The Blue Jays in May: Pitchers

The Blue Jays were 21-9 in May, just a terrific month to be a Blue Jays fan. Our pitchers ha a 3.74 ERA (down from 4.64 in April). The starters went 18-5 with a 3.42 ERA (4.41 in April), averaging 6.06 innings per starts. The relievers were 3-4 with a 4.40 ERA (5.03 in April) and had 13 saves. They pitched 2.93 innings a game.

Mark Buehrle: 5-0 with a 2.48 ERA in 6 starts. He pitched 40 innings (6.7 per start), allowed 38 hits, 1 home run, 11 walks with 24 strikeouts. Batters hit .252/.301/.338 against him. There isn't much to complain about. He's only allowed 2 home runs so far this season. He is fun to watch, the games go quick, he doesn't walk many, there hasn't been a lot of hard hit balls against him. He seems to like pitching to Dioner Navarro, but I'd don't know how much credit Navarro should get. It did seem to take awhile for J.P. Arencibia to get comfortable catching him, while Navarro seemed to have it down early in spring training, but he gets enough credit for not being JP.

R.A. Dickey: 3-1 with a 3.55 ERA in 6 starts. He pitched 38 innings (5.5 per start), allowed 34 hits, 3 home runs, 14 walks with 31 strikeouts. Batters hit .228/.299/.376 against him, not that much better than they hit Buehrle. He only had 1 bad start in May, the last one, when he gave up 10 hits and 5 earned in 5 innings, the only start he didn't make it through 6 innings. The others were 'quality starts'. He's still on a pace to throw over 200 innings. If he continues like this for the rest of the season, we really can't complain too much.

Drew Hutchison: 3-1 with a 3.94 ERA in 5 starts. He pitched 32 innings (6.4 per starts), allowed 28 hits, 5 home runs, 12 walks with 21 strikeouts. Batters hit .235/.303/.437 against him. He had his first career complete game, a shutout, on May 16th. The two starts since then weren't great. He is on pace for 182 innings, which seems like a lot for a guy coming off missing almost all of last year after Tommy John surgery. Gibby has pushed back his next start a few days, I'm thinking they might do that a few times the rest of the season.

J.A. Happ: 4-2, 4.09 ERA in 6 starts. He pitched 33 innings (5.5 per start), allowed 36 hits, 6 home runs, 14 walks, 29 strikeouts. Batters hit .273/.342/.462 against him. He's been better than I expected, which might be damning with faint praise, but if he can keep this up, I'm ok with him in the rotation. I'm not sure the odds are good that he will keep this up. He has looked a little more aggressive, at least early in his starts, throwing more strikes, getting ahead of more batters. And the 95 mph fastball is nice to see. He had 3 good starts and 3 not so good starts, ERA of 0.50 in the good starts, and 8.40 in the bad ones.

Dustin McGowan: 1-1, 2 holds, 3.13 ERA in 9 games, 3 starts. 3.94 ERA in the 3 starts, 1.29 ERA in the 7 relief innings. He pitched 23 innings, allowed 23 hits, 3 home runs, 8 walks, with 13 strikeouts. It is a small sample but he's allowed just 4 hits and 1 walk, with 3 strikeouts in the 7 relief innings. Gibby likes having him in the bullpen and if Happ and Stroman can pitch ok, it is all for the best. I really don't think he was set up to succeed in the rotation. The decision to put him there came too late in spring training, but we needed someone to start.

Liam Hendriks: 1-0, 2.31 ERA in 2 starts. He pitched 11.2 innings, allowed 6 hits, 2 home runs, 3 walks, with 8 strikeouts. Batters hit .150/.244/.325 against him. The polite way of saying it is that 'he used his defense'. And he used all the park, for that matter. Or you could say 'he got very lucky'. I wasn't against giving him another start to see if he could stay lucky or if he would learn what he needs to do so that he doesn't have to be so lucky. In his second start, he seemed to be getting better as the start went on, he was getting strikeouts when he needed them. I thought it was a good sign, but I'd rather have Marcus Stroman in the rotation. If he continues to pitch well in Buffalo, he'll likely get another chance sometime this year.

Casey Janssen: 0-0, 8 saves in 10 games. He pitched 10 innings, allowed 7 hits, 1 walk with 6 strikeouts. Batters hit .189/.211/.216 against him. He did have the one blown save, but that was on Jose Reyes' poorly timed error. He hasn't thrown more than 19 pitches in any of his appearances. I think they will be handling him with kids gloves for the rest of the season. I don't think I've ever been as happy to get someone back off the DL.

Aaron Loup: 1-0, 2 saves, 1 blown save, 7 holds, 1.72 ERA in 15 games. He pitched 15.2 innings, allowed 13 hits, 0 home runs, 4 walks and 13 strikeouts. Batters hit .232/.290/.321 (not quite the .088 batting average he held batters to in April, but still good). He seems to be Gibby's favorite. Or maybe he's just not had a tired arm yet this season. He hasn't had much of a split, lefties have a .496 OPS, righties a .554 OPS against him this season.

Steve Delabar: 1-0, 7 holds, 3.97 ERA in 12 games. He pitched 11.1 innings, allowed 9 hits, 1 home runs, 6 walks, 13 strikeouts. Batters hit .225/.347/.400 against him. More walks than you'd like, but he is back to getting more than a strikeout an inning. That's a happy sign. He gave up runs in 4 of his 12 appearances. He's not been the pitcher that we saw last year yet.

Brett Cecil: 0-1, 2 save, 6 holds, 2.45 ERA in 12 games. He pitched 11 innings, allowed 12 hits, 4 walks, 14 strikeouts. Batters hit .273/.320/.364 against him. He hasn't pitched since last Tuesday, which is a long time off for Brett. I wonder if there was some soreness or something that they haven't told us about. He doesn't often get a full week off. So far this year, LHB have hit him (.718 OPS) better than RHB (.667). I'm sure that's a sample size issue.

Todd Redmond: 0-2, 1 save, 5.06 ERA in 6 games. He pitched 10.2 innings, allowed 18 hits, 4 walks and 6 strikeouts. Batters hit .383/.453/.447 against him. He finally pitch in a game we won, on May 26th and then again on May 31st, getting the 3 inning save. The good news is that we haven't used him much. Not much work for a mop up pitcher when you are winning.

Esmil Rogers: 0-0, 1 hold, 8.53 ERA in 5 games. He pitched 6.1 innings, allowed 8 hits, 1 home runs, 3 walks and 5 strikeouts. Batters hit .308/.379/.577 against him (Edwin like numbers). He was really bad, and now he's in Buffalo.

Marcus Stroman: 2-0, 7.30 ERA in 6 games, 1 start. He pitched 12.1 innings, allowed 18 hits, 1 home run, 1 walk, 10 strikeouts. Batters hit .333/.351/.519 against him. You have to like a 10 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio. The start was great. I did worry about him when we scored 7 runs in the bottom of the first, he was sitting for a long time. Here's to 20 more starts this year.

Rob Rasmussen: 0-0, 2 holds in 4 games. Pitched 2 innings, allowed 2 hits, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts, 1 hit batter. Batters hit .250/.400/.375 against him. He got David Ortiz to ground out in his first appearance. Like many of the guys that have been up and down, I wouldn't mind him staying around a little longer so we could see what we have.

Sergio Santos: 0-1, 1 blown save, in 3 games. He pitched 3.1 innings, allowed 4 hits, 2 home runs, 2 walks and 4 strikeouts. Batters hit .286/.375/.786 against him and then he went on the DL. He should be back fairly soon, hopefully pitching much better.

Chad Jenkins: pitched in 2 games, a total of 1.1 innings, didn't allow a hit, or a walk, nor did he get a strikeout. Really nothing to show he was actually in the games. Faced 4 batters, got 4 batters out, 1 ground out, 3 fly outs.

Neil Wagner: he pitched once for us in May. It didn't go well, 1.1, 6 hits, 6 earned, 1 walk, 1 home run and went back to Buffalo right after.

Bobby Korecky : pitched once, faced 4 batters, got them all out, 3 ground outs, 1 fly out. Then they cast him out again. Another I wouldn't mind seeing pitch for us some more.

Steve Tolleson: pitched in a blow out. gave up a hit and got an out.