Not much to say about this one that wasn't said about yesterday's or several games so far this year. Our starting pitcher, Brett Cecil, had a great start. 6 innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 1 earned and 3 K. He looked really good. He should keep the starting job when Tallet returns from injury. We got our first looks at Josh Roenicke and Rommie Lewis, they each pitched a scoreless inning, 2 Ks for Josh, 1 for Rommie. Janssen gave up a run in his inning.
Offensively, we did nothing. 2 hits, both leadoff doubles that we couldn't score from Vernon Wells (the only batter that looked decent tonight) and Alex Gonzalez. We struck out 15 times. Aaron Hill had 3 and really has looked bad at the plate since he'd been back. Every other Jay batter had at least one K, except Jose Molina. The bats are dead.
Cito did try a new strategy. He ran out three pinch hitters in the 8th, after Gonzalez doubled. Unfortunately, coming off the bench to Daniel Bard throwing 98 MPH isn't easy. I hope it doesn't put Cito off the idea for the rest of the season.
Jay of the Day is Brett Cecil (.184 WPA). Suckage Jays could be any of the batters. Aaron Hill (-.117) was the only one that got to the number but then when they are all terrible there isn't enough WPA to give every one a -.100.
We knew, going into the season, that there would be bad streaks like this. It does kind of bother me that it is a bunch of 'veteran' hitter that aren't hitting. If we are not going to hit, I'd rather it be with a lineup of young plays that,you could convince yourself, will improve over time. The ages of our starting lineup tonight: 29, 28, 29, 31, 33, 33, 32, 35 and 35. If we aren't going to hit, lets get some young guys up here.
A series against the A's starts tomorrow. Gotta figure their starters are mentally subtracting a run from their ERAs.
The nice part is our starting pitching has looked better even than I thought it would be. And most of the guys not hitting wouldn't be around after this year so things look to improve in the future. As much as I'm not a fan of a lot of hitters in our lineup, they should be doing better than they are. We seem to be stuck in the 'swing hard at everything mode'. Maybe a reboot, to the backside, is in order.