Monday bantering aka SRF’s Up!*

(*hat tip to esfandia for the great title)

Good morning dear brothers and sisters- ask and ye shall receive! A new day has dawned and exciting young players will shine forth today in glorious righteousness!!

Yes our new battery of Sean Reid-Foley and Danny Jansen will make their debut today as the Jays head out on the road for three games against the Kansas City Royals and three more against the New York Yankees.

There has been a clamour to see both of these guys for a while now and it seems that others misfortune has opened their door of opportunity.

With Yangervis Solarte the latest infielder to be struck down, Martin will Russell over to 3B to see some regular action while Jansen catches. That might not necessarily change, either, when Lourdes Gurriel Jr. comes off the 10-day DL later this week and Richard Urena most likely gets demoted.

Jansen is rated by MLB Pipeline as the club’s No. 3 prospect. He was hitting .275 in 298 at-bats, and led Buffalo with 12 home runs and 58 RBI.

Reid-Foley went 12-4 (2.98) at two levels (double-A New Hampshire and Buffalo) with a combined WHIP of 1.121. He was 7-4 (3.50) at Buffalo and struck out a combined 146 batters while walking 47.

Naturally we are all excited to see both of these guys play (at long last) and who better to go up against right now than the Royals who are just plain awful.

At the end of play on April 30, the Royals were 7-21, 8.5 games out of first place in the AL Central — and things haven’t gotten any better. Entering play Sunday, they had dropped two of 10 August games and avoid the MLB basement because the OrioLOLes are worse. With veterans Jason Hammel and Ian Kennedy a combined 3-19, and now in the bullpen and on the DL, respectively, the Royals have been forced to use less experienced pitchers. Their starting pitching ERA is 5.36 and the their relief ERA is 5.27.

Yesterday in a game that was one for the ages, the Jays sneaked past the Rays 2-1, thanks to Kevin Pillar. The lovely Matt W has your recap here.

Elsewhere the retirement home that is known as the Mets are considering Blue Jays assistant GM Tony LaCava as one of the candidates to be their next GM. LaCava has been with the Blue Jays since 2002, when J.P. Ricciardi (now a Mets special advisor) was Toronto’s GM.

Down at Buffalo, Dwight Smith Jr. delivered a walk-off double in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Bisons a 5-4 victory over the Toledo Mud Hens.

VLAD WATCH - EVERYBODY PANIC!!

Worryingly, for the first time in his extensive Triple-A career, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was held off the bases, going 0-4.

His average is now only at .395.

Play of the day

We all know that Kevin Pillar is superman, and there are some other decent outfielders around (the Cardinals Harrison Bader for one) but check out the White Sox -they have Engle-man:

Have a great Monday everyone. All the best to the new boys. Lets get them a win!