Wednesday Bantering: Semien AL Player of the Month

Marcus Semien won AL Player of the Month for May.

Semien hit .368/.429/.702 with 8 home runs, 22 RBI, and 2 stolen bases.

Semien is also the second baseman on the AL May All-Star team. I don’t remember them doing a monthly All-Star team before. Vladimir Guerrero is the first baseman on that team. Vlad hit .302/.380/.613 with 9 home runs and 22 RBI, a slight step down from his .350/.490/.663 April. He’s been amazing.

I thought Hyun Jin Ryu’s 4-0, 2.64 ERA month might get him a spot as an All-Star pitcher of the month, but Chris Bassitt, Corey Kluber, Carlos Rodon, and Rich Hill beat him out.

The rotation against the Astros will be:

Ryu-Friday

Stripling-Saturday

Matz-Sunday

The team tells us that A.J. Cole has been dealing with a sore neck and isn’t available tonight. I wonder how long he’s been dealing with this. He hasn’t pitched since May 27th. It does sound like he might be going on the IL.

I was right. He is going to be in the IL soon if you consider soon to be now. Cole goes on the IL, Jeremy Beasley takes his roster spot.

Speaking of hurt pitchers, Anthony Kay is making a start for the Bisons on an injury rehab stint.

Today’s lineup behind Alek Manoah. It seems that McGuire has been chosen to be Manoah’s personal catcher.

Canada is 2-1 in the Olympic qualifier. They beat Cuba but lost to Venezuela today. Canada is moving to the next round.

Eric Longenhagen, at FanGraphs, says nice things about Dunedin pitcher Adrian Hernandez in his daily prospects notes.

The 21-year-old Mexican righty induced 14 swings and misses last night, per BaseballSavant, by far the most in the game and an especially high number for someone who only pitched three innings. Of the 52 pitches Hernandez threw last night, a whopping 24 of them were changeups, which is how he garnered most of those whiffs. Interestingly, Hernandez’s changeup is of the high-spin variety and tends to finish to his glove side, which at first glance made me wonder if it was being labeled correctly by Savant, but this is indeed Hernandez’s changeup and it has been very effective. His strike-throwing has been a bit of an issue this season and there’s little body projection here, but Hernandez is a young-ish arm with an out pitch and viable arm strength, so he’s worth monitoring.

He also said nice things about Gabriel Moreno in his prospect chat, saying that he could be the catcher of the future, saying that he needs more time in the minors, but the Jays might become desperate enough to bring him up before the end of the season. I don’t know if that is true. I think they are willing to put up with bad offense if the defense is ok.

Here is New Hampshire’s lineup for tonight:

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