrle

Well that wasn't really what I was expecting now.  Mark Buehrle, or "Turbo" as he's affectionately known around these parts, got beat up pretty hard last night, to the tune of 6 earned runs over 5.1 innings.  Fortunately, the Jays offense bailed him out pretty royally, putting up 10 runs on 5 HR's.

I was pretty surprised to see Buehrle head back out there to start the 6th, given his performance through the first five, but what do I know?  Either way, this would have been one of those situations where you'd see a lot more people really begin to question John Gibbons, had the Jays not won this game.

Buerhle definitely missed the glove a lot; whether it was nerves or adrenaline or just a rough night, I dunno.  It was only one start, I guess, he just seemed like he was all over the map to me, and getting a three-run lead back in the fifth seemed like a gift.  With an 8-man bullpen, there was probably enough man-power back there to pull Buehrle.

Buehrle certainly isn't, nor has he ever been, for that matter, a guy who can just bomb it down the middle and get guys to swing and miss.  His fastball topped out at 87.5 MPH last night, and was sitting right around 85.  That's some Brad Mills stuff right there.

Ultimately, I don't really know if I have a point that I'm trying to reach here; haven't decided yet.  If I had to choose one, it would probably be to get the ball down.  I can't imagine it's all that useful to focus on a single start, much less a small subset or results-oriented locations from that single start, but there are definitely some mistakes made on both of the red ones, and probably all three of the orange ones, let alone some of the flyouts and popouts.

Kudos, though, to Gibbons for sticking Delabar in to that situation, and not Rogers or Jeffress or Cecil, the way Farrell probably would have.  It always felt like Farrell just kind of lumped guys in to specific roles (i.e. mop-up, a guy to hold leads, a guy to pitch defecits, etc.), and since it was only the 6th inning, he wouldn't have put in a guy like Delabar, regardless of the leverage of the situation.  Delabar was probably the right guy to enter the game at this point, as he was the most likely to get a strikeout or two in a situation in which a strikeout or two were needed.

Little things.