Who’s Hot, Who’s Cold: Blue Jays Batters

The Blue Jays were 7-5 over the last two weeks.

Our batters hit .264/.314/.489 with 21 home runs over the last 12 games. We’ve averaged 4.5 runs per game

Hot

Kendrys Morales: .333/.410/.667 with 2 doubles, 3 homers, 6 RBI, 5 steals (no I’m kidding, just wanted to put that win and see if anyone noticed), 5 walks and 7 strikeouts.

Played in all 12 games, starting 9. He started 3 games at first base and, I thought, he looked pretty ok there. Of course, when you have a 1.077 OPS, as long as you make most of the catches at first, I’m going to be ok with your defense. It is hard to imagine that this is the same guy who looked so lost back in April.

Randal Grichuk: .263/.317/.658 with 3 walks and 4 homer runs, 8 RBI, 1 steal, 3 walks and 7 strikeouts.

Played in all 12 games, starting 10. Made his second start in CF and looks good in the spot, to me. He made the catch of the season and, likely, hit the longest home run we’ll see all season, both in the same game. He looked so bad at the plate in April that I’m wondering if this is the real Gricuk or if that is. More likely somewhere in between. It has been great having his glove in RF.

Aledmys Diaz: .333/.326/.452 with 2 doubles, 1 homer, 4 RBI, 0 walks and 6 strikeouts.

I don’t know why we have all these guys that refuse to take a walk, but, if he hits .333, I’ll forgive the swing at everything approach. He seems to hit the ball hard or strikeout. I like his defense.

Devon Travis: .268/.286/.561 with 3 doubles, 3 home runs, 9 RBI, 1 walk and 6 strikeouts.

He started 11 of the 12 games. I guess we’ve stopped worrying about him getting hurt. I’d like him to get on base more, it would be nice if he would take the odd walk. But, he had 11 hits over the past 12 games and 6 of them were extra base hits. Maybe we could move him out of the 9th spot in the order.

Yangervis Solarte: .250/.308/.500 with 3 doubles, 3 home runs, 8 RBI, 4 walks and 8 strikeouts.

Started all 12 games. Sometimes I find him maddening, he has some terrible at bats, you think he’s not trying, but then he’ll have 2 or 3 hits the next day. I kind of find him the same on defense, he’ll make a great play then look bad on an easier one. Fangraphs has him at a -3.5 UZR/150 which kind of matches what I see. At the half way point of the season he leads the team in home runs, which isn’t something I wouldn’t have guessed before the season. He has been good to have on the team.

Curtis Granderson: .241/.290/.586 with 1 double, 3 homers, 3 RBI, 2 walks and 10 strikeouts.

Played in 10 games, starting 7. Started 3 of the games in right field. I liked it when he was getting on base more, but the 2 home run game against Justin Verlander was a lot of fun. I really figured he would be traded before Pearce. Wrong again.

Steve Pearce: .385/.429/.692 with 1 double, 1 homer, 3 RBI, 1 walk and 3 strikeouts.

Played in 4 games, starting 3. And now he is a Red Sox. When healthy he was a good player. I’ll miss him.

Cold

Russell Martin: .143/.357/.143, no extra base hits, no RBI, 7 walks and 5 strikeouts.

Started 7 games all at catcher. Played a bit of third in one game. He’s having a rough time this season. I don’t know what’s going on, maybe there is an injury we haven’t been told about? If there is some reason for this, I’d like the team to put him on the DL and let us have a look at Jansen. The Nationals ran wild on him, 8 steals in 2 games, but, in his other 5 games there was only 1 steal against him. The 2 weeks before that he threw out 4 of 10 base stealers.

Kevin Pillar: .200/.200/.289, 4 doubles, 2 RBI, 1 steal, 0 walks and 10 strikeouts.

Played in all 12 games, starting 11. He hasn’t taken a walk this month. Of course, he hasn’t hit at all this month either. He starts off hot, we hear all about how he’s figured it out and then he slumps, it seems to be how each season goes. I refuse to listen to any talk about him at the start of next season. I guess we should enjoy the hot stretches and try to ignore the cold ones.

Justin Smoak: .257/.308/.429, with 6 doubles, 4 RBI, 3 walks and 14 strikeouts.

Justin played in all 12 games, starting 9. He was also caught stealing once. He seems to be pulling out of his little slump. He’s a good bit short of what he was doing last year. I’m willing to wait out the season, but if he does hit much better than this, it might be time to look for someone else to play first.

Luke Maile: .250/.300/.313 with 1 double, 4 RBI, 1 walks and 6 strikeouts.

Played in 6 games, starting 5. A very marginal ‘down arrow’. We would have been thrilled if he could have hit like that last year. 3 steals, 1 caught against him over those 6 games. He’s not the automatic out that he was last year, but his .351/.415/.459 line from April seems like a dream to me now.

Inbetween

Teoscar Hernandez: .250/.313/.455 with 3 doubles, 2 home runs, 2 RBI, 3 walks and 19 strikeouts.

Not hot or cold. His numbers aren’t great with RISP (.200/.305/.400). It might be a sample size thing, but he doesn’t seem patient with runners on. His defense in left seems much better than his defense in right, but I’d love to see him start hitting the cutoff man. Forget everything else and throw it to the cutoff man.

Also played

Lourdes Gurriel played in 1 game, went 2 for 4 with a 1 home run and 2 walks. I think it is time to bring him up and keep him up. He might not play every day, but he’ll get enough at bats to keep sharp.

Gio Urshela got into 3 games, but didn’t bat in this 2 week period. He’s in DFA limbo at the moment. He did hit a home run for us, but might fall somewhat short of making it to the Level of Excellence.

On the DL

Josh Donaldson: The setback surprised me. Three weeks until the evaluate him again. I’m thinking we won’t see him on the field again until August.

Troy Tulowitzki: I’m wondering if we’ll see Troy before we see Josh. Troy says he’s ready to run the bases.