Toronto Blue Jays

After undergoing what was termed "minor surgery" to clean up loose bodies and bone spurs in his right elbow, Sergio Santos has been transferred from the 15- to the 60-day disabled list, creating an open spot on the 40-man roster in order for the Blue Jays to claim right-handed pitcher Thad Weber off waivers from the San DIego Padres. Weber has been assigned to the Buffalo Bisons. Santos, 29, has been oft-injured since he was acquired from the White Sox last season for prospect Nestor Molina. In 2012 he only made six appearances before he was placed on the disabled list for a minor ailment, but by mid-July the club announced that he would be going for season-ending shoulder surgery. This season, Santos made just five appearances, the last coming on April 13, before he was shut down yet again. Santos is eligible to come off the 60-day DL on June 13, but the Blue Jays have estimated that he would take six weeks to come back from the surgery, which puts him on a schedule to return around Canada Day. Moving Santos to the 60-day DL created an open spot on the 40-man roster, and Alex Anthopoulos used it to claim righty Thad Weber from the Padres. Weber is a 28-year old Nebraskan who was drafted by the Tigers back in 2008, spending five seasons in the TIgers organization before making his major league debut on April 22, 2012 in Detroit. He was sent back down to the minors and was claimed on waivers by the Padres in late August. Weber was a non-roster invitee to major league spring training for the Padres earlier this season. Weber has a career minor league ERA of 4.03, striking out 6.4 per 9 innings while walking just over 2. He has split the season between Tucson and San Diego, starting in six games in AAA and making three relief appearances in the major leagues. Through nine MLB innings this year, he has a 2.00 ERA, having given up five hits and five walks against six strike outs. In his six minor league starts, he has a 3.93 ERA with 26 strikeouts in 34 innings. According to a blogger's report on Weber, he has a curveball with tremendous vertical movement (-9.655) but with relatively small horizontal movement, although his command of it may still be a work in progress. Weber is likely to join the Buffalo Bisons' battered starting rotation. When needed, he can most likely make a spot start for Toronto or act in a long-relief role. He is the 21st player the Blue Jays have acquired through waivers since the end of the 2012 season.

I thought I'd ask: which of these pitchers do you expect to see up with the Blue Jays first: Dustin McGowan: Dustin pitched yesterday for Buffalo, and did well. He's on a very limited pitch count, which is understandable. He's not eligible to come off the DL until the 27th,but the Jays might want him to do the full 30-day rehab assignment. Hitting 95 on the radar gun is a good sign. Josh Johnson makes his first rehab start tomorrow. All going well, I doubt the Jays would have him making more than 2 or 3 rehab starts, but when has all gone well for the Jays? J.A. Happ is to start throwing soon too. Though, last I heard, his knee is still sore. Then since it isn't his arm, he might not need rehab starts. Marcus Stroman makes his first appearance of the season, a start, for New Hampshire today. Since it was a suspension, not an injury, he'll hit the ground running, just like it was opening day. So let's have a poll. Poll Which of these four will we see up with the Blue Jays first? Dustin McGowan Josh Johnson J.A. Happ Marcus Stroman 45 votes | Results

Your browser does not support iframes. The Juice returns for season No. 6! It’s almost eligible for free-agency! Stop by daily for news from the action, along with great photos, stats, video highlights and more. The Baltimore Orioles have been basically untouchable when leading after seven innings over the past couple of seasons, but that all came to a stunning and screeching halt on Saturday. With a 6-4 lead entering the ninth, closer Jim Johnson, whose consecutive save streak ended at 35 on Tuesday, allowed a home run to Kelly Johnson, two walks, a single, before wrapping up his outing on Matt Joyce’s go-ahead, two-run double. Sidearmer Darren O’Day took over from there and allowed both of Johnson’s inherited runners to score and then one of his own. All in all, it was a six-run rally for the Rays that turned Baltimore‘s lead into a 10-6 defeat , ending their remarkable 109-game winning streak in games they led after the seventh inning in the process. I suppose they knew it was coming eventually, but one has to believe there were a few shocked people in Baltimore’s clubhouse after it got away to that extend. Meanwhile, Evan Longoria and the Rays couldn’t have been more thrilled they were the team to finally end the late inning dominance. ”Their track record after seven innings has spoken for itself,” Longoria said. ”They’ve been really good late in the game. And Jim Johnson has been as good as they come. To be able to get to him and then tack a couple more on and be able to win a game like that, especially here in this hostile environment, is really big.” The Rays will hope to make it three really big wins on Sunday as they go for the series sweep. View full post on Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Toronto Blue Jays News

There will be a battle of initials and aces this afternoon, weather permitting. The Blue Jays will send R.A. Dickey to the mound while the Yankees counter with C.C. Sabathia. Rain falls in NYC, so we may have to wait for baseball today. This can’t get any worse, right? The first inning of yesterday’s game versus the Yankees started with some promise. That is, following Melky Cabrera’s striking out on a ball that hit his foot. Both Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion drew walks, giving cleanup hitter J.P. Arencibia an opportunity to inflict some damage with two men on. Maybe we all saw that coming. Worry not, though. Here comes walk machine Adam Lind and his two home runs in seven career at-bats versus David Phelps. Lind works the count to 3-1 and then… The tone was set for a sloppy afternoon of Blue Jays baseball. 7-2 Yankees. The season in a nutshell. Here’s to the Blue Jays salvaging a game out of this series. Like that’s worth something at this point. Scuttlebutt Marcus Stroman will return from suspension today and take the mound for the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats. Shi Davidi highlights some changes Stroman has made to his repertoire, which will feature a changeup, slider, and “true curveball”. Gregor Chisholm updates J.A. Happ’s status, noting that it’s the left-hander’s knee, not head, that’s currently holding him back from throwing off the mound. Davidi relays a facetious quote from Brandon Morrow following yesterday’s loss in this tweet. One of the other pieces the Kansas City Royals sent to Tampa along with Wil Myers for James Shields, Jake Odorizzi, will make his Rays debut on Monday versus the Jays. TV: Sportsnet And now the lineups, by way of the live box score at theScore.com. And for those of you who’ll be out and about, be sure to follow all the action on your phone with theScore app… Toronto Blue Jays DH Melky Cabrera (S) RF Jose Bautista (R) 1B Edwin Encarnacion (R) 2B Mark DeRosa (R) 3B Brett Lawrie (R) SS Maicer Izturis (S) CF Colby Rasmus (L) LF Emilio Bonifacio (S) C Henry Blanco (R) R.A. Dickey RHP New York Yankees CF Curtis Granderson (L) 2B Robinson Cano (L) LF Vernon Wells (R) DH Travis Hafner (L) 1B Lyle Overbay (L) 3B Jayson Nix (R) RF Ichiro Suzuki (L) SS Reid Brignac (L) C Austin Romine (R) C.C. Sabathia LHP

Honestly, honestly, unless it hurts why do it? Last Tuesday, R.A. Dickey finally looked like himself. Today, he gets to be the stopper the Jays traded for in December. CC Sabathia goes for the Yankees, who are looking to extend their home win streak against the Jays to ten games.

The Blue Jays attempt to avoid a sweep at the hand of the devil Yankees today. CC Sabathia goes up against R.A. Dickey in a battle of the aces. Sabathia faced (and beat obviously) the Blue Jays on April 27th going 8 innings giving up 3 earned runs from 9 hits with 4 strikeouts and no walks. The Blue Jays used no left handed batters against CC Sabathia on that occasion which was pretty impressive lineup management by John Gibbons and company. If the Blue Jays want to beat Sabathia today they'll have to avoid swinging at pitches like this slider that Rajai Davis hacked at for strike three. via www.brooksbaseball.net A lot of Sabathia's fastballs this year have been right down the middle of the plate early in the counts so it wouldn't be a bad idea to swing aggressively early in the at-bats as Jose Bautista did for his home run last time he faced Sabathia. via www.brooksbaseball.net Brett Lawrie's home run also came on a fastball right down Broadway. It's a little surprising Lawrie got so many fastballs in the at-bat as it looks like the book is out on his struggles with sliders. Don't be surprised if he faces many more off-speed pitches this afternoon. via www.brooksbaseball.net Should Lind Play: NO NO NO There's no way Lind gets into the lineup today against such a tough lefty. Still looking for suggestions for a better daily feature. For today's "Find the Link": Find the link between CC Sabathia and a setting on your TV you should use when watching the game on Sportsnet to avoid Pat Tabler's creepy laugh. It's a nice Sunday today so go out and enjoy it! Or don't and scream at the TV all day. Either way, have a good one folks!

I haven't done one of these yet this year, but I was curious to see how Dustin McGowan did, and then it grew from there. Buffalo Bisons (24-17) lost 11-6 to Charlotte Knights Dustin McGowan pitched a clean inning, 1 k. 11 pitches, 6 strikes. Maybe well see him sooner than I thought. He can come off the DL on the 27th. Claudio Vargas: 3.0, 7 hits, 6 earned, 1 walk, 0 k. took the loss. 4.70 ERA. Bobby Koercky: 2.1, 4 hits, 3 earned, 1 walk. 4.44. Jeremy Jeffress: 0.2, 1 walk, 1 k. 2.45. Michael Schwimer: 1.0, 1 k. Miguel Batista: 1.0, 1 hit, 1 earned, 1 walk, 1 k. 8.36. Anthony Gose: 1 for 3, walk, 2 k. .227/.341/.327. Moises Sierra: 0 for 3, walk, k. .316/.369/.493. Luis Jimenez: 1 for 3, 2 walks, 1 k. .365/.442/.635. Andy LaRoche: 2 for 5, double. .297/.357/.484. Jim Negrych: 0 for 3, 2 walk, k. .390/.457/.593 Eugenio Velez: 1 for 3, home run, walk. .276/.350/.495. New Hampshire Fisher Cats (21-23) beat New Britain Rock Cats 5-0 Sean Nolin: 6.0, 4 hits, 0 earned, 2 walks, 5 k. 1.17. Sean got the win. Scott Gracey: 2.0, 3 k. (he just moved up from Dunedin). Kevin Pillar: 2 for 5, k .341/.385/.484. Ryan Schimpf: 0 for 5, k. .211/.353/.479. Kevin Nolan: 0 for 4, 3 k. .277/.373/.416. Clint Robinson: 1 for 4, double, k. .286/.390/.429. Adam Loewen: 1 for 4, k. .200/.308/.333. Sean Ochinko: 2 for 4, double. .232/.342/.374. Kevin Ahrens: 1 for 3, double, walk: .213/.373/.277. John Tolisano: 1 for 4, home run, 2 k. .234/.300/.400. Dunedin Blue Jays (23-16) lost to Brevard County Manatees 6-3 Aaron Sanchez: 3.0, 2 hits, 2 earned, 2 walks, 2 k, 1 home run. 3.16. Tyler Ybarra: 1.0, 2 hits, 2 earned, 1 walk, 1 k. 6.30. Took the loss. Jon Berti: 1 for 3, double, 2 walks, k, steal. .264/.318/.325. Jonathan Jones: 0 for 5, 2 k. .203/.272/.270. Andy Burns: 1 for 4, 2 k, steal. ..338/.425/.556. 14 stolen bases, 6 caught. Marcus Knecht: 1 for 4, double, walk. .241/.288/.372. Mike Crouse: 0 for 2, 2 walks, steal. .313/.450/.500 in 5 game. K.C. Hobson: 1 for 4, double, k. .208/.235/.427. Derrick Chung: 2 for 4, double. .330/.385/.352. Lansing Lugnuts (16-23) beat Great Lake Loons 9-2 Daniel Norris: 4.0, 3 hits, 1 earned, 3 walks, 7 k. 7.71. Kramer Champlin: 2.0, 3 hits, 1 earned, 1 walk, 1 k. Win. 3.95. Griffin Murphy: 2.0, 1 k. 3.78. Justin Jackson: 1.0, 1 hit, 1 walk, 1 k. 2.45. So far, in his first year as a pitcher he has pitched 6.1 innings, 4 hits, 5 walks, 4 k. Dalton Pompey: 0 for 4, walk, 2 k. .261/.340/.366. 13 stolen bases. Dwight Smith Jr: 2 for 4, home run. walk, steal. .274/.361/.411. Christian Lopes: 2 for 3, 2 walks. .305/.331/.384. Kevin Patterson: 2 for 5, double, home run, 6 RBI, 2 k. .263/.333/.553. Kellen Sweeney: 0 for 4, k. .200/.305/.355. Balbino Fuenmayor: 1 for 4, home run, 2 k. .182/.270/.375. Chris Hawkins: 0 for 4. .210/.252/.282. Aaron Munoz: 1 for 2, triple, 2 walks. .262/.389/.333. Emilio Guerrero: 2 for 4, k. .273/.375/.309.

ATLANTA (AP) — Braves general manager Frank Wren said Saturday left-hander Eric O’Flaherty has a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. View full post on Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Toronto Blue Jays News

Control was the story on Saturday. Aaron Sanchez didn't have much, Daniel Norris had a little more. Combined they pitched seven innings. Sean Nolin was excellent, Claudio Vargas was not. Dustin McGowan made his first AAA appearance of the season, Danny Barnes made his first appearance for Dunedin. Both went well.Kevin Patterson had 6 RBI's for Lansing. Lansing won, as did New Hampshire. The other two teams did not do that well. Charlotte 11 Buffalo 6John Danks started against Claudio Vargas, Vargas gave up seven runs and he was followed by Bobby Korecky who gave up 3. Dustin McGowan pitched a clean inning as did Michael Schwimer. The Bisons had just seven hits. Andy LaRoche had two, Anthony Gose had one. Moises Sierra and Jim Negrych had none.New Hampshire 5 New Britain 0Sean Nolin was pretty good, he went six shutout innings, throwing 97 pitches, 63 strikes. He gave up 4 hits and two walks with 5 K's. With all the movement in pitchers this week Scott Gracey was promoted to New Hampshire. He pitched two shutout innings.Offensively John Tolisano hit a two run home run and had 3 RBI's. Kevin Pillar and Sean Ochinko had two hits.Brevard County 6 Dunedin 2Aaron Sanchez battled control problems. Sanchez has an 80 pitch limit but still he was done after three innings. Sanchez gave up a two run home run in the first inning, one of two hits he allowed. He also had two walks and two K's. He was followed by Tyler Ybarra who gave up two runs and took the loss. Danny Barnes pitched the ninth, 2 K's.Dunedin had just 7 hits, four off prospect Jed Bradley and three off good-named pitcher Tommy Toledo in the ninth. Derrick Chung was the only hitter with two hits. Great Lakes 2 Lansing 9Daniel Norris pitched four innings and recorded 7 strikeouts, pretty good. He also gave up 3 hits and 3 walks and he threw 72 pitches, a little high for four innings. Per Lugnut fan and his trusty ipad scoring app, Norris threw 43 of his 72 pitches for strikes. Slavko Bekovic, one of the Lansing broadcasters, tweeted that Norris was hitting 97-98 on the radar gun. Lugnut fan was at the game, he may add his comments. But you can see from the velocity and the strikeouts that Norris has a lot of potential.Lansing took a 5-0 lead after two innings and never looked back. Kevin Patterson had a double and a home run and 6 RBI's. Dwight Smith had 3 hits, including a home run. Christian Lopes and Emilio Guerrero had two each.3 Stars#3 - Dwight Smith#2 - Kevin Patterson#1 - Sean NolinBoxes

With the draft less than three weeks away I've spent an... alarming(?) amount of time reading up on draft stuff, and wanting to get something productive out of it, I thought I'd put this together for those who haven't. In the first part, I'll go over what the group for the Jays looks like right now. In the second, I'll organize various links from the more credentialed sources for anyone wanting to do their own reading. The first part is essentially the cliff notes version of all the links in the second part as it relates to the Jays. Part 1: Jays Targets First, let's get some names out of the way. Barring something catastrophic, Appel, Gray, and Bryant are off the board before the Jays pick. Kohl Stewart and Colin Moran seem to have worked their way into that category and it sounds like Braden Shipley is on the fringes. That leaves an interesting group that might be available for the Jays at #10. Group One: Austin Meadows Trey Ball Reese McGuire Group Two: Clint Frazier Sean Manaea Ryne Stanek The first three are the prospects the Jays have been linked to the most in the early going (and almost exclusively). Shockingly enough, they all happen to be high-upside prep players. Yeah, I can't believe it either. Austin Meadows, OF (L/L), H.S., (6'3", 200) Big, athletic, potential five tool player who is probably going to induce Patgasms regardless of who drafts him. He was seen as a possible first overall candidate coming into the year, but a not-so-great performance this spring, along with concerns over his effort and energy on the field, are causing him to slide. On tools alone he might be the highest upside prep player in the draft, and I think most fans would love it if the Jays got him. Especially Pat. Trey Ball, LHP, H.S., (6'6", 180) Tall, athletic, left hander with tons of projection left. He's already hitting 94 (sat high 80s/low 90s in his last start where he struck out 12, sat low 90s most of the year) and shows a feel for his secondaries. He's also a highly rated outfield prospect, but right now it sounds like most teams are looking at him as a starter. Reese McGuire, C (L/R), H.S., (6'1", 190) Plus arm strength and a great transfer add up to an 80 grade arm; Keith Law called him the best catch-and-throw prospect he's seen in years. His receiving behind the plate lags behind, but it sounds like he's shown improvement. The biggest question mark is what he's going to do with the bat. That profile might remind you of Austin Hedges coming into the 2011 draft, but it sounds like McGuire isn't the all-around defender Hedges was. That can hardly be considered criticism though. The next three are essentially the top names not mentioned in the opening. College lefty Sean Manaea was a 1:1 candidate coming into the spring after he tore up the Cape Cod League and showed a plus-plus heater. Between injuries and a loss of stuff (the two obviously at least somewhat related) he's seen his stock fall considerably, culminating in an outing a couple weeks ago where he sat in the mid-80s. If Manaea convinces teams the guy they saw in the Cape last year was real, he's probably not around for the Jays at 10 with all the pitching starved teams ahead of them. If not, then the Jays probably aren't considering him too seriously. It's obviously a lot more complicated than that; the Jays could see it while other teams don't, but things don't sound great for Manaea right now. Ryne Stanek is in a similar boat, except the concern with him is consistency and his delivery. It sounds like he has a better chance than Manaea at going in the top 10 right now because there seem to be less questions about his stuff, but again, that means there's a good chance he isn't available for the Jays at 10. Then there's high school outfielder Clint Frazier. Going back to the KLaw well again, he called it the best bat speed he's ever seen on an amateur. You're swooning too, right? It sounds like the issue with Fra