We've passed the quarter mark of the season and the Jays are 23-19, good for 3rd place in the AL East. If they continued at this rate they would finish with 89 wins. Pretty decent really.
On the pitching side, we are allowing 3.93 runs per game (that was before yesterday's game), 4th best in the AL, trailing the Angels (3.90), the A's (3.90) and the Rangers (3.60). Quite good. I know I didn't expect them to be in the top 5 of runs allowed, especially without Dustin McGowan and Brett Cecil. And yet, I still get folks, in my twitter feed, telling me that the Jays should fire Bruce Walton. Yeah, there is a plan.
Our starting pitchers have thrown 262 innings (6.4 innings a game) with a 3.33 ERA.
Brandon Morrow: A. 5-2, 2.63 ERA (and that's with him picking up 5 earned runs without even throwing a pitch, due to a scoring change) in 9 starts. 61.2 innings (6.9 innings/start). Batters are hitting .192/.248/.352 against him. His strikeouts are down from last year, 7.9/9 compared to 10.2, but he has been getting more strikeouts the last few starts. Only walking 2.5/9, compared to 3.5 last year. I used to get emails asking why I liked this guy, I kept saying you had to watch him to understand. Two shutouts so far, the team has 3 total. He's had 0 or 1 walk in 5 of his 9 starts.
Ricky Romero: B+. 5-1, 3.64 in 9 starts, 59.1 innings (6.4 innings/start). Batters are hitting .216/.314/.357 against him. Once again he is doing better against RHH (.190/.293/.303) than lefties (.268/.358/.465). He's been good. Not great every time out, but good. It seems funny to complain about a guy with a 5-1 record. His walk rate has jumped, compared to last year. Last year he allowed 3.2/9 walks a game, this year 4.6/9. That's really too many. I'm sure it will come down And his strikeout rate has dropped, 6.4/9 from 7.1/9 last year. May hasn't been as good as April was, he has a 4.26 ERA in May, everyone is allowed to slump a bit.
Henderson Alvarez: C+. 3-4, 3.30 ERA in 9 starts. 60 innings (6.7 innings/start). Batters are hitting .244/.299/.410. Lefties (.266/.339/.422) are hitting him much better than RHB (.219/.250/.396). He's only getting 2.7 strikeouts/9. He has the other shutout. I don't know what to think about the guy, he's got 19 starts behind him and has been pretty good, the future is the question. It's going to be interesting watching him.
Kyle Drabek: B-. 3-4, 3.30 in 8 starts. 46.1 innings (5.8 innings/start). Batters are hitting .226/.338/.411. LHB (.244/.347/.451) are hitting him better than RHB (.209/.330/.372). He's still walking too many, 5.4/9, but strikeouts are up 7.4/9 compared to 5.8/9 last year. He's going to have good days and bad days, I'm hoping the Jays keep him up with the team no matter what, and let him work through his issues here.
Drew Hutchison: C+. 3-1, 4.81 ERA in 6 starts. 33.2 innings (5.6/start). Batters are hitting .276/.347/.433. Lefties (.283/.371/.483) are hitting him much better than right-handers (.270/.325/.392). He's looked better his last couple of starts, only allowed 1 run in 6 innings against the Twins and the Yankees. Earlier he seemed to have one bad inning a start, I'm hoping that he has gotten past that.