Tuesday bantering

The less said about yesterday’s loss the better. Matt W has your excellent (but sobering) recap here.

Watching Sean Reid-Foley pitch erratically, our defense get the yips and our offence not register a hit until the 7th was just painful.

Like punched repeatedly in the conkers painful.

I imagine the 10,460 brave souls who attended the game felt similarly.

While we dallied with an eventful comeback we fell 1 run short (hello? 2018? that you calling?). Close but no cigar.

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Oh offence, where art thou?

Its no secret that our offence is taking time to thaw out. Its also true that the current lineup is composed largely of unproven players. That doesn’t mean it’s not reasonable for some concern to creep in with regard to our hitting in the first 5 games.

If the Jays had faced a bevy of elite starters to this point it would be easy to write off their struggles...but the pitchers they have faced this season have been Jordan Zimmerman, Matt Boyd, Spencer Turnbull, Matt Moore, and David Hess. The term ‘workmanlike’ springs to mind:

Here’s the collective line of those five guys last season:

Last season there were 140 pitchers who threw 100 innings and only 17 with an ERA worse than 5.04. None of these five were good last year. Only Matt Boyd was semi-ok.

And now lets look at how the same 5 pitchers have done against the Jays so far this season (take a deep breath).

Yep its possible that the Tigers rotation and Hess have all been injected with the blood cells of a Clayton Kershaw/Dallas Keuchel clone, but realistically the Jays have been an omnishambles at the plate. Let’s hope that changes soon.

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Monday night malaise

The 10,460 who attended yesterdays game was Toronto’s worse attendance in a decade. There were less fans in the stands on Monday than there had been for any game since April 19, 2010, when they drew 10,314 on a Monday against the Kansas City Royals.

At least Toronto didn’t even draw the worst crowd of the night! The Cincinnati Reds drew 7,799 (the lowest in their ballpark’s history), while the Miami Marlins had a paltry 6,489 in the stands for their 7-3 loss to the Mets.

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Well worth a read!

As you settle into your morning coffee, tea or rum (depending on your location), these two eclectic but entertaining pieces are well worth a read:

In 2018, position-player pitchers struck out 22 batters and now Ben Clemens at FanGraphs has examined each one and separated them into tiers of embarrassment in A Taxonomy of Striking Out Against a Position Player Pitching

Revenue from global sales of baseball apparel are expected to surpass $500 million annually by the end of 2026. The phenomenon of wearing licensed team apparel is a relatively recent development and a far departure from the sartorial choices of even a generation back, and even in the postseason. Join John Paschal at Hardball Times as he details What Not to Wear and Whatnot: One Man’s Wardrobe Report.

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Social media bites

Nothing fazes this lady. NOTHING! She is Queen of Toronto.

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Jordan Hicks is a wizard

He has them under his spell.

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Run of the mill

Just your usual run of the mill 6-5-3 double play out right? And i dont know what makes me wince more; Freddie Freeman’s stretch or Josh’s mullet.