9:45AM Eastern

This is a note to those of you who subscribe to this blog and those who check this space for regular news and my opinions as to what’s going on with your Toronto Blue Jays:

You can’t do it anymore.

The blog isn’t ending, but it is moving, and the process began yesterday over at sportsnet.ca, which is going to be the new home of my blog.  I have no idea how you’ll be able to subscribe to it, but I’m going to ask the fine folks over there to see what they can do about that.

I appreciate your loyalty in reading my work, and it’s a pleasure to provide the content for you to enjoy, but from now on, you’re going to have to go to sportsnet.ca and to the MLB section of the website in order to get the blog.  Please keep on reading!

As far as my thoughts on Tuesday night’s Blue Jays win, you can read them here:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/2012/05/30/wilner_ricky_romero_bullpen_eric_thames/

Thanks!  And see you over at the new place!

11:40PM Eastern

The Blue Jays came home off a horrible road trip with a vocal portion of their fan base having written them off after a brutal weekend in Texas that dropped them all the way down to the .500 mark, and they got the exact start that they so desperately needed from the same 21 year-old kid whose rough outing in St. Petersburg got the five-game losing streak started.

Drew Hutchison had easily his best outing in the big leagues, setting career highs in innings pitched, strikeouts and pitches thrown while matching a career-low in hits allowed.  He blanked the Orioles over seven innings of three-hitter, walking three and striking out nine.

It was a bend-but-don’t break start early on, as all three walks came in the third inning.  Hutchison was helped out by Jeff Mathis picking Chris Davis off second on a failed bunt attempt by Robert Andino, and by his own athleticism, leaping high in the air to haul in a Nick Markakis chopper and flipping to first to end the frame, leaving the bases loaded.

Two batters after Hutchison wriggled out of that jam, Edwin Encarnacion hit a rocket that would have probably broken the facing of the 100 level in left-centre had a fan not gotten his glove on it (and then dropped it).  The two-run shot made it 4-0 Blue Jays, and was Encarnacion’s 16th home run of the season.  Amazingly, at this point last season, Encarnacion was still looking for his first big fly – he would wind up with 17.

Kelly Johnson was the major offensive contributor in this one, despite being a game-time decision because he’s dealing with a sore hamstring.  And what happens when your leg hurts?  You have to run a lot, of course.  Johnson had to leg out a pair of doubles, and looked as though he was in whole lot of pain in the doing.  He also had to push it in the very first inning, when he doubled into the gap, then scored from second on Colby Rasmus’ single to right.  Johnson was able to go nice and slow, however, when he hit a two-run bomb into the batters’ eye in dead centre in the 4th, his 9th homer of the season.

Hutchison’s outing was exactly what the doctor ordered, with the Blue Jays’ starting pitchers having combined to throw just 9 1/3 innings over the course of dropping three straight in Texas, allowing 20 runs.  He did get knocked around by Tampa last time out, but this was the third time in his last four starts that Hutchison has thrown at least six innings and allowed no more than one run.

Every Blue Jay got at least one hit in the game, save for Jose Bautista, who was 0-for-4 but reached on an error.  Bautista’s frustrations, that have been on display quite often this season, seemed to boil over after he popped up foul to end the 6th inning.  After the ball was caught, Bautista shattered his bat by slamming it into the ground in the dirt cutout around home plate.  We have gotten used to seeing the angry Jose many times this season, but this time it struck me as a particularly inappropriate showing, given that his team was leading 6-0 at the time.

Things did get a little tense in the ninth, as Francisco Cordero came on and gave up hits to four of the five batters he faced to turn a 6-0 lead into a save situation for Casey Janssen.  Cordero hadn’t given up a run in nine consecutive outings ever since he coughed up that walkoff Grand Slam to Brandon Inge back in Oakland on May 9th, but he had to be bailed out of this one by the Jays’ closer.  Janssen came on with a four-run lead, runners at second and third and one out, and needed all of four pitches to close it out.  Amazingly, Janssen has yet to give up even a single baserunner when pitching in a save situation since being named closer on May 10th – the opposition is 0-for-11 against him.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The BluejaysTalk, for your listening pleasure – and I promise it’s the right one this time:

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The series continues with the Blue Jays having a chance to close to within three games of first place in the A.L. East with ace Ricky Romero on the hill against Orioles’ righty Jake Arrieta.  Romero has been struggling mightily with his control, having walked a career-high seven in his last start and having issued an ugly 24 free passes in his last 27 1/3 innings. Though Romero is 5-1 on the season, the Blue Jays have lost three of his last four starts.  The Orioles have lost six of their last eight.  We’ll be on the air across the Blue Jays Radio Network at 7:00PM Eastern – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590. Drew Hutchison hangs out @1DrewHutch.

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

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12:17AM Eastern

The best thing about the Blue Jays’ road trip through Central Florida and the Dallas Metroplex?  It’s over.

It began with great promise, a win over the Rays in which the worm appeared to maybe have kind of started turning, and it ended with five straight losses, two of them in extra innings and two of them massive blowouts.

The Jays didn’t save the worst for last – the worst was Friday night – but they came pretty close as Kyle Drabek coughed up a seven-spot to the Rangers in the second inning, fuelled by his old enemy, a lack of control.  With a leadoff single aboard, Drabek walked three of the next four hitters, the last with the bases loaded to force in the game’s first run, and from then on it was all big hits.  A two-run double for Ian Kinsler, another for Elvis Andrus, and after Josh Hamilton was retired, a two-run home run for Adrian Beltre.  Kinsler added a two-run homer of his own the next inning, and the Rangers had a 9-1 lead through three, easily on their way to a series sweep.

The Blue Jays came back to make the final score not a thorough embarrassment, but they were never in the game.  Drabek’s brutal outing at least allowed the Jays to take an extended look at Jesse Chavez, who was called up along with Chad Beck to help deal with the massively overworked bullpen, and Chavez took it the rest of the way, holding Texas off the scoreboard in four of his five innings (though he gave up a three-run homer to Mike Napoli in the other one) and at one point striking out five Rangers in a row.

The outing must be taken with a little bit of a grain of salt, though, because by the time he came in the Rangers were on cruise control, with the Blue Jays never cutting their lead to fewer than six runs.

As for the Jays’ offense, Colby Rasmus continued to swing it well from the second spot in the order, belting a two-run homer to go with a single and a double, and J.P. Arencibia added a pair of solo shots to give him the major-league lead in home runs by a catcher with nine.

Kelly Johnson wasn’t able to go for the second straight game because of a sore hamstring, and Yunel Escobar had to leave mid-game with a groin injury – he tightened up going first to third on a Rasmus single in the third inning.  With both middle infielders out, Brett Lawrie finished the game at shortstop while Omar Vizquel stayed at second, Jose Bautista moved in to third base and Rajai Davis went out to right.  In other news, Adeiny Hechavarria didn’t play in the Las Vegas game on Sunday.  He’s hitting .314/.367/.459 with the 51s – remember, those are Vegas numbers – and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he’s on his way to Toronto to play some shortstop as Escobar and Johnson heal up.

With Beck and Chavez called up, the two Blue Jays who went down were Ryota Igarashi and Yan Gomes.  Igarashi looked just awful in two appearances this weekend, and was designated for assignment to clear a spot on the 40-man roster for Chavez, while Gomes showed very well in his brief trial in the bigs, but he’ll go down to Vegas to ensure that he has an opportunity to play every day and will  be back in the bigs soon enough.

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

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Imagine how it will be if, at some point during the season, the Blue Jays actually have a losing record.  They haven’t yet, at any point.  The Rangers and Orioles are the only other A.L. teams who can say that.

I understand the frustration, honest I do, but the team is doing about what it should have been expected to be doing this season, especially given the struggles of the bullpen, the lack of production from first, left and centre and the growing pains of the starting rotation.  They just went on the road to play what might be the two best teams in the American League and got their tails kicked – it’s no fun, but it happens.  They’re still very much in the thick of things for a playoff berth and, again, right about where they should have been expected to be.  I don’t think it’s fair to be upset with the Blue Jays because they had a great Spring Training and so many fans believed they were more of a playoff threat than they actually are.

They’ll get a chance to make some headway this week as they return to Rogers Centre for a six-game homestand – three each with the Orioles and Red Sox.  Monday night’s opener against Baltimore features Drew Hutchison against O’s righty and Canadian country music icon Tommy Hunter.  The Orioles were 27-14 to start the season, same as the 2009 Blue Jays (which happens to have been the only Jays team in the last seven years to finish with a losing record), and since that point, Baltimore has lost five of seven and fallen into a first-place tie with the Rays.  We’ll be on 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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9:50PM Eastern

A night after getting pummeled, the Blue Jays dropped an extra-inning heartbreaker in Texas as the Rangers basically ran them out of rocks.

The Jays’ bullpen was depleted because the relievers had to work 6 1/3 innings in the series-opening blowout, so Carlos Villanueva wasn’t available for Saturday afternoon, and neither Ryota Igarashi nor Jason Frasor was supposed to be.  But when you get to a 13th inning, you have to change the strategy a bit.

The Blue Jays tied the game in the top of the 7th, after Henderson Alvarez gave up back-to-back-to-back two-out solo homers to Nelson Cruz, Yorvit Torrealba and Mitch Moreland to get the  Rangers back from 4-2 down.  Alvarez was ejected after throwing a two-strike sinker inside, hip-high, on the next hitter, Ian Kinsler, in a stunning display of baseball ignorance from home plate umpire Marty Foster.  I don’t believe, though, that it had anything to do with any kind of personal vendetta from the umpires for the Brett Lawrie incident of two weeks ago or the Blue Jays’ constant chirping about ball/strike calls. I’m amazed that there still exist umpires with such little grasp of the game that could think Alvarez would be throwing at Kinsler intentionally, down a run in the 6th with two outs and two strikes and the meat of the Rangers’ order to follow.

Anyway, Jose Bautista doubled to lead off the 7th, J.P. Arencibia cashed him with a single, and the game stayed tied at fives until the 13th.

The Blue Jays were awfully lucky to have it stay tied, too, since they didn’t have a baserunner in the 8th, 9th, 10th or 11th and managed just a Colby Rasmus walk and an infield single by Edwin Encarnacion in the 12th.  Meanwhile, the Rangers were getting the leadoff man on base in every inning from the 9th on – the last Blue Jays pitcher to throw a clean inning in the game was Francisco Cordero.

Casey Janssen hit the leadoff man in each of the 9th and 10th, managed to work his way out of the first jam and needed Darren Oliver’s help to get out of the second one.  Oliver came on to strike out pinch-hitter Mike Napoli and end the 10th.  The veteran lefty then gave up leadoff singles in each of the 11th and 12th, but worked out of both frames.  Even though none of the Rangers’ six baserunners from the 9th to the 12th came around to score, that helped them turn over the line-up so that it was the top of the order coming to bat in the bottom of the inning.

First to the top, though, when the Blue Jays struck for a pair.  It was 45 year-old Omar Vizquel coming up huge in the clutch, driving a two-out single to centre to cash Brett Lawrie with the go-ahead run.  Vizquel would score as Nelson Cruz misplayed Yunel Escobar’s line drive.  The Blue Jays had a two-run lead going to the bottom of the 13th, but as I mentioned at the time on The Twitter, it felt as though they needed more.

That’s because with Luis Perez, Cordero, Janssen and Oliver having been used up to shut the Rangers out over 6 1/3 innings of stellar relief work, the Blue Jays’ bullpen was out of fresh pitchers.

All that was left was Villanueva (who had thrown 66 pitches the night before), Frasor (who had thrown 31) and Igarashi (who had thrown 41), along with Sunday’s scheduled starter Kyle Drabek, who was on his normal fifth day thanks to Thursday’s day off.

I’m assuming John Farrell really wanted to avoid using Frasor, which is why he gave the ball to Igarashi to start the 13th.  The newest Blue Jay had gotten roughed up in his long inning Friday night, and he started this outing the same way he did that one, by walking the first batter he faced.  This time, though, he followed by letting Elvis Andrus take him deep into the gap in left-centre for an RBI double and Farrell had seen enough.  I’m thinking Alex Anthopoulos has probably seen enough of Igarashi too, at this point.

The call went to Frasor and, with Josh Hamilton up as the winning run, the decision was made to pitch to the Rangers’ slugger, and it didn’t work.  Hamilton pounded a 1-2 changeup into the grassy knoll beyond the centre-field fence for his 20th homer of the season – the walk-off winner.

There’s room for disagreement, but I’m all for not putting the winning run on base via the intentional walk, even if it’s a guy having the season Hamilton is.  It’s easy to say you saw it coming, but Hamilton stays in the park in 90% of his plate appearances.  Over his last nine games, he was hitting .242 with one home run.  And you have a pitcher on fumes, who’s likely to give up a hit or two.  Make the hitter earn his way on.  It’s a shame for the Blue Jays that it ended the way it did, but I firmly believe that it was the right decision not to walk Hamilton, that it was likelier the Rangers would win the game if they had.  Hamilton certainly beat the odds by taking Frasor deep there, and more power to him for that.

After a loss like that, it was bound to be a fun BlueJaysTalk – the only thing I really don’t like is when a caller only wants to talk at me, not with me.  I’m looking for a conversation, not to be shouted down, no matter how frustrated you are by a given game.  Here’s the show, for your listening pleasure:

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The series wraps up Sunday afternoon, by which time I expect there will be a couple of new faces in the Blue Jays’ bullpen (it was nice knowing you, Iggy).  Kyle Drabek will get the start against Yu Darvish in a rematch of their April 30th meeting at Rogers Centre, which Drabek left after six strong innings trailing 2-1.  We’ll be on the air across the Blue Jays Radio Network at 2:30PM Eastern for a 3:07 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590 – seems I block more people after a game like this one than at any other time.

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

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1:08AM Eastern

The Blue Jays’ series opener in Texas was over early, as Brandon Morrow got knocked around to the tune of a six-run first inning and his teammates never had an answer for Rangers’ lefty Derek Holland.

It would have been a game on which to just turn the page and let drift into the vapours of history, except that a bunch of stuff happened that was worth noting, such as:

-Carlos Villanueva picked up Morrow with two out in the first – the shortest start of Morrow’s career – and took it all the way to the sixth, allowing only a couple of solo homers and striking out seven.  He threw 66 pitches and was reasonably effective, which could open up a string of conversation suggesting that he take over as the 5th starter should the Blue Jays make a move in the rotation.  It doesn’t appear as though he’d need much stretching out at all.

-Ryota Igarashi made his Blue Jays’ debut and pitched very much like the guy who got knocked around with the Mets the last two years as opposed to the guy who dominated PCL hitters in Las Vegas the last seven weeks.  After issuing only three walks in 21 innings with the 51′s, Igarashi walked the first batter he faced, Josh Hamilton, and then gave up four singles – three of which were line-drive shots up the middle.  He did strike out a pair, but Alan Ashby pointed out during the broadcast that he could see how Igarashi’s stuff could dominate in the minor leagues, and not so much in the bigs.  He added, though, that it’s a very small sample.  However, it should have been a lot smaller of a sample; Igarashi threw 41 pitches in his one inning of work.

-Edwin Encarnacion went deep, which is always nice.  It was his 15th home run of the season, and seventh of the month of May – a month in which he’s struggled in most other facets of his offensive game.  The homer was the only run the Blue Jays scored in the first seven innings.

-Yan Gomes made his major-league debut as a catcher, moving from first base to behind the plate in the bottom of the 7th, though he didn’t get to catch much.  Not a lot of Jason Frasor’s pitches got past the Rangers’ bats, and then he didn’t get to catch a big-league pitcher in the 8th.  Which brings us to……

-Jeff Mathis pitched the bottom of the 8th!  With the odds of a comeback exceedingly long and a bit of a need to save the bullpen, Mathis was called upon to throw with the Blue Jays down by 11.  He flashed an 88 mile-an-hour fastball and mixed in the occasional curve and change-up, and was the only Blue Jay of the evening to not allow a run.  Watching position players pitch is always kind of fun, especially when they do well, and Mathis is the second in as many years to do it for the Jays – Mike McCoy took the mound last season and he, too, threw a shutout frame.

To cap the night, we had one of the best callers in the entire history of The BlueJaysTalk after the game – a self-proclaimed Baseball Deity who knew everything there was to know about baseball and followed all major-league teams very, very closely.  He wondered why the Blue Jays didn’t go after guys like Gino Gonzalez, P.J. Wilson or that great righty from the Cubs, Mark Buehrle, this past winter.  Here’s the show, for your listening pleasure:

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Before the game, the Blue Jays made a couple of moves, bringing Igarashi and David Cooper up from Las Vegas, sending down Evan Crawford and putting Ben Francisco on the disabled list with a left hamstring strain.  Cooper will be mostly a bench player as Yan Gomes gets the lion’s share of the first base at-bats for the time being, and he’s likely just a placeholder until Vladimir Guerrero is ready to come up.  Crawford will definitely be back – the Blue Jays love his stuff, and though his overall numbers have been pretty awful in his two short stints, he still has managed to hold left-handed hitters to a .133 batting average and a .533 OPS.

The series continues Saturday afternoon, and it’s Henderson Alvarez being charged with helping the Blue Jays snap what’s now a three-game losing streak.  He’ll face Rangers’ Opening Day starter Colby Lewis.  We’ll be on the air across the Blue Jays Radio Network with the pre-game show at 2:30PM Eastern, and those of you listening on Sportsnet590 The Fan or here on this very website will get the treat of an extra half-hour pre-game beginning at 2:00PM Eastern.  We’ll talk to mlb.com’s own Gregor Chisholm, and get the word on baseball in Hawaii from Oakland’s Kila Ka’aihue. 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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11:54PM Eastern

With a day game after a night game coming up, I’ll touch quickly on a couple of the major talking points that came out of the loss to the Rays:

-Going to Evan Crawford in the 5th inning was a fine move by John Farrell.  It may have been the by-the-book move or the safe move, but that’s what your bottom-of-the-bullpen guys are there for, to be used early on when you’re losing.  You hope they keep the game where it is so that you can have a chance to come back, but sometimes they give up runs.  With the Rays loaded with left-handed hitters and switch-hitters who are better from the left side, the likeliest call was Crawford with the Blue Jays down 6-4 in the fifth, then Luis Perez later on.

-Brett Lawrie calming himself down before attacking second base umpire Rob Drake was a very good thing indeed.  Drake called Lawrie out on appeal for not retouching second base on his way back to first after Lawrie took off on a pitch that wound up being hit into right field and caught.  Lawrie slid into second, got up, and to my eyes appeared to at the very least stunt towards third before running back to first base, but he didn’t touch second on the way back.  It amazed me how many people who watched replay after replay are firmly convinced they saw completely different things.  As I said, I think Lawrie was on the third-base side of the bag, but even if he wasn’t, he should have known that it was close enough to have stepped on second on the way back.  It’s not as important that you know you didn’t need to touch it as it is that the umpires know.

Anyway, when Drake went up with his fist, Lawrie came sprinting towards him off first base, causing Drake to shake in his boots and put his hand up to stop Lawrie, as though that would have helped.  But the light went on in Lawrie’s head – you could almost see it as it was happening  - and he slowed down before he got too close and put his arms out to the sides as if to say “It’s OK, I only want to talk”, and that was all he did.  It was good to see, but it didn’t help his cause any, because he was out.  That wasn’t the umpires picking on Brett Lawrie, that was Lawrie being rightfully called out.

-Drew Hutchison gave up a five-spot in the fourth inning, a Rays rally that was capped by a three-run Carlos Pena homer.  It’s the third big inning Hutchison has allowed in his young career, and 14 of the 23 earned runs he’s given up in have come in three of the 37 2/3 innings he’s pitched.  Take away the three big innings and the 21 year-old has an ERA of 2.93.  Obviously you can’t do that, but it does sort of illustrate that he’ll be just fine if he can stay away from the big inning.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure – I apologize for not being able to contain my incredulity at the suggestion that Ryota Igarashi should be called up from Las Vegas to replace Casey Janssen as the closer:

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The series wraps up with Ricky Romero taking on righty James Shields.  Romero has struggled with his control lately, walking 14 over his last three starts.  Hopefully it’s a bump in the road that he’s gotten over and he’ll return to his now less-recent dominant self.  A Blue Jays win gets them back to within a game of the Rays for second in the A.L. East and would give them their first series win at the Rays in 15 tries.  It’s a matinee, so please join us along the Blue Jays Radio Network at 1:00PM Eastern!

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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11:26PM Eastern

What started out looking like a little-league affair wound up with only one team looking as though it didn’t belong, and for one of a very few times when these clubs meet up, it was the Tampa Bay Rays.

The Blue Jays have lost each of the past 14 series that they’ve played in Central Florida, and it seems as though many of those losses have either been of the “anything that can go wrong will go wrong” variety, or have involved the Blue Jays’ allowing the Rays a tiny opening with an error, misplay, ill-timed walk or some such and having the Tampas just blast through that hole for a big rally.

In the opener of this series in St. Pete, the Rays got a huge break early thanks to a ridiculous ground rule at Tropicana Field, and were basically handed another run later on by an extremely shaky Kyle Drabek, but they couldn’t put Drabek away and wound up blowing up real good in the 8th inning, allowing the Blue Jays to salt away a win.

The insanity began early, with B.J. Upton coming to the plate with one out in the bottom of the first.  He hit a lazy fly ball to centre, and Colby Rasmus camped under it in front of the warning track, ready to make a play, but the ball hit something and fell in front of him.

The umpires went back to look at the replay and must have seen one that we didn’t, because they determined that the ball hit an object that was suspended from the “B” ring – the second most inside of the four rings that hold up the roof at the Trop.

It’s a categorically insane ground rule – there is no chance the ball would have gone out if it hadn’t hit the catwalk – but as of right now there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

But the Blue Jays didn’t let that get to them, nor did they let six Drabek walks get to them, or three wild pitches by the young righty – all of which came in the third inning.

In fact, despite his wildness, Drabek only gave up one run over six innings other than the extremely tainted 300-foot “home run” to dead centre, as the Rays went 1-for-5 against him with runners in scoring position.  In three of his six innings, a lone walk was the only baserunner the Rays would get.

In the top of the 2nd, the Blue Jays tied it up by taking advantage of a Rays miscue.  Edwin Encarnacion led off with a single and A.L. Player of the Week J.P. Arencibia hit a routine double play ball to third, but T-Bay second baseman Will Rhymes threw wildly to first, allowing Arencibia to go to second, from whence he scored as Eric Thames followed with an RBI single (and was picked off rounding first too far by Jose Molina).

The Blue Jays took the lead for good when Yunel Escobar went deep with one out in the 6th – no catwalks, no guywires, no nothing – and pounced on more Rays’ mistakes in the 8th to score three unearned insurance runs.

Colby Rasmus led off that inning with  his second of two doubles on the night. After Jeff Mathis failed to bunt him over, Kelly Johnson was intentionally walked and Rays’ manager Joe Maddon went to his bullpen for Burke Badenhop.  Escobar hit a comebacker to the mound that got under Badenhop’s glove for an error, loading the bases with one out, but then Badenhop got Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion each to hit inning-ending double-play balls to third – neither of which were turned.

Sean Rodriguez hauled in Bautista’s grounder and threw it into right field, allowing two Jays’ runs to score, and Bautista blew up Rhymes at second on Encarnacion’s grounder, forcing a wild throw and cashing another Jays’ run.

Francisco Cordero came on to work a 1-2-3 bottom of the 8th – he’s retired 12 of the last 13 hitters he’s faced and hasn’t given up a run since being removed from the closer’s job.

The Blue Jays beat the Rays at their own game, and maybe – just maybe – this might mean that the dark cloud that has seemed to follow them every time they head down to the lovely St. Pete-Tampa Bay area is lifting.

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

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Big news from the minor leagues, as well, with Brett Cecil (5.2ip), Danny Farquhar (2.1) and Ronald Uviedo (1.0) combining to throw a no-hitter for the AA New Hampshire Fisher Cats in a 6-0 win over the Portland Sea Dogs.  It’s the 3rd no-no in Fisher Cats’ history – the last guy to throw one?  Kyle Drabek.

The Blue Jays and Rays continue their series in St. Pete with a battle of rookies.  21 year-old Drew Hutchison takes the ball against 22 year-old Matt Moore, who was the most talked-about rookie of the spring.  He was the consensus pre-season pick for 2012 rookie of the year, and most seemed to think he’d contend for the Cy Young, too.  Eight starts in, he’s 1-4, 5.20 with a WHIP of 1.578 and opponents’ OPS of .828.  Hutchison has started six times and is 3-1, 4.81 with a WHIP of 1.515 and opponents’ OPS of .780.  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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6:13PM Eastern

The Blue Jays brought their brooms with them to Rogers Centre in an attempt to sweep away the New York Metropolitans, but fell just short despite having a seemingly golden opportunity to at least tie it up in the bottom of the ninth.

The Jays had climbed back from a 6-2 hole to close to within a run with some big hits late – a two-out RBI single by Jose Bautista in the 7th, back-to-back doubles by J.P. Arencibia and Eric Thames to open the 8th and an RBI single by Colby Rasmus later in that frame, which snapped his personal 0-for-20.

The Mets looked for some insurance in the top of the 9th but couldn’t get it, as Francisco Cordero came on for Darren Oliver with two on and two out and struck out Ronny Cedeno on three pitches, driving the crowd of 41,867 nuts.  It was an incredible atmosphere at the old Concrete Convertible, with the huge crowd – driven by a Brandon Morrow bobblehead giveaway and the gorgeous long-weekend weather – making its presence felt throughout the game, it’s just too bad the Blue Jays couldn’t emerge victorious.

As I said, the chance was there.  Frank Francisco, the Mets’ closer who had the same job with the Blue Jays for a lot of last season, came on  to work the bottom of the 9th to great celebration among the fans, and they were even happier when he walked Yunel Escobar on a 3-2 pitch to open the inning.  Jose Bautista followed, and with the Mets playing a major right-handed pull shift, Bautista bounced a two-strike offering through the wide-open right side for a single.  Escobar had to hold up at second because the ball almost hit him on its way to right field, so he had to stop to let it go through.

That put the tying run on second and the winning run on first with the Blue Jays’ 4-5-6 hitters coming up.

Edwin Encarnacion was first, and in no way should he have been asked to bunt.  Encarnacion has been having a rough time lately, just 5-for-25 on the homestand and hitting only .188 in May going into that at-bat (though with 5 homers in 18 games), but he has still been the Blue Jays’ best overall hitter this season.  More importantly, Encarnacion has NEVER laid down a successful sacrifice bunt in his career.  When some hitters come to the plate in that situation, it’s just screaming out for a bunt to be dropped down.  Not your clean-up hitter, though.

Edwin struck out, and J.P. Arencibia was next.  Unlike Encarnacion, Arencibia has been hot as a pistol in the month of May, hitting .339/.362/.732 going into that at-bat, and already with two hits in the game.  Arencibia got ahead of Francisco 2-0, fouled off a couple of pitches, then struck out too, leaving things up to Eric Thames.

The options on the bench were Jeff Mathis and Omar Vizquel, neither of whom is nearly the hitter Thames is, even Eric struggles through a tough May of his own, with an OPS under .600.  Thames fouled off a couple of pitches around a couple of balls, then, just like the two teammates before him, he struck out swinging. That ended the game and got Francisco his 10th save of the season in 12 tries, actually lowering his WHIP to a still-unsightly 2.040.

It’s too bad that the Blue Jays couldn’t take advantage of the opportunity Francisco afforded them with the two baserunners, but it’s not as though it should have been managed differently.  You don’t bunt with Encarnacion – nor do you pinch-hit one of your two worst hitters for one of your best in order to ask one of them to lay down a bunt that has no guarantee at all of working (remember Omar Vizquel in Oakland last week), nor do you bunt with (or pinch-hit for) your hottest hitter.

The only thing that perhaps should have been done differently was maybe having Yunel Escobar try to steal second with Bautista up.  Francisco has always been absolutely terrible at holding baserunners – over the last five years, 40 runners have tried to steal off him and 37 have been successful, including four out of four this year.  The thing is, Escobar is probably the second-worst basestealer on the team.  I don’t know why, he’s not slow, but he’s not a good basestealer.  He’s only tried once this season, and been caught, and for his career he’s stolen successfully on only 21 of 39 attempts.  That’s an awful conversion rate, and even with someone as bad at holding runners as Frankie on the mound, I don’t know if it’s worth taking a chance with the tying run.

It was an unfortunate finish, but an electric afternoon at the ballpark, and while I’m sure the crowd left frustrated and unhappy at the loss, I hope most people will think back to what a great time it was overall, and remember how great a place Rogers Centre can be when the atmosphere is like that.

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

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I also have to comment on a controversialish play in the top of the first inning.  With two out, Kirk Nieuwenhuis hit a blooper to shallow centre on which Colby Rasmus made an incredible headfirst, sprawling, diving catch.  He sno-coned the ball, though, and once he slid to a stop, opened up his glove to allow the ball to drop down into the pocket, as we see outfielders do all the time.  The ball fell out, and instead of a catch, it was ruled that Rasmus dropped the ball.  Everyone disagrees with me on this – which, while you wouldn’t think so, is pretty unusual – but I don’t see any difference between that play and an infielder dropping the ball on a transfer while trying to turn a double play.  Hopefully, the lesson Rasmus learns from this is that if he ever finds himself in that situation again, to either just stand up and start jogging to the dugout, or to take the ball out of his glove with his bare hand and not try to drop it into the pocket.  If that had been called an out, the inning would have been over, the Mets’ third run wouldn’t have scored and the game might still be going on.

It’s not, and the Blue Jays are off on a weeklong road trip that begins with a three-game set against the Tampa Bay Rays, who swept a two-gamer here at Rogers Centre earlier this week.  The series opens with Kyle Drabek taking on last season’s A.L. Rookie of the Year, Jeremy Hellickson.  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.  If you do, you can have good times like Saturday night when I was on for an hour discussing Adam Lind being placed on outright waivers.  If you don’t, you miss fun stuff like that!

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

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5:39PM Eastern

You can pretty much take the blog post I wrote two and a half weeks ago and re-read it.  Brandon Morrow was great back on May 3rd in Anaheim, throwing a three-hit shutout and striking out eight, and he was great Saturday afternoon against the Mets, throwing a three-hit shutout and striking out eight.

The difference between the two games?  Morrow issued one more walk this time than he did that time – for a grand total of one – and he threw five more pitches.

The righty was dominant from start to finish, retiring 20 of the first 21 batters he faced and facing just three batters over the minimum.

In five of his last six starts (not counting the last one against the Rays in which he hit a wall in the fifth inning and got lit up), Morrow has allowed a grand total of two earned runs on 25 hits, walking six and striking out 38 over 36 2/3 innings.  That would be an ERA of 0.49, a WHIP of 0.845 and a K/9 rate of 9.33  Those numbers are phenomenal, and hopefully show that Morrow has taken a huge stride towards becoming the legitimate ace so many expected him to become – he was taken 5th overall in 2006, after all.

Morrow did catch a rather huge break in the top of the 9th, though.  With one out and a runner on first, Mets’ DH Mike Baxter ripped a line drive down the right-field line.  Jose Bautista played it off the low retaining wall, spun and fired a blind strike to Yunel Escobar, who swiped at thin air as Baxter slid past him into second base……and was called out.  Escobar completely missed Baxter, but second-base umpire Brian Knight was in no position to see that, and so he went up with his fist since the ball beat the runner.  It was a terrible call, and just enhances the reasons to have robot umpires – or instant replay at the very least.  Instead of the Mets having runners at second and third and one out – the tying run in scoring position – and their third and fourth hitters coming up, they had a man on third and two out.

Just an awful call, though it has been a while since one that bad favoured the Blue Jays.  Still, these guys work awfully hard out there and with the technology available since, you know, the 1980s or so, there’s no need to subject them to the vagaries of human judgement.

The Blue Jays’ only scoring came in the bottom of the fifth inning and Jeff Mathis started the rally by stroking a single to left with two out and nobody on.  Kelly Johnson followed by ripping an RBI double into the gap in right-centre, moving to third when the ball scooted under the glove of Mets’ centrefielder Andres Torres.  Johnson scored as Yunel Escobar smacked the next pitch into right field for a single.

That was it – those were half the hits the Blue Jays managed for the afternoon – but it was one more run than Morrow would need in his dominant performance.

Here’s this afternoon’s super-extendo version of The BlueJaysTalk, for your listening pleasure – thanks to all the long weekend cottagers for calling up:

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The series and the homestand wrap up Sunday afternoon, and it’s Henderson Alvarez tasked with securing the sweep and the Blue Jays’ fifth straight win, which would be a season high.  His mound opponent will be righty Dillon Gee, who has been kind of unlucky to post a 5.65 ERA so far this season.  His opponents’ batting average on balls in play is an unusually high .351, and he’s walked only nine in 43 innings of work.  Gee has had a little trouble keeping the ball in the park, though, allowing six home runs, and the Blue Jays have hit 11 homers in their last four games including this last one, in which they didn’t hit any.  We’ll be on the air at 12:30PM Eastern with the pre-game show for a 1:07 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590. Brandon Morrow can be found @2Morrow23.

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

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12:42AM Eastern

Blue Jays fans have long dreaded the beginning of interleague play because it’s a place where the Jays’ playoff hopes, faint though they may have been, have gone to die in recent seasons.

For some strange,unknowable reason, the Blue Jays have rarely fared well against NL teams during the regular season, posting a winning record in interleague play only three times since its inception in 1997.  In fact, over the past eight seasons, the Blue Jays have lost an average of three games a year in the standings to the Red Sox and Yankees through the 18 interleague games.

This year, though, started with a bang.  Five bangs, actually.  A pair of homers each for J.P. Arencibia (who has four big flies in his last three games) and Rajai Davis (his first-ever multi-homer game) were lovely bookends for Yan Gomes’ first big-league homer – a laserbeam to left field that took about a second and a half to get out of the park.

Gomes has made quite an impression in his first two games, he’s 3-for-5 with a walk and a sacrifice fly to go with the homer, two runs scored and two RBIs.  If the plan was to ship him back down to Las Vegas after the weekend, once Brett Lawrie comes back, he seems determined to make it very difficult for the Blue Jays to follow through with that.

In all, every Blue Jays starter reached base at least once and they all came around to score at least once, save for Ben Francisco.

The Mets only managed one 1-2-3 inning on the mound, the 8th, and the pitcher was Rob Johnson, who happened to spend the first seven innings behind the plate.

Ricky Romero wasn’t exactly back to his old self – he walked four in his six innings of work but only allowed a run on three hits and left after having thrown 99 pitches since the Blue Jays had a 14-1 lead.  Carlos Villanueva picked him up with a shutout 7th, Evan Crawford and Luis Perez combined to give up four in the 8th and Francisco Cordero threw a hitless 9th, issuing a walk.

Crawford had to come out of the game (kicking and screaming,  mind you) because of a low back spasm, but the Blue Jays don’t think he’ll have to go to the disabled list.

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

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The series continues with the return of Miguel Batista.  The 41 year-old, who was the Blue Jays’ number two starter in 2004 and their closer in 2005, resurrected his career last season after spending some time with the Mets’ AAA Buffalo Bisons team.  His year so far has been kind of rough, posting a 1.737 WHIP in 12 appearances, three of which have been starts, despite a 4.26 ERA.  Brandon Morrow will oppose and we’ll have it for you along the Blue Jays Radio Network starting with the pre-game show at 12:30PM Eastern for a 1:07 first pitch.  We are expecting to have Alan Ashby back in the booth with us, it’s been an incredible honour (and a lot of fun) to fill in for him these last two games.  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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