I thought we’d take a look at the Jays pitchers over the last three weeks. Over our last 16 games, the Jays are 7-9. The pitchers have a 3.49 ERA.
Hot
Dylan Cease: 3 starts, 2-0, 1.71 ERA, In 21.0 innings, batters hit .203/.253/.284 with 1 home run, 4 walks and 26 strikeouts.
Three starts, he went seven innings in each. He allowed 3, 0 and 1 earned run in the games, with 7, 10 and 9 strikeouts. Cease has been great to watch. Right now it looks like a terrific signing. Of course, he will be 36 in the last
year, but he’s been our best starter, though Trey might make it a battle before the end of the season.
Trey Yesavage: 3 starts, 0-1, 1.93 ERA. In 14.0 innings, batters hit .250/.361/.308 with no homers, 8 walks ans 18 strikeouts.
He went 4, 4 and 6 innings in the three starts. A few more walks than you would like and the team is keeping him under 90 pitches so far. I don’t know if that is the plan for the full season. He is just 22, so I’m ok with them being careful with him. I really like watching him pitch.
Louis Varland: 7 games, 1-0, 1 save, 0.00 ERA. In 7.2 innings, batters hit .233/.343/.233, with no home runs, 5 walks and 8 strikeouts.
A few more walks than you would like, but he’s been great. Pitched in 7 of 16 games and pitched two days in a row twice. Also pitched 2 innings once. It is tough not to over use a guy who is pitching so well. He hasn’t given up a run in his last 10 games.
Spencer Miles: 4 games, 1 start, 0-0, 2.00 ERA. In 9 innings, batters hit .212/.257/.242 with no homers, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts.
He allowed 2 earned in one appearance, none in the others. He’s been an amazing Rule 5 pickup. I’m all for slowly stretching him out to be a starter. I don’t know that we’d get more than 5 innings out of him in a start, but 5 great innings would be nice. But, he’s only been in the ‘bulk’ role for a couple of games. Let’s see how it goes. Right now, if the choice was him or Scherzer, I’d take him.
Mason Fluharty: 7 games, 1-0, 1 start, 0.00 ERA. In 5.1 innings, batters hit .158/.158/.158 with 0 home run, 0 walks and 6 strikeouts.
Didn’t pitch all that much, but when he did, he was great.
Tommy Nance: 6 games, 0-0, 1.29 ERA. In 7 innings batters hit .174/.240/.174, with 0 home runs, 2 walks and 8 strikeouts.
He was pitching great and now he’s on the IL.
Joe Mantiply: 6 games, 0-0, 0.00 ERA. In 6 innings, batters hit .200/.238/.250, 1 walk and 0 strikeouts.
He’s been very good in limited work.
Cold
Patrick Corbin: 4 starts, 1-1, 4.74 ERA. In 19.0 innings, batters hit .333/.398/.500 with 2 home runs, 7 walks and 9 strikeouts.
He went 5.1, 5.1, 4.1 and 4.1 innings in the games and allowed 2 or 3 runs in each. He’s been between 86 and 61 pitches in his starts. As a fourth starter, he’s been ok. I’m not sure if he wouldn’t be better cast as a long reliever, but we are short of starters. Consistent, but a little short of ‘good’. If the offense was good, we’d likely be happy with him. Cold might be overstating it. His first four starts were better, before this period, with a 3.72 ERA.
Eric Lauer: 2 starts,0-2, 8.68 ERA. In 9.1 innings, batters hit .270/.325/.649 with 4 homers, 3 walks and 6 strikeouts.
All sorts of terrible and now he’s a Dodger. It is amazing how he has gone from a very good pitcher, especially in the first half of last year, to what he’s been this year. It does seem like there is a critical velocity a pitcher has to have to have success. It might not be just fastballs, I’d imagine that losing a little speed on a breaking ball changes the amount of break. Anyway, he isn’t our problem anymore.
Tyler Rogers: 7 games, 0-1, 1 save, 1 blown save, 4.50 ERA. In 6 innings, batters hit .346/.414/.423, with 3 walks and 6 strikeouts.
John seems to be lighting his load a little bit of late. Likely it has something to do with him being hit hard. It is a strange balance with reliever, you don’t want to overuse them, but if they are throwing well, I can understand wanting to use them a lot.
Jeff Hoffman: 8 games, 1-1, 2 holds, 4.70 ERA. In 7.2 innings, batters hit .382/.389/.559 with 1 home run, 1 walk and 8 strikeouts.
When a batters are hitting .382 against you, things are not going well. He has a weird pitching line, 20.1 innings on the season, and 35 strikeouts. More than half his outs are strikeouts. And yet, when they do make contact, it is hard contact. His chase rate is high 99th percentile, 98th percentile whiff rate and 97th percentile strikeout rate. At the other end is a 88th percentile hard hit rate. I don’t know the answer.
Inbetween
Kevin Gausman: 3 starts, 1-1, 4.32 ERA. In 16.2 innings, batters hit .299/.304/.388 with 1 walk and13 strikeouts.
Kevin had two good starts, one bad start. The bad: 4.2 innings, 10 hits, 6 earned, no walks and 5 strikeouts. He rarely walks anyone. The other two, 12 innings, 2 earned, 1 walk and 8 strikeouts. He’s 35 and in the last year of his contract. If I was running things, I’d likely offer him a one-year deal for next year, but I’m not running things. It will be interesting. He has 2007 strikeouts in his career. and 1968.1 innings on his arm. I don’t know how many are left.
Braydon Fisher: 9 games, 0-1, 5.79 ERA. In 9.1 innings, batters hit .188/.289/.344 with 1 home runs, 4 walks and 8 strikeouts.
His ERA is high, but he held batters to a .188 batting average. He’s throw a lot, 9 of 16 games (which would be 91 games on the season) and threw more than 1 inning twice. He had one game with 3 earned runs, one of the runs scored after he left the game.
Also Pitched
Yariel Rodríguez: 3 games, two were good and then there was last night. 0-1, blown save. 16.88 ERA, in 2.2 innings, batters hit .364/.462/.909. with 2 home runs, 2 walks and 3 strikeouts.
He really didn’t have it last night. I don’t know if he was nervous or if it was just one of those days.
IL
Max Scherzer: He’s getting closer to where he could make a rehab start.
Yimi García: Could be back in early June.
Cody Ponce: Will miss the season.
Shane Bieber: Will start throwing to hitters this week. Back sometime in June if things go well.
José Berríos: He’s going for surgery to ‘remove loose bodies’, but the doctors will look at the ligaments and see if he needs more repairs.
Ricky Tiedemann: They haven’t talked about him in awhile, which is never a good thing.
Bowden Francis: Won’t pitch this year.
