That's one way to salvage a series
Ecstatic cheers and sighs of relief in a statement showdown with Yankees; plus, the pitching staff reckoning to come.
Well, that was really something.
It’s not worth it to spend much time on those who were declaring the Blue Jays’ season over in the fourth inning, with bold takes about all of the deficiencies of a team that is certainly among the top five in baseball. So let’s not. Except to say that it is entirely predictable, and some folks only seem to enjoy being miserable about sports.
I’m assuming if you’re reading this, that’s not your inclination.
Sunday’s 10-9 win over the juggernaut New York Yankees was a tremendous example of what a beautifully unpredictable game baseball can be. Well into the game, the Jays had managed a single hit, Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s two-run homer in the first. But the Jays eked their way back with patience, stringing together walks and bloops with some well-timed blasts, even after it seemed that the game was out of reach.
After three straight sub-par performances, this was the right note on which to finish with the Yankees before heading to the Midwest for a pair of road series.
Not that today was all sunshine and Dads in shorts. Yusei Kikuchi pitched four innings that looked even uglier than the line would indicate (3 ER, 5 Ks, 2 BBs, 2 HBP) .
Today’s start was less about the standing concerns with pitch selection, and more about the command of his pitches that abandoned the lefty for significant portions of his start. While the chatter heading into the start seemed to have more to do with Kikuchi choosing his slider over his fastball, today neither of those pitches (nor his his split-change) seemed to be going where he intended.
It’s worth considering, in some vague defence of Kikuchi, that it seemed early in the games as though Alejandro Kirk must have been calling for the slider over the fastball. Watching closely, Kikuchi didn’t seem to be visually shaking off the pitches called for him.
The Pitching Reckoning Is Here
Another short start for Kikuchi after the Jays have gone deep into their bullpen often over the past week underscores what might be the largest concern for the Jays in the coming weeks and months.
The whole Blue Jays organization has seemingly enjoyed all the extra arms afforded to them over the past few years, as they have generally preferred to pull starters sooner rather than later, and have tended not to use relievers for multiple innings.
The result has been a revolving door of marginal arms moving between Buffalo and the low leverage spots in the pen. The Jays have habitually been carrying 14 pitchers on the active roster for the past few seasons, but realistically, there have always been three-to-four additional pitchers getting cycled in and off the big league staff.
Now, a rule limiting teams to 13 pitchers is about to finally be enforced after COVID and lockouts delayed its formal institution. The Jays already have cut down to the new limit.
Additionally, a new limit on the number of times a player can be optioned is in effect, where players cannot be optioned more than five times in a season. This means the Jays may soon be pressing against the upper limits of how many more times they can swap Trent Thornton for Jeremy Beasley for Casey Lawrence for Maximo Castillo, and so on.
The Jays have asked a lot of their bullpen in the early going, and there have been moments where it appeared that some of their relievers were beginning to look worse for wear.
Now, with Hyun-Jin Ryu gone for the season, an ineffective Kikuchi, Nate Pearson seemingly carrying a duffel bag of cursed monkey paws over his now balky shoulder, and Ross Stripling taking a regular turn in the rotation, the Jays are hard-pressed to find a reliable multi-inning option, much less to find someone who can give them quality innings.
This has been a challenge for this front office for much of the past few years. The manner in which they have managed the pitching staff makes it exceedingly difficult to squeeze all of the arms they need into their 40-player roster. Moreover, their need to find a fresh arm has resulted in them losing some useful pitchers on waivers, including Connor Overton and Joel Payamps.
Never mind that with all those extraneous arms on the extended roster, it leaves the team with fewer position players to draw from, either on the bench or waiting in the wings.
Roster management is a delicate dance at the best of times. Few teams get through a season without using upwards of 30 pitchers, and given that the 40-player roster hasn’t expanded even as the active rosters have, this puts added pressure on any team. For the Jays with their current pitching challenges, the squeeze is beginning to tighten on the big league team at a moment when they don’t require any additional adversity this season.
And elsewhere…
Check out my Sportsnet piece from Friday on managing the emotions in a season that has already had dramatic ups and downs. If the weekend meeting with theYankees felt like a statement series (it did), at least it finished strong.