Game #89 Preview: Germán vs Borucki

The Blue Jays go for the series win over the Yankees this afternoon. First pitch is at 1:07 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Left handed rookie Ryan Borucki makes his 3rd career start, and continues his trial by fire by facing the Yankees, the third time he faces a lefty mashing team. And to say he has done well so far is probably an understatement. In his first 2 starts, Borucki threw 13 innings, allowing 4 runs on 12 hits with 4 walks and 11 strikeouts. He has a 2.35 FIP, but mostly because he hasn’t allowed a home run yet. Today we will likely see how he works around surrendering a home run or two.

Yankees’ Starter

The Yankees counter with a rookie of their own, 25 year old right hander Domingo Germán. This will be Germán’s 11th start of the season, and he also has 6 appearances out of the bullpen. In total, he has thrown 68.2 innings of questionable quality baseball - he has a 5.37 ERA, but he is striking out 10.62 batters per 9 with a good 3.15 walk per 9 rate. Which means it is the home runs that are killing him, a difficult thing to avoid when you’re playing in Yankee Stadium. His HR per 9 innings is 1.70, the 12th worst rate in all of baseball among pitchers with at least 60 innings pitched. So if you’re going to the game to sit in the outfield seats, you may want to bring your glove.

Lineups

Curtis Granderson gets the unusual day off against the righty. And Lourdes Gurriel is in at SS while Aledmys Diaz gets a day of rest.

Yesterday’s Heroes

There were some fairly ridiculous offensive explosions across the league last night, as 4 teams reached double digits, with the Nationals topping out at 18 and the Diamondbacks reaching 20.

This obviously makes it tough to choose just 1 Monster Bat, so I’ll go with 2. The first one, Wil Myers, saw his team score just 5 runs, but he drove in 4 of them by going 3-3 with 3 home runs, while also drawing a walk. Unfortunately for him, they were playing the Diamondbacks and lost 20-5. Mark Reynolds of the Nationals is our other co-Monster Bat winner. After watching teammate Trea Turner drive in 8 runs the other day, Reynolds decided to one-up that, by going 5-5, hitting a pair of home runs and driving in 10 as the Nats beat the Marlins 18-4.

While we had 2 guys take home one award, we also have 1 guy taking home two awards - Rays breakout star Blake Snell pitched 7.1 shutout innings, allowing 9 baserunners but working around that to help his Rays take down to hometown Mets 3-0 and earn Pitcher of the Day honours. He was also worth .418 WPA on the day for holding the Mets down to earn the WPA King title.

Milestone Watch

Kendrys Morales still needs 1 home run to reach 200 for his career.

John Axford got into yesterday’s game as well, and now sits just 1 appearance back of 6th all time by a Canadian.

Find the Link

Find the link between Germán and the last player to wear Jake Smith’s number in San Diego.