Game #138 Preview: Stanek/Beeks vs Borucki

The Blue Jays continue their 3 game series against the Rays this evening. Game 2 gets underway at 7:07 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Rookie Ryan Borucki is making his 13th start of the season, matching the number of starts that he made in Buffalo prior to his callup. Through 63.2 innings, the young left hander is 3-3 with a 4.52 ERA, but pitching to a much nicer looking 3.95 FIP. That FIP is the product of his ability to keep the ball in the ballpark thus far, although his last 5 starts haven’t been as good in that regard as his first 7 - he didn’t allow his first big league home run until his 8th start, and now has allowed 5 on the season, including 2 in his last outing.

Rays’ Starter

MLB.com thinks that Ryne Stanek is going to be the opener again in this one. Stanek opened last night’s game with a perfect first inning, getting a strikeout, groundout and popup on 16 pitches. Stanek has thrown 5 innings against the Jays so far this year, surrendering a double and a walk, but nothing else, keeping the Jays off the board in his innings.

After Stanek is done, both Fangraphs and Roster Resource believe this is Jalen Beeks’ game. Beeks, who came over in the deadline deal that sent Nathan Eovaldi to the Red Sox, has been the beneficiary of a hot Rays team and their unique pitcher usage. In 7 relief appearances thus far, Beeks is 4-0 with a 4.70 ERA over 30.2 innings in Tampa. He has done well not allowing home runs, but has seen his struggles with walks, walking 16 in those 30.2 innings.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

The Buffalo Bisons played their last game of the season yesterday, so expect there to be a few additions to the roster. Ross Atkins intimated (or maybe flatout said? I don’t remember) that we were going to see a lot of callups this September when he was on the game broadcast on Sunday. I would imagine that means a good portion of the guys on the 40 man roster - which includes Reese McGuire, Rowdy Tellez, Richard Ureña, Anthony Alford, Dwight Smith Jr and Dalton Pompey on the position player side. I don’t expect all of them, specifically McGuire and probably not all 3 outfielders, but I would imagine most will be up.

Those moves likely hold no bearing on today’s lineup though. Yesterday’s lineup was a bit of a weird one, with all 3 catchers getting into the game - Luke Maile behind the plate, Russell Martin at 3B and Danny Jansen at DH. It was interesting to see, but don’t expect Danny Jansen, DH, to happen very often.

Kevin Pillar has sat 2 straight games. I missed yesterday’s broadcast, so they may have mentioned it, but I don’t think there is anything health-wise going on there.

Rays’ Lineup

Their bench is only 5 players deep at the moment, so I would imagine they’ll have a couple more reinforcements on the way. However, the Durham Bulls have made the International League Playoffs, so there probably won’t be many reinforcements coming for the Rays anytime soon - not that they need any help against the Jays.

Rookie first baseman Jake Bauers looks like he sits against lefties, so he’s probably not in the game in this one. Which means that Carlos Gomez would start in the outfield and CJ Cron would head to 1B.

Willy Adames, Jesus Sucre and Cron all had the day off yesterday, but expect them to be back in there today.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Ryan O’Hearn went 3-4 with a pair of homers and a double yesterday, driving in 3 of the Royals 5 runs to earn our Monster Bat award. The Royals took down Cleveland 5-1.

Bryce Harper came up big for his Nationals last night. He hit a 1-out, 2-run game tying home run in the bottom of the 9th inning, forcing extras. After stranding the bases loaded after that, the Nationals rallied again in the 10th, allowing Harper to come up with the winning run on 3rd, and he hit a walk-off sac fly to win it. His WPA King total for the day was .739.

Jakob Junis threw 7 shutout innings in the Royals win over Cleveland. He allowed just 2 hits and a HBP over those masterful innings, earning him the Pitcher of the Day honours.

Find the Link

Find the link between Stanek, Beeks and the Marlins third baseman.