Apologies for the lack of blogs lately. Have miraculously avoid COVID-19 for 26 months, I was thunderstruck with it this past week. Which allowed for some glorious laying in bed and watching the Blue Jays time, formulating lots of thoughts about what played out, there was no energy nor will to type.
Yet to loose a series this year, the Toronto Blue Jays sit alone atop the AL East with a 6-4 record as I write today. Still its not all positivity right now. Danny Jansen, Teoscar Hernandez and now Hyun Jin Ryu are all on the IL, and the Jays have gone on a win one – loose one streak for the last 8 games due in most part to the poor starting pitching. Most notably by Ryu.
The next 16 games are now all against teams I would expect to make the playoffs this year, so this will really be a big early season test. 10 are at home at least, where the jays have been playing close to .600 ball. That trend will need to continue.
Perhaps it will be a blessing that Ryu misses some game time. I thought stripling did quite well on Friday night, even if I was furious going into it that we were already in a position where we felt we needed to give Ryu an extra day. Not nearly as furious as I was when on that extra days rest, Hyun Jin laid a dirty egg on Saturday, costing us what should have been the season first swept series.
Alek Manoah was absolutely outstanding in New York last week, and followed it up with another solid performance yesterday. He’s arguably the best Jays starting pitcher at the moment. Until Berrios finds some form, it bothers me no end that we go from Kikuchi to him for our first two games in Boston. One of the two will need to pull their thumb out if we’re to have any chance at continuing our series winning ways. That or the pen will need to be lights out in cleanup.
The team chemistry has been “next level” 😉 thus far. There is definitely something special brewing in the dugout. The dugout cam is my favorite thing this year. So should we fall behind badly in either of the next two outings they nor I will be worried that a comeback is most certainly possible. Just look at opening day.
The bullpen has been better to begin the year too. While I’ve put 2 of the 4 losses on them on my scorecards, Tayler Saucedo and Julian Merryweather can eat most of that. Ramano and Garcia have been lights out, with Mayza, Thornton and Cimber solid enough. If the starts can keep us in a place to only need those 5 then things could go really well, its once we burn the pen so much that we need to go deeper than that, that things get scary. Ryan Borucki is back now too, and will no doubt get his debut at Fenway.
Before I close out for today, I just wanted to say how sad I was to hear the news of Buck Martinez cancer diagnosis and to say I wish him a speedy recovery and can’t wait for his next broadcast, as soon as he feels able. I love Buck, he’s a great broadcaster, and seems to just be a genuinely great human being too.
Til next time, thanks for reading.