Game #139 Preview: Glasnow vs Sanchez

The Blue Jays look to avoid the 3 game sweep at the hands of the Rays this evening. Tonight’s game gets underway at 7:07 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Aaron Sanchez is making his third start since returning from a bruised finger. His first 2 went poorly, as he allowed 11 runs on 18 hits over 8.1 innings, striking out just 4 while walking 5. The good news is that he didn’t allow a home run!

Sanchez’s last 2 starts really showed a troubling trend that has been facing Sanchez the entire season - he walked at least as many as he struck out. That now makes 9 of the 17 starts this season that Sanchez has pulled off that terrible feat. As a completely unfair, meaningless and random comparison, Max Scherzer has 1 such start - as a Washington National (this really was just a plug to get you to go check out some of the absurd games that this guy has pitched if you haven’t been paying attention). Sanchez on the year now has a 5.11 BB/9 rate, the third most in all of baseball among pitchers with as many innings as he has.

Rays’ Starter

The Rays will be opening with... OMG! They’re going with an actual starting pitcher! Tyler Glasnow, acquired in the trade that sent Chris Archer to Pittsburgh, goes for the Rays, and it seems the intention is to start him in the first inning. Honestly, this actually seems like the spot where you would use an opener - get a guy to pitch the first inning against the top of the order, then bring in the young gun slinger to go 6-7 innings. But whatever.

Through his first 6 starts as a Ray, Glasnow is 0-2 with a 3.23 ERA, striking out an impressive 38 over 30.2 innings while walking just 10. He has allowed 4 home runs, which is a bit more than average, and it’s probably at least somewhat related to the much higher flyball rate he’s allowing since walking the plank and now swimming with the rays. He had a 31.8% FB rate in his 141.1 career innings with the Pirates, a number that has increased to 43.9% in his short time with Tampa. And if you allow more fly balls, more home runs are a likely result.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

As fun as it was to watch Kendrys Morales hit home runs for those 7 days, and actually be a halfway decent player since mid-May, I really don’t want to see him in the lineup anymore. There are so many young guys on the team that could use the at bats, and playing Morales won’t do anybody any good. Let other guys cycle through the DH spot please Gibby.

I want to see Rowdy Tellez start this game. As a matter of fact, I would love to see as many players in this game as possible that haven’t been with the Jays very long in this game, if only to maybe not have the Jays’ stink on them as much while playing the Rays.

My hopeful lineup - Smith, Davis, McKinney across the outfield, Diaz, Gurriel, Ureña and Tellez across the infield with Tellez at 1B and, I don’t know, call up Pompey to DH. Or Teoscar Hernandez at DH I guess.

Rays’ Lineup

So far in the first 2 games of this series, the Rays have scored 11 runs on 19 hits and 9 free bases (BB + HBP). As bad as the Jays’ offense has been (Buck informed us, and then continually reminded us last night that they’ve now tied the Major League record of ineptitude against 1 team with something like 9 games in a row with 5 or fewer hits), the Rays’ bats have taken it to the Jays about as badly as their pitching.

Jake Bauers, who was limited to pinch running duties yesterday, should be back in the starting lineup tonight.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see Nick Ciuffo, Ji-Man Choi, Brandon Lowe and Andrew Velazquez work their way into the starting lineup tonight either, as the Rays could probably throw 7 or 8 lefties at Aaron Sanchez and take advantage of his terrible platoon splits.

Yesterday’s Heroes

J.T. Realmuto went 2-3 with a pair of home runs while also drawing a pair of walks, a performance worthy of our Monster Bat award. The Marlins still lost 9-4 to the Phillies, but Realmuto had a nice day.

Robbie Ray of the Diamondbacks threw 6.1 shutout innings, allowing 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out 10 to earn the Pitcher of the Day honours in the Diamondbacks 6-0 win over the Padres. And in a night filled with no real clutch performances, Ray put up a .393 WPA to earn our WPA King title too.

Find the Link

Find the link between Glasnow and the Jays’ second pick in the 2010 draft (there is only 1 correct answer to this).