Game #107 Preview: White vs Bundy

The Blue Jays and Twins continue their series this evening, playing the third game of their four game set in Minneapolis. Tonight’s game is once again a different start time, this one at 7:10 ET.

Blue Jays’ Starter

Mitch White will make his Blue Jays debut, coming over from the Dodgers earlier this week in a trade deadline deal. Through 56 innings with the Dodgers this year split between the rotation and the bullpen, White was 1-2 with a 3.70 ERA. He was a little bit worse with a 3.95 FIP, as he is quite below average at attaining strikeouts at a 7.55 per 9 inning rate. He has been better than league average at limiting walks though (3.05 per 9 innings) and at all keeping the ball in the yard (0.96 per 9 innings). All in all, a pretty solid 6th starter.

Twins’ Starter

Veteran Dylan Bundy will get the ball for the Twins, and he is having a rough year. Through 18 starts and 89.1 innings, he is 6-5 with a 5.04 ERA. Digging a little deeper though, he comes in with a much better 4.30 FIP, the lowest of his career outside of the 2020 season. He is doing a fantastic job limiting walks (1.91 per 9 innings), but he is struggling with the home run ball (1.41 per 9 innings - league average is 1.10), and he’s not getting strikeouts (6.85 per 9 innings). In all, considering he’s not even averaging 5 innings per start, I would guess the Twins were hoping to get a little bit luckier with their $5m commitment to him this past winter.

Blue Jays’ Lineup

George Springer is in a perpetual “will he, won’t he” with the lineup card. By the sounds of things, he is suffering from an elbow injury that won’t get better without offseason surgery, so they’re essentially seeing how is doing from day to day. Considering the requirement of a 4 man bench, and the other 11 starter-level players on the team, the Jays have the luxury of going this route with him.

With Kevin Gausman going tomorrow, I’m hoping the plan is to have Kirk catch him again, as he looked to work so much better with him as opposed to with Jansen. Which should mean that Jansen will catch newcomer Mitch White today.

Bundy has had some pretty notable splits throughout his career, and this year is even more pronounced, with lefties hitting a .347 wOBA vs righties at just .313. The Blue Jays probably want to get both Raimel Tapia and Cavan Biggio in the lineup for this one.

Twins’ Lineup

After missing some time with an injury earlier this week, followed by a pair of DH days, Byron Buxton didn’t play again yesterday. He’s obviously hurt, which he has been for an unfortunate amount of his career, and the Twins are really going to need him to be healthy for the stretch run. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them give him a couple days to get healed up here.

Gio Urshela was out of the lineup again last night, the second game in a row. He did get a pinch hitting opportunity, but Jose Miranda’s strong bat (he’s hitting .317/.371/.531 over his last 50 games) has been taking playing time away from Urshela.

Nick Gordon had 3 more hits against the Jays yesterday, including a home run and a double, and is now hitting .308/.372/.615 in 40 career PA against Blue Jays’ pitching.

Yesterday’s Heroes

Trey Mancini went 2-5 with a pair of home runs and 5 RBI, good enough to take home the Monster Bat award. His big night helped his friends on the Astros take down the Guardians 9-3.

Geraldo Perdomo hit a 2-out 2-run single in the bottom of the 8th, giving his Diamondbacks the 6-5 lead, and then stole second base as a little bonus. As a result of his great 8th inning, he is the WPA King with a total of .531, as he D-backs held on to the 6-5 win over the Rockies.

Kyle Gibson threw 8 excellent innings, allowing just a run on 2 hits and a walk, walking home with the Pitcher of the Day award. He struck out 4 and hit 2 batters, and also got the win as his Phillies beat the Nationals 7-2.

Find the Link

Find the link between Jose Miranda, Bo Bichette and Mitch White.

Stats retrieved from Fangraphs and Baseball Savant