11:47PM Eastern

It’s very rare for a rookie to live up to the hype by which he’s surrounded when he comes up, or in Yu Darvish’s case, comes over, but Darvish was spectacular in his north-of-the-border debut, pitching the Rangers to a win in the series opener.

Showing spectacular movement, a couple of different kinds of sliders, a mid-90s fastball and pretty good command of everything, Darvish shut down all the Blue Jays but for Edwin Encarnacion on two hits over seven innings, striking out nine against just two walks.

Edwin got him, though.  The Blue Jays’ red-hot DH got drilled in the left elbow by Darvish his first time up, then took him deep the next time, with two out and nobody on in the fourth.  For Encarnacion, that marked his fourth straight game with a home run – only he, Joe Carter and Carlos Delgado have turned that trick twice as Blue Jays – and his third consecutive official at-bat with a big fly.  It was also the first time anyone had homered off of Darvish in the major leagues, period.  In between the three homers, Encarnacion had been hit twice and walked twice, and his seventh-inning single gave him a streak of nine consecutive plate appearances reaching base, just three off Lyle Overbay’s club record.  The streak ended when he struck out on three pitches against Joe Nathan in the 9th.

As good as Darvish was, you could argue that Drabek was better.  The argument, of course, hinges on the fact that the Rangers’ offence is much more scary than the Blue Jays’, even without the injured Josh Hamilton.  Texas came into the game hitting .291/.351/.479 as a team, leading the major leagues in batting average, second in on-base percentage and tied for first in slugging percentage.

Drabek held that group to just two runs on five hits over six innings, walking only two and striking out a career-high eight – including five in a row over the fourth and fifth.  The Rangers were 2-for-10 against Drabek with runners in scoring position as the 24 year-old maintained his command and composure even with all the bright lights of the national telecast back to the U.S. and all the hype that surrounded the Darvish start.  He was great, and his greatness over the course of his first five starts this season (into at least the six inning every time, never more than two runs allowed) is a terrific portent for the future.

There are those who are moaning about the Blue Jays’ skinflint owners not willing to shell out the cash necessary to bring Darvish in, but rather a large point is being missed.  It’s going to cost the Rangers close to $108 million over six years to have the services of Darvish.  He may well wind up being worth it, but there’s almost no chance he winds up being worth more.  And he ties up a bunch of cash in the meantime.

Compare that to your Toronto Blue Jays.  While the Rangers are paying Darvish $70 million over the next four years, the Blue Jays will be paying Ricky Romero, Brandon Morrow, Henderson Alvarez and Kyle Drabek a combined $65 million over that same period of time.  Which would you rather have?

The second-guessing that raged on The Twitter, and a bit on The BlueJaysTalk, had to do with Jays’ manager John Farrell’s selection of Evan Crawford, and not Luis Perez or Darren Oliver, to start the 7th inning with Mitch Moreland and Craig Gentry coming up.  As I said on the post-game, it’s probably not the move I would have made, but it’s tough to say it was a big mistake.  Neither Moreland nor Gentry are real threats against left-handed pitching, and Crawford was coming off a very solid 1-2-3 7th inning in a one-run game Sunday afternoon against Seattle, while Perez gave up a Grand Slam his last time out.  Starting the 7th down a run isn’t the time for Oliver, who isn’t a lefty specialist anyway, so the choice really came down to Perez or Crawford to face those two guys and I don’t think you can fault Farrell either way.

Moreland came into the game hitting .225/.295/.275 for his career against lefties, with just one regular-season home run (against Brad Mills, no less), and Gentry was a .259/.311/.357 hitter against southpaws, having never taken a lefty deep.  So you’re not exactly looking at threats to do major damage, no matter which lefty you bring in.  Unfortunately, things happen, and both Moreland and Gentry took Crawford deep for the first runs he’s ever given up in the major leagues.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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The series continues on Tuesday night with Drew Hutchison making his third career start in the bigs, taking on Rangers closer-turned-starter Neftali Feliz.  It’s likely that neither Hamilton nor Adrian Beltre will be in the line-up for the visitors, which is a bit of a break for the 21 year-old Hutchison, but he’s still going to have to be pretty good to shut down baseball’s best team.  It would be nice if the Blue Jays picked the first of May to get their bats going – right now Edwin, Eric Thames, Brett Lawrie and J.P. Arencibia are carrying the team, and they’re not carrying it too far, with only two wins in their last seven games, but Feliz is going to be tough to handle.  We’ll have all the action for you along the Blue Jays  Radio Network starting at 7:00PM Eastern – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.  Kyle Drabek can be reached @kyledrabek4.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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12:24AM Eastern

Well, it was about time.

It looked again as though Henderson Alvarez was going to have a terrific outing wasted by a lack of offense – the Blue Jays’ snakebitten righty was making his 15th career start, having posted a sterling 1.10 WHIP but with only one win to show for it because of an astounding lack of run support.

Chone Figgins took Alvarez deep to lead off the ballgame, and heading into the bottom of the 6th the Blue Jays had scored all of one run against lefty Jason Vargas – and they’d only managed three hits, though interestingly enough, all three of them came off the bats of the left-handed hitters with whom John Farrell had stocked the line-up.

Eric Thames broke up the no-hit bid in the fourth with a routine fly to left on which Figgins broke back and couldn’t recover.  It felt harmlessly in front of him for a double.  In the fifth, Colby Rasmus singled, went to second on a Yunel Escobar grounder and scored on Kelly Johnson’s single to right to tie the game.

But in the bottom of the 6th, the Blue Jays took the lead for Alvarez.  Edwin Encarnacion hit a one-out, no-doubt solo bomb to left field for his team-leading seventh home run of the season.  Edwin homered in each of the three games of this series – a shot into Windows restaurant in dead-centre on Friday night and a Grand Slam to right field on Saturday.  I’d say that he was using the whole field, but in truth, he was using the outer perimeter of the whole field.

Despite having thrown only 90 pitches, Alvarez – who walked a career-high three (how awesome is it that THAT is his career high?) in six innings plus one batter – was given the hook after Munenori Kawasaki singled to lead off the seventh.

On came Evan Crawford, with the tying run aboard, to retire three straight Mariners.  Casey Janssen did the same in the eighth, with help from a spectacular play at first base by Adam Lind.  Kyle Seager – who can indeed be fought, as the Blue Jays proved – hit a ground ball right down the first base line that actually hit the bag and kicked up and way over Lind’s head.  Lind turned and raced back to catch the ball like a wide receiver, spun, and threw a bullet right to Janssen, who was waiting at the bag.  It was phenomenal.

As they did on Saturday, the Blue Jays opened things up in the bottom of the eighth, this time plating five runs.  It started with a Jose Bautista single.  With one out, reliever Steve Delabar, who was a high school substitute teacher three years ago, drilled Encarnacion just above the left elbow and, after a double steal, pinch-hitter Rajai Davis was intentionally walked to load the bases.  On the next pitch, Brett Lawrie drilled his first double of the season, cashing a pair.  The throw was lined up to go to third, so there was no Mariner anywhere near second base, but Lawrie slid hard into the bag anyway.

The Jays scored another run when Seattle catcher Miguel Olivo’s pick-off attempt at third hit Davis in the back as he dove back into the bag.  The ball rolled away, allowing Davis to get up and trot home – but he jammed his wrist on the dive and couldn’t answer the bell defensively in the top of the ninth.  Jeff Mathis later blasted a two-run shot into the 200 level in left field to cap the scoring.

Francisco Cordero, who had been warming in anticipation of a save opportunity, came on anyway and while he gave back one run on an Olivo solo shot leading off the inning, that was it, and Alvarez receipted for his first-ever win at Rogers Centre.

For the game, the Mariners were 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.  They’ve gone wanting in each of their last 21 such opportunities going back to Saturday.

So the pattern continues – win two/lose two, win two/lose two, win two/lose two, win four/lose four and now win two.  One can only imagine that it’ll keep on keeping on, at least for another couple of games, right?

Here’s this afternoon’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Before the game, Alex Anthopoulos held court with the assemblage, and while most of the talk was about the impending arrival of Yu Darvish and a rehashing of the winter’s drama with regards to the Blue Jays’ reported pending acquisition of his rights and their failure to dampen fans’ expectations (Anthopoulos still wouldn’t verify whether or not the Blue Jays actually made a bid – trust me, they did), he also talked about his faith in Jose Bautista (“I don’t know when he’ll start to come around, but he will”), saying that the bat speed is still definitely there and that Bautista’s skills don’t seem to be eroding.  If they were, that would be a cause for concern.  He also debunked the rumour that he’s hammering away at the trade market in a desperate search for a big bat or top-of-the-rotation arm.  Anthopoulos said that no one’s really willing to make any trades now anyway, and he doesn’t anticipate the market heating up at all until early June or so.  He also touched on the injuries to Dustin McGowan and Sergio Santos, saying that he’s ultra-conservative when it comes to injured pitchers.  If there’s anything wrong, he won’t hesitate to simply shut them down for a week or more.  Santos was still throwing 97, despite the shoulder inflammation, and if this was the playoffs, he’d still be pitching.

With the Mariners having left town, the Blue Jays will welcome the league-best Texas Rangers to town for a three-game set starting Monday night.  Texas just dropped two out of three at home to the Rays, who currently rule the roost in the A.L. East.  Darvish gets the ball in the opener, the Jays will counter with Kyle Drabek, who has looked terrific so far this season.  We’ll be on the air at 7:00PM Eastern – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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8:16PM Eastern

The Blue Jays got another outstanding performance from a starting pitcher, but this time they added in a big game from the offense and strong work from the bullpen, and as a result, their four-game losing streak is history.

Brandon Morrow was the star of this one.  Eschewing the go-for-ground-balls philosophy that led him to a fine 3.71 ERA and an even better 1.125 WHIP over his first four starts, Morrow just reared back and blew away the team with which he started his professional career.  He threw six innings of five-hit shutout, inducing only five ground balls, but striking out nine while not issuing a walk.  The fastball that had been sitting at about 92 miles an hour over his first four starts was suddenly coming in at 95 to 97 on the radar gun.

It was the first time that Morrow has ever made a start and not walked anyone.

He was outstanding, and I have to wonder if it was less about no longer wanting to get quick resolutions to at-bats in order to lower his pitch count and stay in games longer (he threw 104 pitches in his six innings) and more about just wanting to shove it up the nether regions of the Seattle Mariners, the team that drafted him, rushed him to the big leagues and then jerked him around for four years before trading him to Toronto.  We shall see his next time out when he faces the Angels, I guess.

Amazingly, Morrow was at his absolute best in the big spots, just as he was in his last start in Kansas City.  Morrow held the Mariners hitless in seven opportunities with runners in scoring position – the only time one of those runners even advanced 90 feet was when Kelly Johnson dropped a Miguel Olivo pop-up with one out in the 5th to put runners on the corners.  Morrow struck out the next batter.

Three of the last four times the opposition has had a runner on third with less than two out, Morrow has struck out the next batter (the other one was a pop-up), and he has retired each of the last 16 hitters he’s faced with a runner in scoring position.

As for the bats, well, the slumbering ones seem to be waking up a bit – Adam Lind was 2-for-3 with an RBI double and a walk after getting what should have been a big RBI single against a lefty Friday night and Jose Bautista hit a rocket right through M’s third baseman Kyle Seager to go with his 8th inning ground-rule double that was sliced to right field.  Edwin Encarnacion – whose bat has not been slumbering at all – had a big night, with a sacrifice fly early and a Grand Slam late that put the game away.  The five-RBI night gives Edwin 19 ribbies for the season, in just 21 games, which is a pace for 147 on the season.  Not bad for a guy who so many BlueJaysTalk callers last year said had to go because he just couldn’t drive in runs.

Speaking of The BlueJaysTalk, here it is, for your listening pleasure:

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The series with Seattle wraps up on Sunday afternoon with Henderson Alvarez taking another shot at his first win of the season, facing lefty Jason Vargas.  If the Jays’ season pattern holds, they’ll win – and it will be the second of a four-game winning streak that will be followed by four straight losses.  Have to take the bad with the good, right?  We’ll be on the air with the pre-game show at 12:30PM Eastern for a 1:07 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness 590. Edwin Encarnacion is hanging out @Encadwin.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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1:08AM Eastern

It was the perfect way to open up a homestand after getting swept in Baltimore, until it wasn’t.

Eric Thames laser-beam home run broke a tie and gave the Blue Jays a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the 8th inning, and Brett Lawrie followed with a single, went to third as Tom Wilhelmsen’s pick-off attempt went wildly into right field, then scored on a J.P. Arencibia sacrifice fly.

Edwin Encarnacion had gone deep earlier, Colby Rasmus had doubled and tripled and Ricky Romero took a no-hitter into the 6th inning.  It was a good night to be a Blue Jays fan at Rogers Centre.

Most importantly, I caught a foul ball.  I couldn’t tell you who hit it, or even when it happened (though I believe it was in the top of the 7th), but it’s the first time I have ever caught a foul ball at a baseball game in which I wasn’t playing, after having attended probably more than 2,000 games.  It was pretty awesome.  I reacted sort of like Don Cherry’s intro to Coach’s Corner for some reason, not sure why, but there was a ton of applause coming from the seats below me which might have had something to do with it, and then I looked for a kid to whom to toss the ball.  I found one, who happened to be sitting five seats away from my cousin, who I didn’t notice.  Sorry again, Ashley.

Anyway, the insurance run the Jays got in the 8th meant that things were still pretty cool even after Francisco Cordero gave up a solo homer to Michael Saunders with one out in the 9th.  He got a pop-up from the next hitter for the second out, and then a routine ground ball to third from pinch-hitter Kyle Seager, and that’s when everything fell apart.

Lawrie handled the grounder cleanly and had time to make a good, strong throw as he does pretty much every time he gets a play to make, but the throw didn’t make it all the way to first base, Adam Lind couldn’t pick it – as he does pretty much every time he gets a chance to do so – and the Mariners had a pulse.

With pinch-runner Munenori Kawasaki aboard, Arencibia thought he had a shot to pick him off, but his throw sailed way over Lind’s head and got all the way into the right-field corner as Kawasaki went to third.  The Jays then intentionally walked Dustin Ackley to get to the light-hitting Brendan Ryan, but the M’s went to the bench for ex-Ray John Jaso (Jingleheimer Schmidt), who hit a line drive to centre.  Rasmus laid out trying to make the game-saving catch, but the ball hit the turf in front of him and bounced back towards the infield.  Kawasaki scored to tie it and register the Blue Jays’ fifth blown save of the season, but Ackley got greedy and tried to score all the way from first – Kelly Johnson picked up the ball and threw him out at the plate to keep things tied.

It was a brutal way to let a lead slip away late, but the Blue Jays still had a life.  They went down in order in the bottom of the 9th, though, and Luis Perez – previously unscored upon this season – came on to work the 10th.  John Farrell had been singing his praises, and rightly so, in meeting with the media before the game.  Perez came in having allowed nine baserunners in 12 2/3 innings, with right-handed hitters 3-for-19 against him this season and lefties just 2-for-22.  So naturally, after getting Ichiro Suzuki to ground out, Perez gave up three straight singles to load the bases for Saunders, who took a 1-2 pitch out to right field for his first career Grand Slam, and that was that.

There were a couple of points at which the game could have turned more in the Blue Jays’ favour earlier:

-Arencibia tried to score from second  on a Lind single to right with two out in the 7th, and though replays showed he got his hand in ahead of Miguel Olivo’s tag, he was called out.  Arencibia had led off the inning by getting hit with a pitch and been bunted to second.  With the score tied at three, it seemed like a great time to use Rajai Davis as the designated pinch-runner, but he stayed on the bench – I’m assuming the thought was there might be a better time to use him later on.

-Romero, who had pitched so well for the first six innings, ran into trouble in the 7th.  He gave up a one-out solo homer to Jesus Montero, but then got a second out, still with a 3-2 lead.  One could make the case that after Miguel Olivo’s two-out single, Romero should have been yanked, but he had only thrown 105 pitches and the next hitter was Casper Wells, who had struck out looking in both his previous trips to the plate.  For me, I don’t think that’s a time when you pull your ace.  John Farrell didn’t think so either, and Wells tied the game with a double down the right-field line.  Sometimes the right decision yields the wrong result.

Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with Farrell’s decisions, the fact remains that if Brett Lawrie makes a solid throw on a routine grounder with two out in the ninth and nobody on, the game is over and the Blue Jays win.  It’s rare that one can point to one mistake that ultimately costs a team a game, but that was it.  Even though after the error the Blue Jays still had the lead with a man on first and two out in the ninth, if that routine play is made, the game is over.

Physical errors are going to happen, and Lawrie has played a fantastic third base so far this season.  He’s made five errors already this season, and he’ll likely have a high error total, but part of that is because he has such great range that he gets to balls that most other third baseman can’t.  That’s not why that error happened, though, and it was just a really crappy time for it.

The loss means that the Blue Jays have followed their four-game win streak with a four-game losing streak, just as they followed each of their three two-game winning streaks to start the season with a two-game losing streak.  What that means is that they’ll likely begin a four-game win streak on Saturday afternoon, which will include a win over Yu Darvish and the Rangers on Monday night.

Here’s tonight’s extraordinarily brief edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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The series continues with ex-Mariner Brandon Morrow, still with an axe to grind against the team that jerked him around for years, taking on veteran righty Kevin Millwood.  We’ll be on the air at 3:30PM Eastern for the pre-game show ahead of a 4:07 first pitch, the last Saturday home game of the season with that start time – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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11:35PM Eastern

Oh, the lengths to which I will go to be alliterative.

In their euphoria over sweeping the Royals four straight to start this road trip, the Blue Jays mislabeled the shipping containers in which their bats were to be transported to Baltimore.  They must have, or their charter airline lost their luggage, because the bats never arrived.

The Jays’ offense was abysmal in getting swept in their three-game series in the Crabcake City.  They managed all of one earned run, on only 16 hits.  There’s no positive spin to put on it, it was awful.

The positive for the series, though, is that the Jays got three very strong outings from their starting pitchers, who combined to allow just six runs in 18 innings of work for an ERA of an even 3.00 and a WHIP of 1.222 – and that’s the Blue Jays’ third, fourth and fifth starters, the last of whom was making just his second appearance in the major leagues.

Other than that, though – yuck.

Eric Thames had four hits for the Blue Jays in the series and Brett Lawrie had three – though two of them didn’t leave the infield.  Nobody else had more than two.  There were two extra-base hits – a J.P. Arencibia double and a Thames homer.  They were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position, not even getting a single player to the plate in such a situation in the series opener.

This will not continue.  The Blue Jays are a better offensive team than they were last year, they’re just not hitting right now.  And right now could end as soon as the opener of the next homestand, against a Mariners team that just swept the Tigers in Detroit.  Those Tigers, by the way, widely expected to be the best team in the game this season, have the very same 10-9 record as your Toronto Blue Jays.

For the life of me, and I said this a couple of times on The BlueJaysTalk tonight, I don’t understand why more people don’t see the fact that the Jays are 10-9 and just two games out in the A.L. East as a positive, considering the way they’re playing.  The only thing they’re doing well is coming from the starting pitching (and turning all those double plays) – that’s it.  They’re not hitting well, they’re not slugging well, they’re not getting on base, they’re not stealing bases when they do, they’re not getting great relief work.  They’re struggling in almost every facet of the game.  And yet they’re still over .500 (9-4 against everybody but the Orioles), and they’re still in a position that if things break right they could be back in first place by Saturday.

Just think of what might be when they actually do start to hit well.

It was, as always, a fun edition of The BlueJaysTalk tonight.  Here it is, for your listening pleasure:

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The road trip – a 4-3 road trip – is behind them now, and hopefully the bats will be waiting for them when they arrive at Rogers Centre.  The Blue Jays open up a six-game homestand with the first of three against the Mariners on Friday night, with Ricky Romero getting the call against righty Blake Beavan.  The Jays have not lost a game in which Romero has pitched this season.  We’ll have it all for you beginning at 7:00PM Eastern along the Blue Jays Radio Network – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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1:46AM Eastern

For the second straight night, the Blue Jays got a tremendous outing from a young starting pitcher and did absolutely nothing with it, wasting Kyle Drabek’s six innings of two-run ball and getting shut out for the first time all season.

Drabek only really made one mistake, and Wilson Betemit hit it out of the yard to dead centre in the second inning.  Chris Davis also homered, but Davis was very upset with himself as he started to run towards first, thinking he’d popped it up, and when the ball wound up leaving the park, Drabek himself couldn’t even stifle a laugh at the absurdity of it.

The most encouraging thing about the outing was that Drabek walked only half as many Orioles as he’d walked Royals in his last start, and that the hitter following each one of Drabek’s three walks wound up hitting into a double play.  He also struck out both hitters he faced after allowing the home runs.  These are excellent signs, since the only thing that seems to have been standing in between Drabek and huge success is his own ability to maintain his composure and control his emotions.

The offense just couldn’t get anything going against Baltimore starter Jason Hammel, who shut them out on four hits over seven innings, or relievers Matt Lindstrom and Pedro Strop.  The Jays only had a couple of solid scoring chances – they loaded the bases with two out in the fourth, but Colby Rasmus struck out, and they put the first two hitters of the ninth inning aboard, but Strop got Edwin Encarnacion on a fly ball to centre and then Brett Lawrie hit into a game-ending double play.

It looked like Encarnacion turned his ankle pretty badly after the swing, but he still managed a light jog down the first base line as Adam Jones handled the fly ball easily.  One hopes that Edwin is fine, he’s been one of the only players who has produced offensively on a regular basis in this early part of the season.

The online hate was directed towards Adam Lind tonight, for some reason (he went 1-for-3 with a walk hitting out of the clean-up spot a day after John Farrell had declared Encarnacion his clean-up man for the time being).  Here’s what you need to know about Lind:  He was spectacular in 2009, average in 2010 (his overall numbers were dragged down by an absymal showing against left-handed pitchers – against righties he hit .275/.327/.502, which is not bad at all), and in 2011 he was one of the best hitters in the league for a couple of months once he got his groove going, until he hurt his back.

And when did he get going last season?  Why, on April 26th, by going 1-for-3 with a walk.  From that point on until July 14th, Lind hit .339/.390/.607 for a sparkling .997 OPS.  Going into that April 26th game, he was hitting .232/.270/.329.  What’s Lind hitting right now? .217/.299/.350.  It can turn around that quickly.

I’m trying my best, but I can’t seem to convince too many people that the fact that the Blue Jays are off to a 10-8 start – a 90+ win pace – while doing almost nothing offensively is a very good thing.  Trust me, the fact that they’re winning while they’re playing poorly is tremendous.  There’s a lot more in these bats than they’ve shown, pretty much every one of them except for Encarnacion’s, and at some point soon, the hitting will come around.  If the starting pitching can keep going anywhere close to where it has been, the Blue Jays and their fans are going to be having a lot of fun.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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The road trip comes to a close on Thursday night, with Drew Hutchison getting the assignment of beating back the Baltimore brooms.  He’s making his second big-league start, having beaten the Royals on Saturday night, and he can’t pitch much better than Drabek or Henderson Alvarez did before him, so the Blue Jays’ bats had better get to hitting against lefty Brian Matusz, who is off to a pretty terrible start to the year, with a 7.98 ERA and an ugly WHIP of 2.250.  The Blue Jays have already beaten him once this year, 9-2 back on April 15th, with Encarnacion and Lawrie taking him deep.  The Jays haven’t lost more than two in a row yet this season. We’ll have all the action for you, starting at 7:00PM Eastern along the Blue Jays Radio Network – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, if only to help me beat back the nattering nabobs of negativity.  You can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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12:34AM Eastern

Henderson Alvarez ran into early trouble in his fourth start of the season, loading the bases full of Baltimore Orioles with nobody out in the bottom of the first inning.  The 22 year-old kept the O’s from a huge inning, though, getting a couple of ground balls – one of which was turned into a double play – and allowing only one run.

But that one run was enough for the home side to win, with the other two runs of the game coming in the Eric Thames Home Run Trade-Off.

More on that below, but how about young Henderson?  He’s made 14 starts in the major leagues and has an ERA of 3.70, a WHIP of 1.100 and one whole win despite averaging over 6 1/3 innings per start.  Why is that, you ask?  Well, it certainly doesn’t help that in five of his 14 starts, the Blue Jays have scored exactly one run on his behalf.

Alvarez has garnered comparisons to Felix Hernandez early in his career, but that’s one area at which Felix excels that Henderson wants no part of – remember King Felix’ 13-win Cy Young year?  I refuse to believe that certain pitchers are snakebit, or that there’s something about a guy that makes his team score fewer runs when he takes the mound, this is just plain old bad luck, and it’s bound to turn at some point.

Until then, Blue Jays fans will have to force themselves to be thrilled that they have a 22 year-old who, over his first 14 starts in the major leagues, has a WHIP of 1.100.  How good is that, you may ask?  Well, if Alvarez keeps that up over his entire career, it would put him 17th on the all-time list of pitchers with at least 1,000 innings.  Behind guys like Pedro Martinez and Walter (Big Train) Johnson but ahead of, you know, pretty much everybody else – Cy Young, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Sandy Koufax, Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Roy Halladay, guys like that.

As for the Thames-ness of the game, the Blue Jays’ left fielder became just the 58th player in the 20-year history (20 years? I know, I can’t believe it either) of Oriole Park at Camden Yards to hit a home run out onto Eutaw Street – first Blue Jay since Eric Hinske in 2004 – but he also had a hand, or maybe a glove, in the Orioles scoring the winning run.

With one out in the bottom of the fourth, Matt Wieters launched a deep fly ball towards the left-field corner.  Thames gave chase, taking a great route, and as he approached the wall, leapt for the ball with outstretched glove….and the ball kicked off his glove and over the fence for a go-ahead solo homer.  On replay, I wasn’t exactly sure whether the ball would have hit the top of the wall and bounced out or the front of the wall and stayed in had Thames not gotten to it first, but after the game Thames said that it would have stayed in the park had he not gotten a glove on it.  Asked for his immediate reaction to seeing the ball make its way into the seats, Thames answered, “Intense anger”.

As much as the home run help led many Blue Jays fans on Twitter to call for Thames’ demotion and talk about how he’s a “noticeably bad” defensive outfielder, that play didn’t show that at all.  It was an incredible effort and would have been a spectacular catch had Thames been able to make it.  There’s not an outfielder in the game for whom that play is routine.  It’s unfortunate the way it worked out, and also unfortunate that J.J. Hardy’s first inning double short-hopped the left-field wall and caromed back past Thames (for no damage, mind you, no one wound up taking an extra base because Colby Rasmus backed up the play perfectly), but please don’t mistake Thames for a bad outfielder.

He’s not a great outfielder, by any means, but he’s really only messed up on two plays all season.  He’s played a perfectly adequate-to-fine left field, and hasn’t hurt the Blue Jays out there.  Is Travis Snider a better defensive outfielder?  Absolutely.  Is Thames a poorer defensive outfielder than George Bell?  Don’t be ridiculous.

Snider is doing everything he can to show the Blue Jays he belongs in the big leagues.  He went into Tuesday night’s game with Las Vegas hitting .414/.489/.724 with at least one hit in each of the 17 games he’s played, with nine walks against only ten strikeouts.  But Thames doesn’t deserve to lose his job, hitting .273/.327/.386, and Alex Anthopoulos has made it clear that he feels Snider has been done a disservice by not spending a complete season at any one single level since he was in rookie ball.  This year is the Blue Jays’ last chance to let Snider figure things out away from the bright lights of the big leagues, and they seem to be determined to keep him down in Triple-A for a while to make sure he never has to go back down once he gets the next call up.  He’s forcing the issue, no question, but he’s forcing it with the positives far more than Thames is forcing it with the negatives.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The BlueJays Talk – I thought there’d be much, much more Eric Thames chatter – for your listening pleasure:

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The road trip continues Wednesday night with Kyle Drabek returning to the scene of his major-league debut, facing Orioles’ righty Jason Hammel.  Drabek took a step back in his last start, walking six Royals in just 5 1/3 innings despite allowing just two runs, so we’ll be keeping an eye on his command in Baltimore.  The Blue Jays have won each of his three starts this season, but they also haven’t had any one-game losing streaks this season.  The broadcast begins at 7:00PM Eastern along the Blue Jays Radio Network – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, if you’re not doing so already, and if you are – thank you!  I can be found @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome, I read them all and respond to most!

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12:37AM Eastern

The Blue Jays went into Kansas City facing a reeling Royals squad that had lost seven in a row and was winless at home, and kicked them when they were down, sweeping away a four-game set in Missouri for the first time in franchise history.

The finale turned on the big-time situational excellence of Brandon Morrow and the home run heroics of Jose Bautista.

Morrow wasn’t at his best – though he was nowhere near as bad as many of my Twitter followers suggested, much to my disbelief – scattering seven hits over 6 2/3 innings,and leaving after issuing his one and only walk of the night, but he was at his best when he needed to be.

Three times the Royals had a runner on third base with one out, and Morrow upped his game.  Twice he struck out the next batter before inducing a ground ball to end the inning, and the other time he got a foul pop-up, then a routine fly to centre field to emerge unscathed.

In all, the Royals sent nine men to the plate against Morrow with a runner in scoring position and not only did not a single one of them manage to get a hit, but not a single one of them even managed to move the baserunner along.  That’s huge clutch pitching.

Luis Perez picked up Morrow after that seventh-inning walk and gave up a bloop double to put the tying run in scoring position, but then got Alex Gordon to ground to short to end the inning and worked a perfect bottom of the 8th, setting things up for Francisco Cordero to work a drama-free 9th for his second save in as many games.

After the game, the Blue Jays announced that the MRI done on closer Sergio Santos’ right shoulder showed no structural damage, but that he’s going to be shut down for ten days to two weeks.  That’s good news and bad news.  If Santos is pain-free the next time he picks up a baseball, then he’ll get right back on track and will probably be ready to rejoin the team by mid-May.  If he’s not, that’s troubling.  Until then, the 9th inning belongs to the man who is second on baseball’s active saves list.

As for the offense, Kelly Johnson (right after his appearance on the pre-game show with me!) homered in the first inning to get the Blue Jays on the board and Bautista broke a 1-1 tie with a two-run shot in the 6th, after Johnson led off the inning with a walk.

For Bautista, it was just his third home run of the season, a “power outage” that seems to have caused a great deal of concern among Blue Jays fans.  I understand the frustration, after all we’re used to Bautista being the best hitter in the game, as he has been the last two seasons.  But it’s important to remember that a start like this for Bautista is nothing new.  In fact, in April of 2010, his big breakthrough season, Jose hit .213/.314/.427 with four home runs.  Right now, he’s hitting .214/.378/.393 with three.

The Blue Jays added on in the 9th as Brett Lawrie led off with his first triple of the season and was cashed by a Rajai Davis single.

It was an interesting line-up that John Farrell submitted against KC lefty Bruce Chen, who has given the Blue Jays fits in the past (career 2.87 ERA and 0.93 WHIP against them going into the game).  Lawrie was hitting 5th, behind Edwin Encarnacion.  Next was Davis, followed by Adam Lind, who hit in the 7th spot in the order for the first time since 2010.  Lind has earned the demotion, no doubt – his hitting against left-handed pitching has left quite a bit to be desired since his big 2009 season, but the move showed that Farrell isn’t willing to put a player’s feelings ahead of the chance to win a ballgame.

Too often in past regimes, a player has hit in an important spot in the line-up solely by virtue of who he was, as opposed to what he’d done.  There was no way Vernon Wells or Carlos Delgado were ever going to hit anywhere but third or fourth, whether they were hitting .200 or .300, because they were who they were.  Farrell went into this season saying that Lind was his clean-up hitter, and that he was going to play every day.  Sixteen games in, Lind has sat against a couple of tough lefties, he’s hit fifth a couple of times, and Monday night he hit seventh.  To his credit, Lind came to the plate three times against Chen and had a good night – he reached on an infield single, was robbed of a hit by a terrific play from Mike Moustakas at third, and flied out to deep centre.

Oh, and Kelly Johnson threw his glove in the ring rather emphatically as well, ending the second inning by charging a slow roller by Mitch Maier and flipping the ball from his glove to Lind at first – on the backhand.  I’ve never seen a play like that before, and Johnson executed it flawlessly.  It’s right up there with Colby Rasmus’ flat-out diving grab in centre field in the Home Opener for the best web gem a Blue Jay has thrown down this season.  If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favour and make sure you do.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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With the sweep in their rear-view mirror, the Blue Jays are off to Baltimore to try to exact some revenge against the Orioles for taking two of three at Rogers Centre last week.  Tuesday night’s opener features Henderson Alvarez, coming off a rough start against the Rays, taking on Canadian country music legend Tommy Hunter, whom the Blue Jays took deep four times in a 7-5 loss to the O’s on April 13th.  We’ll be on the air at 7:00PM Eastern for a 7:05 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, the in-game chats are always a ton of fun – you can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome, I read them all and respond to most!

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12:51AM Eastern

The Blue Jays finally broke out of their win two/lose two pattern of this young season with a third straight victory, backed by the strong left arm of Ricky Romero and another big inning.

For the second straight game, the Jays threw down with a four-run frame, it’s as though you can see the offense starting to rev up.  They kept up with the clutch hits as well, going 4-for-12 with runners in scoring position, a category in which they continue to lead the major leagues with a .344 batting average.

Romero was in real trouble only once in his eight innings of work, loading the bases with nobody out in the bottom of the 5th, immediately after the Jays had put up their four-spot.  He got his double-play grounder from Alcides Escobar, but Yunel Escobar threw away the relay, allowing an extra run to score.  Romero followed by inducing two more ground balls to stop the uprising right there.  In the absence of the injured Sergio Santos, it was Francisco Cordero who worked the 9th to earn his first save as a Blue Jay, though it wasn’t easy.  He let the Royals put the tying run on first base before inducing a game-ending double play ball off the bat of pinch-hitter Brayan Pena.

Oh, and in the top of the 8th, the Blue Jays got a big insurance run when Brett Lawrie, who had singled in a pair in the 5th, stole home.  It wasn’t a straight steal like he attempted against the Orioles at Rogers Centre last week – this time Lawrie was on the front end of a double steal with J.P. Arencibia.  Why the Royals threw through to second base, I have no idea – that’s a mistake they won’t make again.  Humberto Quintero tried to block the plate as Lawrie bore down on him, but instead of sliding around him, Lawrie slid right through him, pushing Quintero’s foot off the plate and clearing a path for himself.  It’s the first time he’s ever stolen home as a professional.

Here’s this afternoon’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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The Blue Jays, 5-1 on the road so far this season, will bring their brooms to Kauffman Stadium along with their suitcases on Monday night, looking for the four-game sweep of a Royals squad that has lost ten in a row overall and is 0-9 at home.  Brandon Morrow looks for his first win – he’s had two saves blown behind him – he’s up against former Blue Jays farmhand Bruce Chen.  We’ll be on across the Blue Jays Radio Network starting at 7:30PM Eastern for an 8:10 first pitch, but on this very website and on Sportsnet590 The Fan, we’ll have a special extra pre-game show for you beginning at 7:00PM Eastern.  In it, you’ll hear from Blue Jays’ third-base coach Brian Butterfield, to whom it is always a great pleasure to listen talk baseball, and we’ll also get up close and personal with Kelly Johnson.  Join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, I’ve been having a good time interacting with you tweeps during the games – you can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome, I read them all and respond to most!

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12:06AM Eastern

You won’t be able to tell from looking at his final pitching line, but 21 year-old Drew Hutchison acquitted himself very well in his major-league debut for the Blue Jays, and he definitely looks like a keeper.

Hutchison was unflappable in allowing five runs on eight hits over 5 1/3 innings, walking three, striking out four, hitting one and giving up two home runs.

The line’s not pretty, to be sure.  That’s a WHIP of 1.875 and an ERA of 8.44.  But Hutchison pitched a lot better than that line.

Over the first four innings of his night, he gave up just one run on three hits, two of which were ground balls.  The other, not so much, as Alex Gordon took him deep in the first inning.  He breezed through those first four innings, throwing just 60 pitches and looking completely comfortable with his lot in life as a 21 year-old major-leaguer, but the fifth inning was a separate issue.

Hutchison faced seven hitters in that fifth inning and only got two of them out, but only two of the other five managed to hit the ball hard.  The Royals scored four times, but a broken-bat double and a bloop single played a big part in the big inning for K.C.  Believe it or not, Hutchison also should have had a triple play behind him that inning.  It’s amazing to say, especially since the Blue Jays turned their first triple play in 33 years the night before, but with runners on first and second, none out and two runs already in, Hutchison got Billy Butler to hit a hard grounder right at Brett Lawrie.  If Lawrie picks it clean, he takes two steps to the bag and starts an around-the-horn triple killing.  Easy like cake.  But he couldn’t handle the hot shot, and when he recovered, he still had time to get two.  But for a cleaner hop, the Blue Jays have two triple plays in as many games, incredibly.

It wasn’t a thing of beauty for Hutchison, though the first four innings sure were terrific, but for a 21 year-old making his major-league debut – just his seventh start above A-ball – that’s a very, very good job.  And that he was able to hit his spots for the most part, keep his nerves in check and maintain his composure are very good portents, to be sure.  Another good omen might well have been his one hit batsman.  Hutchison drilled Butler, the Royals’ three-hitter, in the ribcage with a man on second and one out in the third.  It may not have been intentional, but Hutchison is a kid with very good command.  It just so happens that the Royals drilled Jose Bautista the night before.  If that was Hutchison standing up for his teammate, then that speaks volumes about the kid.

There’s a good story to tell about the bullpen, as well.  The group that has blown four saves in the first two weeks of the season had a golden opportunity to blow a fifth, as Darren Oliver took over for Hutchison with a one-run lead in the sixth and runners on the corners with just one out.  But Oliver, born 20 years before his young charge, got a huge strikeout, then a liner to right that Bautista managed to pick out of the lights, escaping the threat, and Edwin Encarnacion and Colby Rasmus went deep in the top of the 7th to extend the lead.  For Rasmus, it was his second home run of the game.

Carlos Villanueva closed it out by pitching the final two innings, but when he got in trouble in the 9th it was Francisco Cordero, not Sergio Santos, who started warming up in anticipation of a save opportunity.  We found out why after the game when the Blue Jays placed Santos on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation, recalling Evan Crawford to take his place.  Santos said his shoulder didn’t feel right in saving Friday night’s win, and when the pain got worse Saturday morning the decision was made to shut things down for a while in order to nip any potential issue in the bud.  Manager John Farrell says the move is precautionary and the Jays don’t expect Santos to miss a lot of time, but you never know with shoulders.  Until Santos returns, Cordero will be the closer and the 8th inning will be shared by Oliver, Casey Janssen and Jason Frasor.

Here’s Saturday night’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Sunday afternoon, the Blue Jays will try to break out of the win two-lose two pattern they’ve established to this point in the season, and they’ll have their ace on the mound as they try to do it.  The Jays have yet to lose any of Ricky Romero’s starts this year, and he’ll put his 2-0 mark on the line against Royals’ lefty Danny Duffy.  We’ll have it all for you along the Blue Jays Radio Network beginning with the pre-game show at 1:30PM Eastern – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Comments are welcome – I read them all and respond to most!

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