Game #79 Preview: Borucki vs Morton

After Randal Grichuk was everything we needed yesterday in order to win the opener, the Jays and Astros get back at it tonight for game 2 of this 3 game series. First pitch is scheduled for 8:10 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Left hander Ryan Borucki is set to make his Major League debut tonight. Bluebird Banter’s number 6 prospect was having a nice season in Buffalo, going 6-5 with a 3.27 ERA over 77 innings and 13 starts. He isn’t striking out batters like he did last year, and has walked more as well, but his game is based on inducing soft contact and keeping the ball on the ground and out of the outfield bleachers.

Welcome to the Show Ryan! Hopefully you can stick around for a long while.

Astros’ Starter

The Astros go with 34 year old righty Charlie Morton. Morton must have sold his first born child to the baseball gods or something, because in return they have given him a career high fastball velocity, which has helped lead to a career high whiffs, which has helped lead to a career high strikeout rate, which has helped lead to a career low ERA, which is probably going to lead to a first career All Star Game.

Through 15 games, the right hander is 9-1 with a 2.74 ERA. He is striking out 11.06 batters per 9 innings, the 9th highest in baseball this year among qualified starters (what is going on with starters this year. Damn!). He is walking more than normal, and giving up a lot more home runs than he has before, so his FIP of 3.82 is cause for some concern.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

Randal Grichuk and Curtis Granderson (plus J.A. Happ) were the big reasons we won yesterday, and it’ll be tough not seeing one of them out there in this one. Perhaps Granderson draws the start at DH, but I wouldn’t count on that one today.

I would guess that we have Luke Maile going today though (#DeliverTheMaile), although it would be pretty cool to see Danny Jansen get called up too and catch Borucki, but I don’t see why they’d do it, unless Martin is hurting.

Astros’ Lineup

Josh Reddick and Brian McCann got the night off (at least to start things) yesterday with the left handed Happ on the mound. With the lefty Borucki going today, that could very well be the case again. If McCann doesn’t start, that means that Max Stassi will start for the 3rd time in a row, something he hasn’t done since the start of June.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Curtis Granderson, with 2 home runs and a walk, is our Monster Bat. We haven’t had a Blue Jay in this spot very often, so it’s nice to see.

Brad Keller (.473) just narrowly edges out Ozzie Albies (.472) in probably the closest race the WPA King title has ever seen. Keller also takes a quarter of the Pitcher of the Day award by throwing 7 shutout innings, allowing 4 baserunners in the Royals’ 2-0 win over the Angels. Three other pitchers also earn a part of that award, as they also threw 7 shutout innings yesterday: Blake Snell, 1 hit and 4 walks in Tampa’s 11-0 win over the Nats; John Gant, 1 hit and 5 walks in the Cardinals’ 4-0 win over Cleveland; and Kenta Maeda, 3 hits and 1 walk in the Dodgers’ 2-1 win over the Cubs.

Find the Link

Find the link between Morton and Matt Barnes.