Happy Birthday Randal Grichuk

Randal Grichuk turns 32 today.

Randal played five seasons with the Blue Jays. In his 479 games, he hit .243/.289/.461 with 90 home runs, putting him 24th on our all-time list in home runs. He has a 4.2 bWAR in the four seasons.

You will likely remember that we picked him up from the Cardinals in May 2019, sending Conner Greene and Dominic Leone to St. Louis. Neither did much for the Cards. Greene pitched in 24 games in the majors, and it looks like he is out of baseball now. Leone is an Angel at the moment after starting the season with the Mets. He’s had ten seasons in the majors and has played with eight teams.

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

He played four seasons with the Jays. He hit .243/.289/.461 with 90 home runs with the Jays. I thought we might get him back at this year’s deadline, but the Angels acquired him instead. He’s hit .179 with them (SSS), so I shouldn’t be sad.

Since leaving the Jays after the 2020 season, he’s played with the Rockies and now the Angels.

Happy Birthday, Randal.

Corey Patterson turns 44 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).

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 good success rate stealing second.

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 in 2006 when he hit .276/.314/.443 with 45 steals playing for the Orioles.

He could make a decent fourth outfield. He was a left-handed bat with 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 creative routes to fly balls.

Patterson did make a terrific catch for us:

Taijuan Walker turns 31 today.

Walker came to us in trade from the Mariners in 2020 for Alberto Rodriguez (who is in A Ball now but hitting 306/.393/.580 in 72 games).

Walker made 6 starts for us, helping us to earn a Wild Card spot that year.

He went 2-1, with a 1.37 ERA in 26.1 innings.

After the season, he signed with the Mets as a free agent. He spent two seasons there. This year he is with the Phillies (13-4, 3.98 in 23 starts at this moment).

He’s had 11 seasons in the MLB and has a 67-54 record and a 3.90 ERA in 190 games.

Happy Birthday. Taijuan.