Monday Bantering: Shoemaker to start today, and other stuff

Bits and pieces:

Remember Daniel Vogelbach? We gave him 5 PA and set him free. He’s had 40 PA with the Brewers and is hitting .417/.475/.722 with 3 home runs. All small sample stuff, but those numbers would look good filling in for Rowdy Tellez.

Tonight will see the return of Matt Shoemaker. If he can stay healthy for a week or so, I’d think he would be our third starter for the Playoffs (presuming we don’t go all 1987 for the next week). Maybe if we can have good Bobby Ray, we could have an ok four man rotation, though I’m not looking past a three man playoff rotation right now.

As bad as the rotation has been, the bullpen is having a terrible month of September. Our relievers have allowed a .297/.401/.548 line this month.

The ones doing well and their opponents batting line:

• Anthony Bass: .160/.222/.320
• Rafael Dolis: .100/.280/.150 (presuming he isn’t actually hurt and will pitch again this year)
• Ryan Borucki: .105/.261/.263
• Julian Merryweather: .290/.371/355 (well he’s somewhere in between doing well and not doing well).

Ones not doing well:

• A.J. Cole: .320/.414/.680
• Thomas Hatch: .345/.411/.448
• Shun Yamaguchi: .308/.440/.536
• Anthony Kay: .379/.486/.690
• Jacob Waguespack: .462/.500/.451
• Wilmer Font: .286/.421/.286

If Nate Pearson and Jordan Romano can come back and help out the pen. And maybe if Charlie tries Patrick Murphy a couple more times. I’d love them to give Sean Reid-Foley a bit home of a chance. He had one bad outing, but over the season, facing 30 batters, he’s allowed a .125/.300/.125 line. I’ve always liked relievers who seem to have no idea where their pitches are going.

Merryweather had a drop velocity in his last couple of outings, so he’s getting a little extra rest. Who knows when the little extra rest will end, but we could use a couple of good appearances from him before the end of the season to make us feel a little more comfortable.

Is this the first time in recent memory that we’ve had a Jays team that was bad at hitting the fastball?

In my memory it always seemed we were a team that hunted fastballs. It seems like a bad thing to be poor at hitting fastballs, since every pitcher throws one.

I wonder if it has something to do with the philosophy of ‘letting the ball travel’ that we have heard so much about.

The Blue Jays have one of the best outfields in baseball:

If they were better defensively and if Randal could play like he did at the start of the month, they would be as good as anyone.