The Jays take on the Pale Hose again today in a late afternooner (at least, for those of us on Eastern Time).
Ricky Romero pitches for the Jays and RR Cool Jay is just looking to get his season back on track going into the all-star game. Ricky has never really hit his stride this season, and the wheels have really come off recently. Some of it is fluctuation on home run balls (his HR/FB is way up and so his xFIP sits quite a bit lower than his FIP) and he has done a good job inducing ground balls, but that's about all that's gone right for the young southpaw. He is walking far too many hitters (4.74 per 9 innings, or more than 1 every two innings) and striking out too few (6.38/9 IP, 16.1% of batters compared to 18.7% over his career). He needs to regain his feel for his pitches (all of which, save his changeup, have deserted him so far this year) and particularly his command of his fastball. No time like the present.
Gavin Floyd pitches for Chicago. His standard numbers (6-8, 4.91 ERA), don't look impressive at first glance but he has done a number of things right so far this season - healthy strikeout rate, low walk rate, a decent if unspectacular number of groundballs. He has been victimized by home runs, which will happen in a park like Chicago's. But he is still a very solid pitcher who has had a fWAR of 3.5-4.5 in each of the past three seasons.
My son is celebrating his second birthday today, so we'll be missing the game. Enjoy! Oh and you know the rules: (1) no posting gifs until after the game concludes; (2) no talking or posting illegal streams; and (3) don't be terrible.
Today's title from the song "Megan" by Chicago's own Smoking Popes.