The Blue Birds took 2 of 3 games each against the Marlins, Rockies, and Yankees.
Hitting: Right now the Jays are an MLB-average club by OPS+. Daulton Varsho had homeruns 1, 2, 3, and 4 while at home to become the club-leader in HRs (Vladdy has 3).
It now seems pretty widely acknowledged that this year’s team is not the homerun-hitting club of a couple years ago. They’re ranked 2nd in the AL on doubles and 11th on homeruns. Can the Jays lean into a small ball approach? Kevin Barker of Blair and Barker reported that Bo said that both he and Vladdy are focused on hitting homeruns because it’ll earn them bigger contracts as two players whose contracts with the Jays expire next year.
Pitching: The Jays rank near bottom of the MLB by ERA+, but that aggregate number obscures a lot to be excited about. This homestand had wicked starting pitching (ERA ~ 1.20). With Gausman returning to form and Yariel Rodríguez’s strong debut, a rotation of Gausman, Berríos, Bassitt, Kikuchi, and Rodríguez/Manoah sounds pretty awesome. Will Berríos and Kikuchi stay as red hot as they’ve been?
Yimi García is clearly our best closer right now, but the rogers centre has this wrestling-like light show that they like to do for Jordan Romano. What will happen to the light shows if Romano ceases being our fixed 9th inning pitcher? I don’t like to see baseball decisions take a back seat to special effects, and I think we need to put the right pitcher in the right spot every game.
Defence: The Jays are top ten in fielding in the MLB.
Next up: The Blue Jays (10-9) now have a challenging 7-game road trip coming up: 3 games in San Diego (11-10), 4 games in Kansas (12-7). I can’t decide whether I think they’ll win 3 or 4.
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The rogers sportsnet broadcasts are increasingly annoying. As soon as the formal commercial break ends, there’s another commercial for skydome tickets. They’ve also started overlaying silly banners that are intended to look like they’re part of the stadium, and they give these silly graphics air time instead of showing what’s happening on the field. And there are more in-game banner ads to the broadcast 😒
Favourite moment: In one of the matchups against the Yanks – the first game against Gil I think – the Jays were struggling to get runs in. Daulton Varsho – typically a great baserunner – had missed an opportunity to score from 3rd on a ground ball earlier in the game. Now, the bases were loaded. Alejandro Kirk who is one of the league’s slowest runners was on 3rd. Springer was at the plate. There was a wild pitch. Springer let Alejandro know that he should steal home on the wild pitch: “Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!!!” He was louder and more emphatic than any other player I’ve heard at the plate do this, probably because he knows Kirky is slow and has little room for error. It was a little amusing but mostly it was a heartwarming display of great and effective teamwork to me!
In the last 3 outings, Gausman had a decent one, Kikuchi was outstanding and Bassitt found his old self back. What’s more to ask. If the starters can keep having quality starts, we’re in business.
I love what I see at bat right now, guys are hustling their asses off, way more than what they did a week ago.
I still believe they’ll end up third or fourth in the AL East and won’t make the cut for the playoffs though.
I hope Swanson and Romano get their groove back, as you stated, Garcia is the most effective closer right now.
Having Jano back behind the plate is somewhat comforting, I prefer his calling of the game rather than Kirk’s but that’s just my feeling.
I hope they get 4 out of the next 7 games; one against the Padres and three against the Royals.
Agreed that our pitching and bats appear to be trending in the right direction, and it’s exciting to see. Taking 4 out of 7 would be sweet! The Royals are off to a hot start and have the 2nd best pitching in the MLB right now. I could see us taking 2 from the Dads and splitting the Royals series. I think your ‘just missing the wildcard’ prediction is pretty sound. But-- if we keep winning series… :) (and I told myself I wasn’t going to get unreasonably optimistic this year lol)
Not gonna lie, you had me in the first half… For a short moment I thought that a rare species of bird saw their population increase due to the implementation of adequate environmental policies. Anyway, enjoy your team winning!
Thanks Henri :)
