Monday Bantering: Bo continues to be great

I missed an interesting weekend of baseball. I saw a few innings, enough to absolutely hate the white uniforms, but I spent most of the weekend biking or driving too and from biking. I don’t know whose idea that was, but it seemed like a failure. And, the black ones matched the umpires. If they are going to have the players wearing black, they will have to find a different color for the umps.

Bo Bichette tried to win the series single-handed. He went 8 for 14, with 2 doubles and a home run, hitting .571/.571/.929 for the three games.

The Blue Jays had 17 hits, over the three games and Bo had 8 of them. Pretty good for him, pretty bad for the rest of the team.

Rowdy Tellez has had a tough time of it since coming back from Buffalo. He’s hit .200/.310/.360 with 1 home run, 3 walks, 11 strikeouts and 1 hit by pitch in 38 PA.

I hope he plays almost everyday for the rest of the season. After the season the team has a decision to make:

• Give him the job next year and see what he does.
• Re-sign Smoak and leave Rowdy in this kind of limbo for another year.
• Look for someone else to play first.

No decision has to be made now, but....if he doesn’t start hitting better, I’d think they would have to start looking to someone else as the first baseman of the future.

Nate Pearson had another good start for Buffalo yesterday. 6 innings 2 hits, 2 earned, 0 walk and 7 strikeouts. He threw 95 pitches, 60 of them for strikes.

Gregor Chisholm was at the game in Buffalo, and tells us that he threw harder as the game went on. The last paragraph makes me happy:

Pearson is best known for his eye-popping velocity but he’s developed into a more well-rounded pitcher since being taken with the 28th overall pick in the MLB draft two years ago. Back then, Pearson’s off-speed pitches flashed potential but they lacked consistency and were easily recognizable out of his hand. That’s no longer the case.

The Jays are going to have a decision to make next spring. It really looks like he is major league ready. And we badly need starting pitchers.

On the flip side of that, Pearson has thrown 96 innings this season. He should get 1 more starts and maybe the Bisons will make the playoffs. He’s gone from 22 innings of pitching last year to 96 plus this year. I’m not sure how many they will want him to throw next year.

I don’t think any team has two young guys I’d like to build a team around more than Bo and Vlad, but I’m hoping Nate becomes the third guy to build the team around.

On the subject of pitching prospects, Laura Armstrong has a profile of Adam Kloffenstein, in the Star.

Adam is only 19 (just turned 19 last week) and is pitching in Vancouver so he’s a few years away, but he’s also a big guy (6’5”) and throws hard (MLP pipeline say he can hit 96). Since we have almost no starting pitchers on the major league team, I enjoy reading about the guys coming up through the minors.

I didn’t see the game, so seeing that Clay Buchholz go 6 innings is a surprise to me. 6 innings and just 65 pitches. If he could get us 6 innings a start, the rest of the way, he can get the bullpen a bit of rest. And he might put himself in a good spot to find a job next year.

I’m betting Anthony Kay gets a callup after the Bisons’ season is over. I’d be all for bringing him up now, but I guess minor league playoff runs are a thing, so let him do that