Who’s Up, Who’s Down: Blue Jays Pitchers

Over the last two weeks, the Jays are 6-4. The pitchers have a 4.50 ERA.

UP

Marcus Stroman: 2 starts. 2.57 ERA. Batters hit .226/.255/.396, with 3 home runs, 1 walk and 11 strikeouts in 14 innings. He gave up those 3 solo homers, in his last start, but he’s been terrific. He’s been great all season. Definitely our ace this season.

Francisco Liriano: 2 pretty good starts. 3.75 ERA. Batters hit .239/.275/.457 with 1 home run, 3 walks and 14 strikeouts in 12 innings. We won both his starts. He’s kind of a borderline up arrow. He threw 7 innings in his last start, his longest outing of the season. He’s been a strikeout an inning guy for his career and continues that this year.

J.A. Happ: 2 starts, one very good, one pretty good. 2.13 ERA. Batters hit .275/.288/.333 with no homers, 1 walk and 17 strikeouts in 12.2 innings. He had a couple of poor starts, after coming off the DL, but the last two have been good. He should have had a couple more rehab starts. He’s kept opponents to singles (just 2 doubles in the 2 starts) and he hasn’t been walking batters.

Roberto Osuna: Pitched 6 games. 1.69 ERA. 5 saves. Batters hit .111/.111/.167 with no walks and 7 strikeouts in 5.1 innings. He’s been great. His last walk was on May 23rd. One walk a month is a pretty good rate.

Ryan Tepera: 4 games. 0.00 ERA. He had 1 win. Batters hit .077/.143/.077 with 1 walk and 5 strikeouts in 4 innings. He’s been so very good. Gibby seems to be limiting his inning lately. I don’t know if there is an issue of some sort, or if Gibby might just want to give him a bit of a break.

Dominic Leone: Pitched in 4 games. 1.59 ERA. In 5.2 innings batters hit .150/.294/.250, with 4 walk, 9 strikeouts. He faces 24 batters and had 9 strikeouts. He had the 3 walks yesterday (his ERA was saved by Aaron Loup), but, other than that appearance, he’s been very good. He pitched 3 innings in our loss to the White Sox on Friday.

Danny Barnes: 4 games. 0.00 ERA. 1 hold. Batters hit .063/.167/.063 with 2 walks and 8 strikeouts in 5 innings. He’s been great. Like Tepera, Gibby seems to decided to be careful with him (and Tepera) maybe something was said by the front office or the training staff.

Jason Grilli: Pitched in 3 games. 0.00 ERA. Batters hit .111/.111/.111 in 3 innings. He faced 9 hitters, and gave up 1 single. He had 2 strikeouts. Very very small sample, but I’ll take what I can get. I think Gibby will continue being careful with him.

Down

Marco Estrada: Made 2 starts. 15.43 ERA. Batters hit .500/.548/.789 with 3 homers, 4 walks and 6 strikeouts in just 7 innings. I don’t know what’s wrong, but I’d be all for having him checked out. Make sure there isn’t an injury that we haven’t heard about. At least we won yesterday’s start.

Joe Biagini: 2 starts. 10.13 ERA. Batters hit .371/.410/.543 with 0 home runs, 3 walks and 5 strikeouts in 8 innings. He had 1 good start (7 innings, 3 earned) and 1 terrible start (1 inning, 6 earned). Like his other bad start, he had an error that started things on the downhill slide. I don’t know if let the error get into his head, but both times it appeared that way. I hope he can get through a few starts without an error, I’m worried he’s going start overthinking throws to bases.

Joe Smith: 4 games. 6.75 ERA. 1 hold, 1 blown save/win.. Batters hit .313/.333/.500 with 1 home run, 1 walks and 5 strikeouts in 4 innings. And he’s on the DL with shoulder inflammation. We should have guessed there was a problem. I hope he’s not out for long.

Aaron Loup: Pitched in 6 games. 5.06 ERA. Batters hit .333/.391/.571 with 1 homer, 2 walks and 4 strikeouts in 5.1 innings. He was great yesterday, but that game was the exception over the past two weeks. On the good side, he hasn’t hit a batter since May 17th.

Jeff Beliveau: Pitched in 4 games. 9.00 ERA. Batters hit .267/.333/.467 with 1 homer, 2 walks and 6 strikeouts in 4 innings. He had 2 bad outings. Yesterday he pitched a very good inning, clean with 2 strikeouts.

On the DL

Aaron Sanchez: He should be heading off to a rehab assignment soon.

J.P. Howell: With how Beliveau looked last night, Howell might be on the DL for a long time.