Monday Bantering: Playoff Stuff

The season we didn’t think would happen, made it to the finish line. I’ll admit I had trouble finding things to write about this season. It has been such a weird year.

I’ve enjoyed watching the games. I think I likely saw almost all of them, I missed parts of some. and watch 2-3 in a bar where I might not have followed every moment, but without getting to go on a holiday, I don’t think I missed more than one or two.

Apparently we get Buck Martinez doing play by play with Joe Siddal doing the analyst for the Wild Card series. I’ll miss Dan, but I like Siddal so it should be good.

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The big question, surprisingly, is who will start each game. The Jays media is suggestion that Hyun Jin Ryu has asked for an extra day of rest. It seems like there could be four ways this could work out:

1:

Game 1: Ryu

Game 2: Walker

Game 3: Shoemaker

This ignores that Ryu might want an extra day’s rest. But then we would go with our best starter in the first game, which seems to be what we should want.

2.

Game 1: Ryu

Game 2: Shoemaker

Game 3: Walker

Shoemaker has reverse split, which might play well against the Rays. He would likely be piggybacked with someone (Ray?) since he’s unlucky to pitch more than 4-5 innings.

3:

Game 1: Shoemaker

Game 2: Ryu

Game 3: Walker

Giving Ryu the extra day rest (he has pitched better with an extra day of rest, but it is a pretty small sample size. Walker has had more trouble with lefties. Also, keeping the right-handers in the first and last games lets us use Ryan Borucki in both games without pitching back-to-back days.

4:

Game 1: Walker

Game 2: Ryu

Game: Shoemaker

Walker is more likely to pitch deeper into the game, but he would be on short rest. He only threw 3 innings in his last start, so short rest wouldn’t be a problem. And, of course, he was perfect in those 3 innings.

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The other question is how they put together the roster.

Personally, I would drop Roark and Yamaguchi and add Espinal and Joseph. I guess there is a question on whether T.J. Zeuch would be able to pitch the first couple of games of the playoffs after throwing 5 innings on Saturday. If they would rather another pitcher, I’d like Sean Reid-Foley. I really like Patrick Murphy in the bullpen. I guess it does depend on whether Jordan Romano can pitch. If he can I’d drop Zeuch or Murphy.

Let us know what you would do with the roster in the comments.

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If you are interested in looking ahead, this looks like next year’s draft order (Astros lose their 1st and 2nd pick, they will be in the 16 spot after that):

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FanGraphs has a Jays/Rays series preview up. Seems they don’t think the Jays have a good chance to win.

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Ross Atkins was on XM radio talking Jordan Romano and Nate Pearson:

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If you want to make a bet, Bet Online has odds: