Random Blue Jays thoughts

Ever have one of those days when you have no idea what to write about.....that’s me this morning.

Following this team, for so long, I’m used to bad stretches. But, normally, when the team has been bad, it’s been the pitching that’s been terrible. Good hitting and bad pitching....well, at least it is fun to watch. Crappy hitting is not fun to watch.

Presuming we do turn this around sometime, it is going to take a long time to get back to .500, but there is no rush, we don’t have to go on a 7-game win streak (not that I would complain). If we could get back to .500 by the All Star break I would be happy. Let’s start with a win tonight.

Let’s just go with some random thoughts:

Kevin Pillar isn’t striking out. You would think that would be a good thing. But he’s also not hitting the ball hard. You hear people say that a player should cut down on his swing and cut down on strikeouts, but hitting the ball hard is a good thing too. Weakly hit balls are generally outs.

As great it is that he’s dropped his strikeout rate, unfortunately his line drive rate has dropped too. It’s at 13.8%, down from 20.5 last year. His soft contact rate is up to 34.5%, from 24.8. He’s only had 1 walk and no extra base hits. It’s early and all....but I’d rather he’d strikeout occasionally and hit the ball hard sometimes too, if it were up to me.

Russell Martin had his first hit of the season, a double. And, I think, it was the first time he made decent contact all season. Looking at FanGraphs, he has a line drive rate of zero. I refuse to believe he forgot how to hit, but I’d love him to prove it to me soon.

At least the bullpen has been good. 3.67 ERA (and if you removed the bad outings from J.P. Howell and Casey Lawrence, you have a 2.19).

I have a harder time listening to Zaun and Tabler when the team is playing bad. My ability to put up with their nonsense has totally disappeared.

And Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman have been very good (1.61 ERA between the pair).

It’s Steve Pearce’s birthday. He turns 34 today. It would be a great day to get his first and second and third extra base hits for the Blue Jays.