Toronto Blue Jays

The Jays continue their home series against the Tampa Bay Rays and their non-David Price, non-James Shields pitching, sending staff ace Ramon Ortiz to the hill, hoping to find just one small corner’s worth of pixie dust left in his bag, as he turns 2013 into the first year in which he’s made at least three Major League starts since he was a member of the Minnesota Twins back in 2007. Uh… fingers crossed? Uh… I dunno. Yunel Escobar, everybody! Scuttlebutt Junior hockey? Seriously? Ben Nicholson-Smith tweets that the Jays (read: the Buffalo Bisons) have released Miguel Batista. Chad Beck has been placed on the DL, while Thad Weber has been activated by the Triple-A affiliate. Shi Davidi adds that, as part of the above transaction, Ricardo Nanita has been moved from Double-A New Hampshire to the Bisons. According to a tweet from Brendan Kennedy: “Maddon said he believes the Rogers Centre turf is ‘way bouncier’ than the turf at The Trop. ‘Honestly I think ours is more true.’ ” WHAT??!? You mean this thin layer of film is shit to play on? No, but seriously, though. Junior hockey? TV: Sportsnet One 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 LF Melky Cabrera (S) RF Jose Bautista (R) 1B Edwin Encarnacion (R) DH Adam Lind (L) C J.P. Arencibia (R) 3B Brett Lawrie (R) CF Colby Rasmus (L) 2B Emilio Bonifacio (S) SS Munenori Kawasaki (L) Ramon Ortiz RHP Tampa Bay Rays CF Desmond Jennings (R) RF Matt Joyce (L) 2B Ben Zobrist (S) 3B Evan Longoria (R) 1B James Loney (L) DH Luke Scott (L) LF Kelly Johnson (L) C Jose Lobaton (S) SS Yunel Escobar (R) Alex Cobb RHP

The Jays finally cut back from the stupid 8-man bullpen, sent Mickey Storey back to Buffalo and surprised us by calling up Anthony Gose. Earlier they told us they wouldn't call up Gose unless he was here to stay. Baseball teams should stop saying things like that, because they can't see the future. Yes, in a perfect world, they'd like him to stay in Buffalo until he was ready to come up to Toronto to fill a spot in the outfield for the next several years. When have things been perfect in the Blue Jay world? Before we look at why Gose, let's look at something Mike Harrington wrote in this piece for the Buffalo News blog: It won't play well in the Buffalo clubhouse otherwise, e.g. the prospect gets the call no matter what he's doing even though out-of-organization veterans are producing much more. He's right, it won't play well with the Buffalo players, but then nothing really plays well with Triple-A players. They know they are close to being where they want to be. Most of them feel like they should be there now, if those front office guys knew how to do their jobs. So pretty much every move 'won't play well' in the clubhouse. If you are Jim Negrych, you just saw a guy hitting roughly 160 points worse than you get called up, that can't be easy to take. You can console yourself with the thought that the team wanted an outfielder, but you'd have to be thinking 'I have been batting .400 and the guys above me, in my position, aren't hitting at all. If I can't get the call now, it is never going to happen. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure he can't be terribly happy. For Moises Sierra, he might not be hitting .400 but he is hitting pretty decent, .324/.373/.497 slash line, much better than Gose, the team wants an outfielder and they pick Gose? He might not be so happy Josh Thole? You think Josh doesn't know what Henry Blanco is hitting? And J.P. Arencibia, I'm sure he knows that JP has two walks. He knows how many passed balls Blanco has, how many strikeouts Arencibia has. Someone else gets called up and he has to be wondering why his .330/.411/.495 line hasn't carried him to Toronto yet. So, yep, I'm sure calling up Gose hasn't made the Bison's clubhouse the happiest of place I guess the Jays don't want to change anything about the batting order, even with a bunch of guys not hitting. If they called Negyrich, then Bonifacio would have to sit. Not that bad an idea to me, but Gibbons has said he wants Emilio to play every day and hope that he finds his stroke. I might think that it would be smarter to give Negrych few days that Rajai is on the DL, give him a chance to prove the hot bat he has in Buffalo will work in Toronto. Or, I'd get Moises up to play against lefties. But, the Jays decided that they just want someone to be a defensive replacement for Melky Cabrera. And we all saw his defense wasn't great when he was up last year. There is nothing worse than putting in someone for his defense and then watching him make an error. So Gose it is.Lots of people are worried that this will screw up his development. I don't, he'll get to work with Chad Mottola for a few days. He loses a few game at bats, but I think he can live through it. Maybe the change in scenery will do him good. I'm ok with calling Gose up, how about you?

Over the past few days, there have been several minor league transactions of note in the Blue Jays franchise: 42-year old Miguel Batista's second stint in the Jays organization is now over. He was released from the Buffalo Bisons today according to a team release. He was rather ineffective, recording an 8.36 ERA in 28 innings pitched, striking out 17 while walking 16 and giving up 41 hits in that span, good for a WHIP of 2. He had one good start when he threw six innings of one-hit ball against the Lehigh Valley IronPigs back on April 21. The Bisons have also announced that they have placed Thad Weber on their active roster. Weber was recently claimed off waivers from the Padres. Chad Beck was placed on the 7-day disabled list (the minor leagues only have a single DL) for an unknown reason. Outfielder Ricardo Nanita was promoted from AA New Hampshire and will be joining the Bisons' outfield after Anthony Gose's recall. He hit .306/.353/.465 with 12 homers in 93 games in AAA Las Vegas last season. He has gotten to a rough start at the plate in the Eastern League, batting just .255/.322/.365 for the Fisher Cats, although he is on a five-game hitting streak. Nanita is a corner outfielder, which probably pushes Moises Sierra to the centre field spot in the Bisons lineup. As a 31-year old with no major league time, he is not a prospect by any means. The Dunedin Blue Jays have placed Aaron Sanchez on the 7-day disabled list for an unknown reason--requests for information from the Toronto Blue Jays have not been answered. Righty Eric Brown was placed on the D-Jays roster from extended spring training. The D-Jays have also placed catcher Derrick Chung on the DL. He was promoted to Dunedin from Vancouver to start 2012 and had responded really well, hitting .330/.385/.352 in 99 plate appearances. During the second inning of Josh Johnson's rehab start, Chung was bowled over at the plate by Travis Taijeron on a play at the plate. Trainers from both teams came out to tend to Chung, who had to be carted off the field. Catcher Chris Schaeffer joins the D-Jays from extended spring training. The Fisher Cats released righty Fernando Hernandez.

Leading off, as always (or usual), it’s today’s edition of the Getting Blanked Podcast– which for the duration of the season will be coming at you daily! We’re not double posting this year, but I’ll be sure to include the link in the first Daily Duce or Game Threat that follows the post going up over at Getting Blanked. Otherwise, you can find the podcast at Getting Blanked on iTunes, get it via the RSS feed we have setup, or like Getting Blanked on Facebook in order to get each day’s podcast straight into your news feed (if we bother to post it). While you’re at it, go ahead and like DJF on Facebook, too. BlueJays.com tells us that Fred McGriff will represent the Jays at the Rule 4 Draft, which will take place on June 6th. Not quite the blockbuster that the title makes it sound like, but Tom Maloney of the Globe and Mail writes that trade winds seem to be swirling around the Jays, as they continue to find it difficult to make up ground in the AL East. Elsewhere from Maloney at the Globe, we hear that Alex Anthopoulos dismisses criticism of John Gibbons, and also get a deconstruction of the season so far, which… yeah. And, for good measure, one more from Maloney, who looks at the fantastic at-bat Adam Lind had against Jake Odorizzi yesterday. Interesting stuff from Marc Hulet of FanGraphs, as he wonders openly whether Sean Nolin is the next Jays saviour. “A piece of paper on Gibby’s desk lists the starting pitchers for the next few games,” tweets Brendan Kennedy of the Star. “For Friday it reads, ‘Jenkins?’ ” Kenned also tweets that Josh Johnson “will start again in Dunedin on Sat. Gibby says he’ll prob need a 3rd rehab start. ‘But we’ve been known to make some adjustments.’ ” Speaking of tweets, earlier today @DrewGROF passed along this gruesome bit of news: “Brett Lawrie versus ‘soft’ pitches in 2013: .282 OPS. Oh Pee Ess.” Think teams haven’t got that message yet? Think again. Gamereax has a nifty GIF of Hiroki Kuroda throwing Lawrie five straight sliders. Ugh. Drew continued trolling with this gem: “J.P. Arencibia’s sporting a 31 wRC+ in May. So weird. I thought he’d hit 8 home runs a month forever!” As always, interesting stuff from John Lott of the National Post, who looks at the Jays’ promotion of Anthony Gose rather soon after his having hit rock bottom as a Triple-A player. Dirk Hayhurst suggests that it’s the ghost of Chris Carpenter that has kept the Jays invested so heavily for so long in Dustin McGowan. In case you missed it, MLBTR fills you in on the Jays’ big waiver claim of Thad Weber, a move made possible by their placing of Sergio Santos on the 60-day DL. Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun evokes last year’s Marlins in his assessment of this year’s Jays. So… y’know… next. The headline makes it sound worse than it is, as in the Toronto Star, Mark Zwolinski writes a piece titled Blue Jays leave New York broken as ever. Elsewhere at the Star, Richard Griffin calls Anthony Gose’s promotion puzzling, and also looks at Gose’s promotion in his latest Bullpen post, among other things. From the weekend, at Sportsnet, Shi Davidi looks at how Sunday’s rainout in the Bronx may have been a blessing for the Jays. In another piece at Sportsnet, Davidi tells us about the recently reinstated Marcus Stroman, who is once again beginning his push to be a quick call-up to the Majors. At Bluebird Banter, Nick Ashbourne tries to find the “real” problem with R.A. Dickey, and presumably comes up short. Similarly, in another Bluebird Banter post, Shermanator91 tries to find out what’s up with Emilio Bonifacio, and presumably comes up short. For ESPN.com (Insider Only) Keith Law re-drafts the 2003 draft, and it turns out the Jays actually did pretty well for themselves, with their 13th-overall selection, Aaron Hill, movi

It's safe to say that Emilio Bonifacio is not having a good 2013 season. After a nice game Monday, which included a single and a walk, Bonifacio's slash line now sits at .200/.234/.324, with a .243 wOBA and a 46 wRC+. As of Monday night, that 46 wRC+ would put him 13th-last in the league (100 PA minimum), right behind Chris Nelson, who has been designated for assignment twice this year, first by the Rockies then by the Yankees. Last year, Bonifacio hit .258/.330/.316, with a .290 wOBA and a 79 wRC+. Again, not great, but not putrid like this year so far. So what's going on with Bonifacio? His BABIP currently sits at .260, quite a bit lower than his career mark of .333. But there's got to be more. The BABIP may help to explain some of the batting average portion of things, but Bonifacio is really not walking at all this year either. Over the course of his career, he has walked in 8% of his plate appearances, and last year he walked in 9.1% of them. This year, his BB% sits at 3.6%. Swing Data I've been messing around a bit lately with FanGraphs' Plate Discipline data, and, well, have a look for yourself at Bonifacio's numbers from this year and last. Click to embiggen What does it mean? You'll notice that he is swinging at a lot more pitches overall--pitches outside the zone as well as inside the zone. This would most definitely lead to fewer walks drawn--you can see the opposite taking place with Adam Lind. Bonifacio is swinging at more bad pitches outside of the zone: you can see a 11% jump in his O-Swing%. What could cause this jump? Bonifacio's isolated power this year is way up from last year as well as from his career ISO. His .129 ISO this year, as compared to his career mark of .079, would perhaps indicate that Bonifacio is trying to crush the ball this year, as opposed to merely making contact. Again, looking at Bonifacio's plate discipline numbers, his overall contact rate has dropped by 5.3%, and his swinging strike percentage has increased by 4.4%. This would indicate that he is in fact taking worse swings. PitchFX Have a look at his PitchFX data (courtesy of Baseball Prospectus), notably on swings at "hard" pitches (fastballs and fastball variations). Here are the fastball pitches that Bonifacio swings at, first in 2012, then in 2013 (all from the catcher's perspective): 2012 2013 In 2012, he was not chasing many pitches out of the zone--this can be seen by the general cold colour of the first graph. Looking at the same data from 2013, you can see that Bonifacio is chasing quite a few more pitches outside the zone. This would correspond with the FanGraphs data; Bonifacio is swinging at more pitches, hence more bad pitches. This is causing a lower contact rate and a higher swinging strike percentage. Bonifacio needs to take it easy with the bat and become patient again--poor decision-making at the plate won't help his overall results. Perhaps by swinging at better pitches, Bonifacio can get back to being a serviceable bat. What do you think? Is it too early to come to a decision on Emilio Bonifacio, or might his struggles be attributed to another issue?

The Toronto Star's Pages of the Past archive provides a nice glimpse into the news headlines of the past. Here are a selection of Blue Jays-related headlines from some of the 37 May 21st's in franchise history. 1980: "Spoilsport Sox keep Jays second" -- Alison Gordon The expansion Blue Jays had a great start in 1980. In the morning of May 21, they were in second place with a 19-14 record, just a half-game out of first with a players' strike imminent (the players had set a deadline for May 22). But they lost a squeeker to the Boston Red Sox 4-3. That would actually start a five-game losing streak, the first of six the team will suffer through the end of the season. The 1980 Blue Jays were 48-81 after this game and would finish the season in last place with a 67-95 record, 36 games behind the first place Yankees. The strike was postponed until 1981. 1985: "Jays' Key at his best" -- Allan Ryan On May 20, 1985, Jimmy Key threw a beauty: nine innings of 101-pitch, four-hit, one-run ball to lower his ERA to 1.96 on the season. He beat Tom Seaver in front of 44,715 at Exhibition Stadium, then the second largest crowd ever for a home game. That makes sense, because the Blue Jays were cruising along with a 22-14 record atop the American League East standings. They would go on to win the division, but would lose in the ALCS. 1989: "Piniella IS interested in managing the Jays" -- Allan Ryan Six days after Jimy Williams was fired as the Blue Jays manager, Cito Gaston still wore the word "interim" in front of his title, and the Blue Jays were actively searching for a permanent manager. One of the leading candidates was Lou Piniella, who was in broadcasting at the time after being fired as manager of the Yankees. He would go on to manage the Cincinnati Reds to a World Series championship in 1990. Other managerial candidates interviewed by the Blue Jays included White Sox first base coach Terry Bevington (he would later manage the Syracuse Chiefs and coach for the Blue Jays), and Syracuse Chiefs manager Bob Bailor. 1992: "Morris's taunts drive Twins batty" -- Jim Byers The Blue Jays came back to win an 8-7 game against the Minnesota Twins in walkoff fashion, with Pat Borders singling in Kelly Gruber on a routine fly ball (the Twins were playing a five-man infield), but it was what happened during the game that was interesting. After Twins shortstop Greg Gagne hit a two-run homer to give Minnesota a 4-2 lead in the fourth, former Twin Jack Morris, sitting in the Jays dugout, started yelling at the home plate umpire that Gagne had corked his bat. Apparently Morris has a history of accusing others of cheating. Morris and the Jays suspected that something was going on because Gagne tended to throw his bat towards his dugout after his at bats. Here are some quotes from Byers' piece: Morris: "I thought [the Twins] were dickering with [Todd] Stottlemyre by having the umpire check the ball all the time, so I said 'Check the bat.'" Umpire Larry Young: "I told [Morris] to knock it off but [Cito] Gaston said that the Blue Jays were yelling at Gagne, not at me. Gaston also said he wouldn't be surprised if Gagne was using a corked bat." And when he asked Gaston whether he'd like the bat to be checked, Young said: "he just walked away. I think if Cito had given it credence he would've protested before the at-bat, during the at-bat, or sometime after the hitter was at bat. I think the fact he didn't come out to protest led me to believe that he gave it no more credence than I did." Gaston: "Oh, bull! What the hell was I doing out there [then]? He said he didn't hear me, what can I say?" Oh, there was also a bench-clearing no-punch "brawl". In the bottom of the fourth, Twins pitcher Scott Erickson pitched behind Derek Bell after a Kelly Gruber homer, and Todd Stottlemyre started chirping at Erickson, the Twins started yelling back and, using Stottlemyre's words, "away we went." Stottlemyre stormed out of the dugout but was stopped by manag

Odorizzi gets start for injured Price View full post on Yahoo! Sports – MLB – Toronto Blue Jays News

Ramon Ortiz faces right hander Alex Cobb tonight as the Blue Jays look to continue their winning ways. Cobb was picked in the fourth round of the 2006 draft by the (Devil) Rays and is having a pretty great season in his third year in the big leagues. In his eight starts (53.0 IP) he has a 2.89 ERA and a 3.58 FIP, showing impressive command with a K/9 of 8.83 and a BB/9 of 2.04. He's pitched this well in spite of the fact he has a 18.4% HR/FB rate so far, which is awfully unlucky. He also made some history earlier this season. Cobb throws a fastball, sinker, curveball, and a split-change using all four pitches quite often. His hard stuff sits in the low 90's while his split-change comes in at around 86 MPH. Cobb has been throwing his split-change 30% of the time this season and he throws the pitch over half the time with two strikes. He also throws the pitch just as often to right handers as he does to left handers. You can see he locates the pitch on the inside half of the plate against right handed batters. via www.fangraphs.com Here's a gif of the nasty split-change the Blue Jays hitters can expect to see tonight: via cdn2.sbnation.com Should Lind Play: Yea Both lefties and righties have around a .300wOBA against Cobb in his career although he's been much tougher against lefties this year than usual. A right handed pitcher with such a great changeup might be a situation to sit Lind, but Cobb's split-change is equally as good against hitters on both sides of the plate so it doesn't matter very much tonight. This actually might be a good situation to start Anthony Gose as well due to Colby Rasmus being so lost at the plate against great off-speed pitches. For today's "Find the Link": Find the link between Alex Cobb and the 2010 winner of the Tony Conigliaro Award. Enjoy the game!

Another week, another Griff Bag, another hijacking. Sound about right? Because there’s a new slice of read-submitted insanity up at the Toronto Star, and… much like last week… what else do you really want us to do here on a the first morning of the week? Try to come to grips with how awful the Jays have looked against the effing Yankees this season? Fuck that. Let’s just let Griff’s readers get under the ol’ skin and watch the magic happen (or not happen, as the case may be). As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers. If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, email it to askrich@thestar.ca and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed! Q. Hi Richard Stoeten, Been reading your column/blog for years, enjoyed it immensely. Question for the mailbag: Is the decline of Ricky Romero unprecedented? In the sense that within the span of two seasons he went from having a 15-win/2.92ERA season in 2011 and in 2013 he has struggled in Single-A Dunedin and after two starts in Buffalo he seems to be overmatched in AAA ball. How can someone so fundamentally lose the skills and talents that got them to the position to get a $30-million contract as a professional athlete. I know we’ve seen pitchers somewhat unexpectedly fall apart before but it’s mainly been relievers (Gagne, Axford, BJ Ryan, etc). From a 15-win season to being barely able to strike the kids in A-ball out is mind blowing. Thanks, Mike The Romero thing is undeniably weird, though not unprecedented. The old timers will remind you of Steve Blass, who had five better-than-decent seasons with the Pirates in the late 60s and early 70s, then suddenly, inexplicably  forgot how to throw strikes. Recently there have been valuable pitchers like Rick Ankiel, Dontrelle Willis, and Jonathan Sanchez– all of them, like Romero, left-handers, oddly enough– who lost the ability to throw strikes. Granted, that isn’t a huge group for Romero to have seemingly found himself in, but this king of thing does happen (and while Ricky’s ERA and win totals are impressive, those just aren’t good enough metrics to base saying he was better than any of that group on). Has it really happened to the Jays’ one-time ace, though? For me it’s still too early to tell. Yes, the early returns have been ugly, and I know a lot of fuckfaces out there want desperately for validation of their ignorant knee-jerk thoughts from various points along the way that Romero is finished, but it really is still only less than 20 innings across all levels in 2013. Plus a brutal Spring Training. Plus a full season as one of the worst pitchers in all of baseball. Plus an entire career of not being able to get lefties out, which has probably got to be the biggest concern of all, actually. I don’t think coincidentally, in Romero’s best season, 2010, he faced the lowest single-season percentage of left-handed batters of his career, and had his most success against lefties, though they still hit him to the tune of a .343 wOBA. Twenty-five per cent of the batters he faced that year were lefties, but by the time of his dreadful 2012, the rate had climbed to 32%. Couple that increase with the .390 wOBA left-handers posted against him– which actually isn’t terribly out of line with his career rate, as from 2009 to 2011 lefties put up a .363 wOBA– and you have all the makings of the disaster that we saw. So, for all the talk about mechanics or confidence, the fact is, regardless of whether he can throw strikes, with the book being out on him, it actually doesn’t sound entirely implausible, assuming that clubs other than the Rays employ managers competent enough to have noticed the splits, that his days as a useful big leaguer truly are over. But the mechanics, for whatever it’s worth, are new right now, Romero did pitch in 2012 with an elbow that required surgery, and he’s struggled with command problems once before, spending

I was recently in Dunedin to watch four Dunedin Blue Jays games. Here are my impressions of the players I saw. Aaron SanchezLets start with the top prospect in the organization. Sanchez came out for the first inning and was throwing fastballs in the 94-95 mph range, with at least one at 97. Unfortunately for him he was not throwing enough strikes. He used 23 pitches in facing four hitters. With an 80 pitch limit he would be out of the game in the fourth. For that reason, or maybe some other reason, Sanchez dialed it back a little in the second inning, his fastball was now in the 93-94 mph range and his command was much better. From 23 pitches in the first Sanchez then used 9, 14, 14 and 14 pitches over the next four innings. Sanchez pitched into the sixth inning allowing just two hits and walking one. He had six strikeouts.Sanchez's fastball is obviously a big weapon. He induced many swings and misses with it and it has good run in addition to the speed. Sanchez has a plus change-up that he threw at 88-90 mph. It was more 90 in the first inning and 88 in the later innings. This is not the typical 10 mph difference that is usally seen in the big leagues but the pitch has good movement and works well at this level. If Sanchez can learn how to command a 96 mph fastball then the 88 mph change up will be fine. Darold Knowles, the Dunedin pitching coach, really likes Sanchez change, he said it is major league quality right now.Sanchez also threw a curveball although his command of it was inconsistent.Andy BurnsBurns is the leading hitter on the Jays and has kept his batting average in the 300 range all season. With Burns you have to remember that he is short at-bats. In his draft year he did not play college ball, he had transferred colleges and had to sit out. Then last year he missed half the season with an injury. Coming into 2013 Burns had less than 400 at-bats in the previous two seasons combined.The first thing to note about Burns is his good eye at the plate and his hand-eye coordination. Burns looks to be sitting on an inside fastball and when he gets it he has a short sharp stroke to the ball. One of his home runs in the games I saw was to straight centre, off a good pitcher. In the at-bats I saw, Burns had good quality at-bats, would go after any middle-in fastball, and was good at fouling off outside pitches.Defensively Burns looks fine at third base although he did not have a lot of tough plays to make when I saw him. His arm is fine for third base and, as a former shortstop, you know he has mobility. Burns has decent speed, enough to claim a few infield singles in the games I attended.I think Burns big adaptation will come in AA when pitchers with better control pound him away. He will have to work on that outside pitch but I think he can do it. Burns does not wow you in any aspect of his game but he is a very steady player.AJ JimenezJimenez played just one game and looked like he was back to his old self. Jimenez is a good defensive catcher with a line drive stroke. He will not hit many home runs but he will make contact. However, in the game I saw him catch he had real defensive trouble with Tyler Ybarra. Darold Knowles, the pitching coach, put his troubles down to Ybarra's unusual delivery and Jimenez's unfamiliarity with him.Jon BertiBerti is a very fast second baseman with decent skills. Berti gets down the line very fast, even though he bats right handed. However Berti is on the smaller side and does not have much pop. His defense, speed and ability to make contact should get him to higher levels but he will need to really excel in some area to get to the majors.Peter MooneyMooney is a very short-stop, he is around 5'6". Mooney plays excellent defense. Offensively Mooney is an aggressive hitter but not strong, even in BP his best hits were outfielder depth.Marcus KnechtIf you see Marcus on a good night he will look like a very good hitter. He has tremendous power, he hit two home