Game 15 - Rockies @ Blue Jays April 13th Game Recap

The Good, The Shakey, and the Ugly

I’m still sick so we’re doing quick hits before Sunday’s game starts.

Never has a team needed a Grand Slam in the first inning so bad. Never has a team followed up the rest of the game. The Blue Jays won the game but they used their five run 1st inning lead to absorb the Rockies runs for the rest of the game without adding on and never feeling like they were going to add more runs.

Welcome to the Big Leagues Yariel Rodriguez. He looked great out there in the first inning. He got out of a jam in the second them looked a little, and I mean a little, bit shaky in the last half of his start.

Bowden Francis may have had a good spring, but he has no “put away” or get ahead on batters. It’s infuriating because getting to a two-strike count looks almost effortless to him then the third strike swing and miss just isn’t there. The bats need to keep scoring runs regardless of who is on the mound, but when Francis is out there, it feels like the offense needs to step up more than they are capable of at this time.

Vladdy and Bo are officially in press mode and until is stops, they are liabilities in the lineup. By the way, they hit 2nd and 3rd in the lineup. Vladdy getting thrown out at third can not happen. In the highlights video, the moment is captured at the 6:35 mark, Watching the game, you can see him make the turn and amount of baseball watching would tell the fan that this runner is going to get thrown out 99% of the time. The 1% only happens on a bad throw. To dig the knife in a little deeper, Vladdy does his “check the tape arm wave” bit that is almost always wrong. To twist the knife, this was a single by Bo with two outs and a left bat coming to the plate against the righty pitcher. Officially pressing at the plate and on the basepaths and all it does is hurt the team.

To end on a high note, Chad Green and Yimi Garcia have been shut down in the final innings and reinforcements were taking their turn in triple A during the weekend. What is a great backend of a bullpen is about to become even better.

Season (7-8) Player of the Game: Daulton Varsho (3)

Season PotG: WINS: Biggio (1), Schneider (1), Turner (1), Kikuchi (1), Berrios (1), Bassitt (1) LOSSES: Springer (2), Varsho (2), Kiermaier (1), Schneider (1), Bichette (1), Garcia (1)

The Rest of the East

Tampa Bay (8-7) - The Rays were on the receiving end of a good old fashioned beating. A game like this does not change the narrative around the team. The problem is that the narrative includes the fact that the starting pitching is getting touched up enough that the sputtering offense isn’t doing enough to keep the Rays in games. They are above 500 so we all take a breath and call it a bad game….for now.

Baltimore (8-6) - They got beat at home by a better team. DId the Orioles lose some of the early season momentum already?

New York (12-3) - Game One of Double-Header: The breaks of the baseball gawds worked to get the Yankees a win. They scored two runs on a throwing error and got a VERY generous strike call in the bottom of the 9th when Cleveland had two runners on base and all the momentum in their favor. You’re happy to walk away with the win and forget about how you got there.

Game Two of Double-Header: The Yankees won and the second game wasn’t close.

Boston (8-7) - The Red Sox beat the Angels. I think we can look at the Red Sox as a measuring stick team this year. They are a mid pack team that can punch above their weight in any given game but lack that extra to be in the playoff threat conversation. Does the trade deadline change that narrative? Wait and see.

Thanks for reading.