Game #20 Preview: Stroman vs Montgomery

After an exciting debut for Lourdes Gurriel, and an exciting game overall, the Blue Jays and Yankees head into game 3 of their 4 game weekend series tied 1-1. Today’s game is at 1:05 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Marcus Stroman is making his 4th start of the season, looking to finally get it on track. He has averaged fewer than 5 innings in his starts, something that I’m sure he isn’t happy with. In total, Stroman has thrown 14.2 innings, allowing 13 runs on 18 hits and a very un-Stroman like 10 walks. He has, however, struck out 16 and induced a ground ball rate at nearly 70%. But he’s giving up extremely hard hit ground balls, which coupled with the walks, have led to his 7.98 ERA. He’s always going to give up hard grounders that will occasionally find holes, so in order to be successful, he needs to remove the walks.

Yankees’ Starter

Left hander Jordan Montgomery will get the start for the Yankees. He has thrown 15.1 innings across his 3 starts, allowing 8 runs with a 12:6 K:BB ratio.

This is his second season in the Majors. Last season, he went 9-7 with a 3.88 ERA over 155.1 innings. He struck out 8.34 batters per 9 innings while walking 2.95 per 9. He’s fairly neutral in the GB/FB department and has done a great job limiting line drives. He has faced the Jays twice in his career, both last year, and has a career 0.79 ERA to show for it.

In his last start against Detroit, Montgomery pushed the limits of a Quality Start and picked up his first win of 2018.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

The wonderful thing about 1 pm weekend starts is the lineups are posted before I get done writing these.

Offensive Superstar Luke Maile moves up to 6th in the batting order, getting the start in a day game after a night game. Randal Grichuk is back in the lineup against a lefty. Pearce gets the start at 1B and is leading off. Gurriel makes his second consecutive start.

And the bench. Oh man, that bench. Travis, Smoak, Martin and Granderson, yet it doesn’t feel like we’re being shorted in the lineup either. I love this team.

Yankees’ Lineup

So we won’t be getting as many free bases today, but I’m alright without seeing Sanchez’ bat in there.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Carlos Correa was the big hitter last night, going 3-5 with a pair of home runs as Justin Verlander took down the White Sox in the Astros 10-0 win.

Jocoby Jones put up a .632 WPA across 2 games (.508 and .124), while Denard Span put up a .618 WPA in 1 game. Since they’re so close, I looked into both a bit more. I’m going to give the title of WPA King to Jacoby Jones, because Span’s walkoff hit was the result of what to me looks like a botched call on a review, followed by an error. Jones hit a walkoff home run in game 1 of the double header, before getting a triple and a sac fly in the nightcap loss to the Royals.

The title of Pitcher of the Day I’m giving to Tyson Ross. He threw 7.2 no hit innings before surrendering a 2 out RBI double, but his Padres still held on to beat the Diamonbacks 4-1. Ross struck out 10 and walked 3 with 127 pitches, and was removed immediately following the double.

Milestone Watch

John Axford never got into the game last night, so he’s still sitting on career relief appearance number 501. His next appearance pulls him into a tie with John Hiller for 4th all time for Canadians.

Kevin Pillar is at 58 career stolen bases. If he steals 3 more (perhaps in the same inning against the Yankees), he’ll move into the top 20 all time for the Jays, moving into a 3 way tie for 19th with Jose Reyes and Raul Mondesi.

This is Stroman’s 93rd career start as a Blue Jay, tying Brandon Morrow for 19th all time with the Jays. He’ll be 1 back of Marco Estrada, hopefully a chase that they’ll be doing all season.

Find the Link

Find the link between Montgomery and the man who sits 5th all time on the Brewers hit list.