Game Day - April 11th Blue Jays Home Opener
New York Yankees @ Cleveland Guardians
The scary version of the Yankees showed up today. This is the third Gerrit Cole start where the scary version of the team came to the park. They got out to a lead and Cole never looked back. The weird part of this game was the fact that Cole ended up with a negative game score but had a quality start.
How the Yankees Won: Early offense followed by demoralizing follow-up offense. This is the version of the Yankees that scares me the most. Forget the fact that Cole was on the mound. This is the version of the Yankees that doesn’t give your team a chance to get back in the game. After the Guardians took the lead in the first inning, they sent 5+ batters to the dish one time for the rest of the game. That’s demoralizing.
How the Guardians Lost: They got beat by the Yankees having a better day with the bats and the pitching. I would not feel bad about this loss. They got the first game in the series. Shake it off and come back tomorrow.
Boston Red Sox @ Tampa Bay Rays
I watch Shane McClanahan and I wonder how any team can beat him. He looks in control at all times and even when the inning looks like it will start a rally, it gets shut down. The first inning saw McClanahan give up back-to-back walks then he struck out the third out of the inning. The Red Sox never sent more than four batters to the plate while McClanahan was in the game.
While that pitching performance was going on, the Rays’ bats were steady and scored in 5 of the 8 innings they played. This is the scary version of the Rays winning games. Forget that they have won 11 games in a row to start the season. Consistent offense and suffocating pitching. They will lose at some point, but they are going to be one of the elite teams all season long. They win in repeatable ways as their roster is constructed. This was peak Rays.
Oakland A’s @ Baltimore Orioles
Speaking of signature wins, the Orioles beat the A’s 12-8 thanks to a pitching staff that did just enough and three of their young bats combining for 9 hits, 3 home runs, and 11 rbi. In only 2 innings did the Orioles get retired 1-2-3. They are one game over 500 and they are winning games in the way we expected them to win games before the season started. I don’t think this is sustainable but this is a valuable experience for a team who is two or three starting pitchers away from being dangerous in an AL East that is already a monster division.
Detroit Tigers @ Toronto Blue Jays
That was one heck of a way to christen the “new” stadium. The game did not start well for the Blue Jays and Alek Manoah has some figuring out to do. If he had given up three runs over 6+ innings I would have called this a signature win for the Jays. I don’t like that Manoah keeps looking at the mound after he misses a slider. It’s like he is looking for a reason why he misses his pitches. The look on its own isn’t the problem, it’s the fact that in the pregame discussion, they talked about Alek working his release point and ironing out the issues they were seeing in his delivery to start the season. If you golf, this sounds like to me the side effects of having too many swing thoughts at one time. I’m not worried, the Jays are 3-0 in games where Manoah starts. One of those starts was a dominant performance. What I am worried about is the thin ice the Jays are on when it comes to the rest of the division. The AL East is going to be a monster this year. I keep using the term “signature win” when talking about the Rays and Yankee games. I think I’ve used it once or twice with the Jays. That doesn’t mean there have not been many signature moments. I think the lineup has proven that the Jays are never out of a game. The home runs are part of the menu and seeing players like Brandon Belt and Alejandro Kirk starting to get their hits tells me the lineup is only going to get deeper and be more difficult to navigate for opposing pitchers. Call it cautious optimism where I think Yankee and Rays fans can absolutely be optimistic.
Speaking of the bats, they are averaging almost 6 runs a game, are second in team average, and sixth in OBP and SLG. What I see on TV looks like they are playing within themselves and while they have the third-highest BABIP, it is not at a level that would suggest they are seeing overt amounts of luck. That said, the Jays have had their share of getting BABIP’d, it’s time they saw some BABIP in their favor, enough said there.
Los Angeles Dodgers @ San Francisco Giants
The Dodgers have per-Mookie vibes right now. They are a talented team that can’t seem to put it together for more than two games in a row. They lose games in a wet-blanket fashion and leave little room for sustained hope but then you look at their record and maybe things aren’t all that bad…question mark. They are a game out of first and no one in the division has a winning or losing streak going. The NL West is still trying to sort out its pecking order.
When we look at the team stats against the rest of the league, the Dodgers are middle of the pack in pitching and hitting. They are in a state of “figure it out boys”. Losing to the Giants hurts. Losing the Creamsicle Giants hurts more but JD Martinez is getting his hits. The question is, can the pitching find an identity they can carry with them for more than a few games and can the bats show up for the games they are really needed? One of those 6+ run performances in losses to the D-Backs would have been nice in this game.
Roberts Likes His Guys Tracker: 82 AB 19 Hits 18 RBI 11 BB 34 K .231 AVG .309 OBP WPA Pos/Neg 13/10 Games
