Game #32 Preview: Berríos vs Taillon

After a rough loss last night, the Blue Jays are back at it early today, looking to earn the split in this short two game series against the Yankees. It’s one of the earliest starts of the year today, getting underway at 12:35 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

José Berríos will look to get his season back on track this afternoon, after some very up and down results thus far. The bad has been exceptionally brutal, with the catastrophe of opening day still in everyone’s memory, as well as a 6 run clunker his last time out. Unfortunately with his three good starts (4 runs in 18.2 innings combined), he still showed a bit of rust and was hit around pretty well, surrendering 20 hits in those 18.2 innings. But he is certainly much better than he has shown, and hopefully he heats up as the weather does. But a 5.34 ERA and a 5.21 FIP are a couple runs higher than I’m sure many were expecting out of him.

This will be Berríos’ second start against the Yankees, and his first one falls outside of the two aforementioned categories. He wasn’t atrocious, but it wasn’t a good start either. He made it through 5 innings, allowing 3 runs on 6 hits, striking out 5. But he also walked 3 and allowed a pair of home runs, back to back home runs by Aaron Judge and Anthony Rizzo in the 5th inning.

Yankees’ Starter

Jameson Taillon is having a great start to his season, and will try to continue that today. Through 5 starts and 25.1 innings, Taillon is 2-1 with a 2.84 ERA. He has 21 strikeouts against just 2 walks all season, and 3 home runs. They’re still managing his workload a bit, ensuring that he is built up strong. He made 29 starts last year with an average just under 5 innings per start, so the Yankees are certainly aware he isn’t going to pitch deep into the games for them. But twice through the order is all they really need from him.

This will already be Taillon’s third start against the Blue Jays, and he has been having a good time of it so far. Through 11 innings, he has allowed just 3 runs on 10 hits, walking none and striking out 10. George Springer hit a 2-run shot off him in the first game, but otherwise he has kept the Jays’ bats in the yard.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

Yankees’ Lineup

Yesterday’s Heroes

Mike Trout went 3-4 with a pair of home runs, a single and a walk, driving in 3 runs to take home the Monster Bat. He wasn’t even the second biggest story to come out of that game though, and neither was Ohtani. Second biggest storyline was Anthony Rendon hitting a left handed home run off outfielder Brett Phillips, while the first we’ll get to later. But the Angels did prevail 12-0 over the Rays, so that was also a good thing.

Aaron Judge obviously gets the WPA King trophy with a .807 mark. That’s all I’m saying on that one.

Pitcher of the Day was a surprisingly tight race, as Justin Verlander went 8 shutout innings, allowing just 1 hit and striking out 5. But the night belonged to Angels’ rookie Reid Detmers, who threw MLB’s first complete game no-hitter of the 2022 season. He made it through throwing 108 pitches while facing the minimum, as his only walk was erased on a double play.

Find the Link

Find the link between Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Alex Rodriguez.

Stats retrieved from Fangraphs and Baseball Savant