Game 21 - Blue Jays @ Padres April 20th Game Recap

Good + Mediocre + Time = Hope

I’m positive in one of the prior recaps I wrote about Gurriel Jr. and Moreno hitting up a storm in Arizona. I would like to say that Daulton Varsho has made me a believer. Varsho hits another home run with runners on base. This time it was Vlad and Bo! Yes, Bo reached on an error but you have to take what the other team give you and make their mistake hurt. This is the Jays finally being on the hurt delivery side rather than the ordering side. Watching the Blue Jays play defense while watching other teams make errors is an absolute treat. Last year the good defense came at the expense of offense. Yes, the offense has it’s own problems this year but the early bad funk is over and now this team is winning series and playing the game well.

The Offense

For the second game in a row they got off to a quick start. That start carried them all they way to the end. A win is a win but I want to see some follow up later in the game. Put teams away. How big was the insurance run for our fandom health yesterday? So the win is great, but looking at the numbers there is more this team can do. They had nine, NINE, base runners in this game and good on them for scoring five of them. An average expectation is twelve base runners in a game. The Padres had twelves and managed to score two of them. How dangerous is this Jays team if they have sic more base runners in this game?

When winning games, all these flaws are covered over. I don’t want the pitching to run out before the offense can have a run of average to above average base runner appearances. The offense looks a lot better at the plate. The ugly swing and miss has been replaced with “that’s a good pitch” swing and miss. I can live with that. The contact is good contact. For Vlad and Bo that hard contact is right at the defenders, but progress is visible.

The Pitching Staff

Yimi Garcia is carrying this team. Jose Berrios is an ace and is the cornerstone of the starting rotation but Garcia comes into games when they need a stopper and HE GETS THE STOP. His ERA+ is in the 400s. I’ve never seen that before. Early season, blah blah, his stat line is insane. 10 Games, 10.1 IP, 2 hits, 1 ER, 1 BB, 14 K, ERA+ 455, .29 WHIP, 0.87 ERA.

Garcia is a monster in a Blue Jays’ uniform and I’m so glad to see him having this kind of start to the season. Romano is coming around and Swanson, oof, needs to sort out his location. The movement looks find but leaving the ball middle half, mid-thigh and it gets rocked. On multiple occasions.

The pitching staff is getting to the point where I think what we are seeing is not overperformance, this is the norm. The bats are still under performing with room to grow. There are positive and negative cases that come with that reality. For now, they Blue Jays are winning games and series. My mood around this team has changed dramatically since the Houston series. Let’s keep it going and get the sweep!

Season (12-9) Player of the Game: Daulton Varsho (5)

Season PotG: WINS: Berrios (2), Bassitt (2), Biggio (1), Schneider (1), Turner (1), Kikuchi (1), Varsho (1), Guerrero (1), Kiermaier (1) LOSSES: Varsho (3), Springer (2), Kiermaier (1), Schneider (1), Bichette (1), Garcia (1)

Their series record in the young season is 4-2-1.

The Rest of the East

Tampa Bay (12-10) - A low event game against the Yankees where both starting pitchers deserve all the credit for keeping this game 0-0 all the way into extra innings. Through the entire broadcast, graphics were shown on how poorly the teams were hitting with RISP. I relief to a Blue Jays fan that now knows it’s not just a Blue Jays’ problem. As low event as this game was, this was excellent starting pitching on both sides. It took the Rays several innings to get anything going when they had two innings in a row with two base runners and less than two outs. This felt like a race between the Yankee home run hitters and the Rays’ ability to manufacture a run. A fun game to watch as a non-fan of either team. The narrative around the Rays doesn’t change for me. Good pitching performance supported by a low scoring offense. One interesting note from the Rays’ broadcast: Arozarena put on 15 pounds of upper body muscle this offseason. The slowdown in his bat and the current state of his batting average suggest the extra muscle is having an unintended consequence.

Baltimore (13-7) - When the Orioles conveyor belt gets going, this is the team that looks like they are going to the World Series. Put your Ace on the mound and give them a 7-run lead, we start looking for other things to watch. Unless you’re an Orioles’ fan but there is a lot of good playoff action going on in the world and the Jays play in an hour. I will watch from afar for the rest of this one.

EPILOGUE: Kansas City made one heck of a comeback that fell short. Seems the bullpen got touched up. This will be something to keep an eye on. Still, a win is a win.

New York (14-7) - See the Rays’ write-up for details. The main difference maker in this game was lack of walks and baserunners. The Yankees have been good at getting runners on base. They took one walk in this game. The Rays are near the bottom for taking walks so this is the way they play the game. This jives with what we’ve been seeing all season. The Yankees cover up their Judge-Rizzo-Stanton-Torres issues because they have runners on base. When they suddenly don’t have those runners on base, we get a game like today.

Boston (12-10) - A team built on the long ball and an MLB leading ERA, the Red Sox won the most Red Sox style of game today. I’ve been a fan of teams that are built on the long ball and the offense can feel like it is feast or famine. The good games make you forget the bad ones then you look at the record and wonder why the wins don’t count for double. It’s hard to win on the long ball alone and that will be the story for this team over the next month or so. Is this the way they win all their games or do the home runs dry up and while the other teams start to get their hits?

Thanks for reading.