Game Day - April 4th Jays & Dodgers Recap
Toronto Blue Jays @ Kansas City Royals
Who knew the stabilizing force during the first trip through the rotation was going to be Yusei Kikuchi? This game was set up for disaster. The Jays were getting baserunners in the first two innings and missing out on opportunities. Yes, two-out opportunities but after what we’ve seen in the start of the season, I really don’t want to see this trend continue. Next, Kikuchi gives up a home run after a three up three down first inning. After the home run, a single, then a wild pitch. Last year, when things started to fall apart for Kikuchi, they FELL APART. Spring would have suggested we were going to see a new Kikuchi. His outings were crisp and powerful but here we are in season, and it’s more of what we saw last year. This, was just after a Berrios start where he did more of the same from last year. Kikuchi gets out of the inning with some flyouts. Great, they are out of the inning but they are giving up loud outs to get there and how bad are the next innings going to be?
3rd inning, three up three down. 4th inning, three up three down. 5th inning, single, everything is fine, flyout, phew ok, walk, oh no, are we about to get a Kikuchi inning? We aren’t, but the Royals are, swinging strikeout followed by a swinging strikeout.
Jersey standings: Wore the Red & White Team Canada jersey. After one full rotation the standings are Baby Blue & Team Canada 1-0, Home White, Road Blue and Aughts Black 0-1.
While all that was going on, the Jays decided to score some runs and take the lead! Furthermore, the reward we get for Kikuchi going 5 innings is the first home run of the season and it comes from one of the new players, Varsho. The Bullpen only saw one batter above the minimum the rest of the game and this was the first “real win” of the season for the Blue Jays at a time they needed to get the win. I would not call this a signature win, but this was good baseball from both sides of the ball.
Colorado Rockies @ Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers are fine. Urias did Ace things and held the Rockies to 5 hits. The bullpen only allowed 2 more hits. We will ignore the fact that all those hits happened in the 9th and brought the tying run at the plate. I had mentioned in a previous recap that a successful start to the season for the Dodgers would be 7-3. After a slow start, the Dodgers are back on pace to meet that start. Everything is fine! A quick note before we jump to the tracker and call it a day. Will Smith is earning himself a pay raise. A great start to the season while other parts of the line up find their consistency.
Speaking of consistency, Muncy and Martinez were in their 4-5 spots in the lineup, which means we get the tracker up to date.
43 AB 8 Hits 5 RBI 4 BB 21 K .186 AVG .250 OBP WPA Pos/Neg 5/6 Games
