Thursday Bantering: Jays Bits

FanGraphs has the Jays' chance of making the Playoffs at 83.9%, which is just a touch below their high point of the season, back at the end of April.

Last night, the plate umpiring was.....less than great. Aaron Boone politely pointed that out when Lance Barrett suggested he watch the game on TV instead of from the clubhouse. The fun part was Boone saying, “He (Kirk) is having a hell of a night”. Kirk enjoyed pulling pitches back into the strike zone from anywhere up to a foot and getting the call.

Lance seemed to call any pitch that didn’t bounce twice a strike. In games like that, you tend to get a lot of strikeouts. There were 28 in this game, 14 for each team.

At least Lance was equally bad for both teams.

It the continuing story of Alek Manoah’s 2023 season (or lack there up) Ben Nicholson-Smith has written a new chapter.

Manoah has had ‘multiple injections’ into his right arm to ‘reduce inflammation and discomfort’. It seems like he has a case to argue the team should have put him on the IL.

While team doctors have found no structural issues — muscle damage or ligament tears, for instance — the 25-year-old has continued meeting with additional specialists in the last month. Those visits with doctors continue with a view toward ruling out elbow and shoulder issues as well as Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, the sources said.

And the team has admitted that he won’t be back pitching this year.

Ricky Tiedemann will be starting tomorrow for the Bison. His pitch limit will be about 80 pitches.

SI.com has a story about Yusei Kikuchi’s ‘13 or 14 hours of sleep”.

“My teammates asked me how I’m able to sleep so much,” he says through interpreter Yusuke Oshima. “But, like, honestly, if you close your eyes, I feel like you should be able to sleep.”

I wish that’s the way it worked for me. I close my eyes, and my mind says, ‘Let’s think about everything that has happened in the last 20 years and everything that might happen in the next 20’.

It typically takes Kikuchi about five minutes to nod off, and he begins his bedtime process with 10 minutes of meditation. He does not need fancy accouterments or especially dark rooms, although he has become fond of a pillow he ordered on Amazon.

He adds that he only needs 14 hours before his starts—on other days he’s happy to settle for “eight, nine, 10” hours.

And he needs coffee to get through the day.