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2022 Season | Series #9 | Blue Jays @ Guardians | May 5-8, 2022

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Wham with the Right Hand

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The Guardians stay home for a four-game weekend series against the 16-10 Toronto Blue Jays, who are in second place in the East. The Jays are -7 in run differential despite being 16-10, indicating they’ve won a lot of close games. In fact, an astonishing 10 of their 16 wins have been by one run. They excel at winning close, low-scoring games. They have won seven games while scoring three runs or fewer.

The Guardians are a +7 with a record of 11-13 so even though they’ve been 14 runs better than the Jays they are not as adept at winning close games. The Jays are 10-3 in one-run games.

The Jays have not been a great offensive team through 26 games, ranking 21st in runs per game at 3.73. Lately they’ve been worse, scoring only 10 runs in their last five games. However, three of those games were against the Yankees.

Vladimir Guerrero is obviously their big star and he’s hitting .286/.877. However, on the road he’s hitting .371 and against RHP’s he’s at .316. George Springer, the former Astro slugger, is at .277/.858. Nobody else on their team has an OPS of over .748. Like the Padres with Machado and Hosmer, this team has two big bats to fear but nobody else is hitting particularly well.

The Jays are free swingers, ranking 28th in walks and 2nd in home runs per game at 1.23. Springer, Guerrero, and Matt Chapman have combined for 17 of their 32 home runs.

The Jays are 4th in slugging percentage and 9th in batting average but only 21st in on-base percentage due to the lack of walks.

Here are their situational numbers:
Overall: .241/.704
Away: .230/.652
RISP: .172/.541

The Jays are the opposite of the Padres in that they are scoring fewer runs than you would expect given they’re 9th in BA and 4th in slugging. They don’t get that many runners on base and when they do they’ve been awful at driving them in.

The Jays have hit much better with the bases empty, which is unusual. Normally teams hit better with runners on because the pitcher can’t use a windup and the defense can’t position themselves wherever they want.

This could be a low-scoring series where the little things make the difference. The Jays have excelled at winning those kinds of games as their 10-3 record in one-run games indicates.

Jose Berrios, who pitched five years in the A.L. Central for the Twins, goes tonight against Aaron Civale. Berrios got knocked out in the first inning of his first start, but has been very good since. In his last three starts his ERA is 1.93.

However, left-handed batters are hitting .351/1.050 against him. With no one on base opposing batters are hitting .340/1.111 against Berrios with an on-base percentage of .411. But with RISP they are just 4-for-31 (.129). Berrios allows a ton of baserunners (1.58 WHIP) but excels at getting out of jams.

To beat Berrios the G’s need to hit with RISP, pure and simple. Current Guardian players are hitting .290 against Berrios. Josh Naylor is 3-for-4 against him.

Aaron Civale’s season has gotten off to a disastrous start. In four starts his ERA is 10.67 with a WHIP of 1.95. In his last start against Oakland he gave up four runs in the first inning. I’m wondering if all the time he put into being the player rep during the lockdown affected his preparations for the season. He definitely pitched very well the first part of last season.

Hopefully Civale can start to get back on track tonight against a team that hasn’t scored a lot of runs lately.
 
One thing to watch for when (if) we get on base.

Kirk is a disaster throwing to bases. He has thrown out one runner this year (13%). 16% in his short career.

Collins has only started 4 games behind the plate and has a 15% success rate.

Tyler Heineman has started 4 games, and has thrown out one runner in four tries, but he has a 37% rate in limited career PT.

Jansen is on the IL.

Opponents have stolen 13 out of fifteen this season.
 
One thing to watch for when (if) we get on base.

Kirk is a disaster throwing to bases. He has thrown out one runner this year (13%). 16% in his short career.

Collins has only started 4 games behind the plate and has a 15% success rate.

Tyler Heineman has started 4 games, and has thrown out one runner in four tries, but he has a 37% rate in limited career PT.

Jansen is on the IL.

Opponents have stolen 13 out of fifteen this season.
so expect the Gs to be running?
 
Well, since we are one of the most successful teams at stealing bases, and they are lousy at stopping the running game, I think we just might give it a shot.
 
Straw CF
S. Kwan RF
J Ramirez 3B
J Naylor 1B
Reyes DH
Gimenez 2B
Rosario SS
R. Palacios LF
Hedges C
 
Was about to post the line up but RealDeal jumped in....

For tonight -- no Miller Time ... sorry but I was thinking they would have Palacios (L) starting with righties and then able to give our other righties a night off ... tonight its Miller
 
Naylor batting cleanup - is this the first time since he came over? He's been crushing lately and he's 3-for-4 against Berrios.

If this is going to be a series of close, low-scoring games the G's ability to steal bases could be a huge factor. If they want to walk Jose twice a game he's going to swipe second.

Franmil has a two-game hitting streak with 3 hits in his last 9 AB's. Maybe he's slowly turning the corner.

The Jays are starting four righties this series.
 
Big swath of green just moments away from hitting Cleveland, unless it's not reaching the ground.
 
bichette single, Vlad goes deep - 2-0 jays, 3 batters in
 
The good news is that Civale K'd the side.

The bad news is he threw two gimmes to the other two batters.
 

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