It happened in an instant. The Orioles lost 6 straight, the Blue Jays won 4 straight [and then failed to hit Randy Dobnak] and suddenly the Jays have slipped into the spot the O's were supposed to have. How about that? Whole season of not really being too impressive and now they're going for it. How very Toronto Blue Jays of them.
I questioned, at the time, why the Jays would buy AND sell, knowing the small probability of making a run, but they clearly knew what they were doing. Josh Smith became a relatively wise depth infielder choice, he's got an .890 OPS through 17 games. Jose Soriano's been excellent in 6 Toronto starts, with 2 wins, 24 Ks and a 4 ERA. Paul Sewald has been a surprise hit in Toronto, without letting any runs go by in 7 innings. Ricky Tiedemann is being used in relief and has been pretty effective so far. The only real weak spot has been Spencer Arrighetti, who got walloped by Kansas City yesterday, but at least they got him away from the Astros.
Trading Daulton Varsho was the odd part, because that's some centerfield stability with great power perks. This just hasn't been his season, as the Astros are currently finding out. But in exchange for Kevin Gausman, the Jays got Brett Bateman, a 24-year-old Iowa Cub who'd been waiting to make a debut but couldn't break into the stuffed Cubs OF picture [much like Owen Caissie last year]. So the Jays traded for him and slotted him into center in front of Myles Straw, and...almost immediately a star was born. In 24 games, Bateman has hit .327 with some amazing contact work, despite only 7 RBIs and 5 extra base hits. Bateman's a really strong hitter with a lot of versatility, and the team seems to know what they have. Of course, since Bateman's come on board, the Jays have reentered the playoff picture and are now chasing that third wild card spot.
A few things that I should probably mention that could still make competition difficult for the Jays. First of all, a rookie tearing things up in August has happened before. Davis Schneider did this, Will Wagner did this. Both died down eventually. I'm not saying Bateman's destined to fail, I'm just saying the fans should temper their expectations. The other thing is that beyond Dylan Cease, who looks to pry a Cy Young award from Cam Schlittler's young hands later this year, the Blue Jays' starting pitching is...scattered. Yesavage and Bieber are hurt. Jameson Taillon was doing okay, then he got hurt. The plan is Cease, Max Scherzer and his slowly-gaining momentum, Soriano, Arrighetti, opener game succeeded by Michael Lorenzen. That's...not sustainable. The hope is Yesavage is back for the playoffs but if they're gonna make a run, they need an actual arsenal back there, and they don't have it yet. Soriano is good but he was better in May. Scherzer as a postseason starter could go either way at this point. This could succeed, especially if Guerrero is going to start hitting, but it could also fail miserably. You're thinking that seed would play the winner of the AL Central, and those aren't easy wins no matter which of the two you get. You're pitching to either Munetaka Murakami or to Jose Ramirez. Good luck either way.
The Jays could still happen this year, somehow, and they could shock the world, but I don't see the practicality of it from a roster depth standpoint. They got to a World Series last year on extreme depth, and they don't have that right now. So they're gonna need to build some very soon.
Coming Tonight: The Mets just announced Jonah Tong's coming back to start, and it's odd to me that he's been displaced in the depth chart by another rookie pitcher who wasn't even around last fall.
No comments:
Post a Comment