Happy Birthday Randal Grichuk

Randal Grichuk turns 30 today.

Randal is in his fourth season with the Blue Jays. In his 441 games, he’s hit .246/.291/.470 with 87 home runs (3 behind Teoscar Hernandez), putting him 23rd on our all-time list in home runs. 10 more and he’d pass Aaron Hill, currently number 20 on the list. He has a 4.6 bWAR in the four seasons (3.8 fWAR).

You will likely remember that we picked him up from the Cardinals back in May of 2019, sending Conner Greene and Dominic Leone to St. Louis. Neither did much for the Cards. This year, Greene has made it to the majors and is currently a Dodger (he pitched an inning for them Tuesday).

Randal tends to be a somewhat polarizing figure around here. He seems to start every season hot, and we get told that he’s figured things out, that he’s ‘letting the ball travel.’ And then the hot streak ends.

This year, on April 12th, he was hitting .333/.400/.528 in 10 games. Since then, he’s hit .244/.273/.438 in 101 games. He is driving in runs, Grichuk has 70 RBI now, and if he continues to play more or less every day, he would have a good shot at 100 RBI, a nice round number. He is hitting well with RISP, .300/.331/.550. I think that hitting with RISP isn’t a different ability from hitting at other moments. I mean, if Randal can turn it on with RISP, why wouldn’t he hit like that all the time. His career numbers with RISP aren’t as great, .261/.320/.488.

Whether he will get enough playing time is an open question. With Corey Dickerson on the team, we have five outfielders looking for at-bats. George Springer and Teoscar Hernandez will continue to play every day, so Grichuk, Gurriel, and Dickerson will be battling it out for the other outfield spot and DH.

Randal usually has another hot stretch at some point in the season, and, with us battling for a playoff spot, it would help out if he could end the season strong.

Happy Birthday, Randal. Wishing you three home runs for your birthday.

Corey Patterson turns 42 today.

Corey was a Blue Jay for 89 games in 2011. He hit .252/.287/.379 with 6 home runs and 13 steals (caught 8 times).

He played outfield in a rather Gurrielish manner (without the great arm). Of the two, I would much rather have Lourdes in LF.

At the plate....he had a habit of swinging at head-high pitches, and occasionally he’d hit one (which seemed to encourage him to try it more). But when he did hit one, it was fun to watch.

He had an unfortunate tendency to try to steal third base. He was 0 for 3 in attempts to steal third while having a pretty good success rate stealing second.

Anyway, Corey was traded to the Cardinals in the Colby Rasmus trade at the deadline in 2011. He hit .157/.189/.235 in 44 games down the stretch for St. Louis, which was the end of his career.

Patterson played 11 MLB seasons for seven teams. Career, he hit .252/.290/.400 with 34 home runs and 218 steals. He had a couple of excellent seasons. The best was 2006 when he hit .276/.314/.443 with 45 steals playing for the Orioles.

He could make a pretty decent fourth outfield. He was a left-handed bat, a little bit of power, a little bit of speed, and he could play all three outfield spots. But, unfortunately, by the time he got to the Jays, he lost some of that speed, and he needed that speed to make up for some created routes to fly balls.

Patterson did make a terrific catch for us:

Happy birthday, Corey.