Positives from yesterday’s game
Tallet manning up after a none out, bases loaded jam
Rios’ linedrive, up the middle RBI single
Vernon taking AJ deep on an 0-2 pitch
Scutaro’s nice ranging CF fly catch in the 7th
Chavez’s work behind the plate (unfortunately not in the batters box)
The construction of the lineup itself
Things I didn’t like
I’m always of the mind that what happens on the field can’t usually be helped due to the speed of the game. Pitch selection, defensive positioning, runner movement, etc can be controlled. In-game roster management is also on my list. I don’t understand why Delluci and Chavez are allowed to bat in the 9th? At that point the Jays needed to bring the tying run to the plate. Yeah, the options are few and far between but those two are arguably the weakest hitters on the club.
I don’t like pitching Jeter outside, just to watch him shoot singles into RF. Pound him in all day long.
All in all it wasn’t a poor game. The Jays ran into a hot AJ, which as we know from last year, is trouble.
Two games left
I’ll be livebloggin Saturday and Sunday’s Jays vs Yankees games for The Score. Both start at 1pm.
Today over at ESPN Insider, a couple of Jays received some all-star love. Firstly Aaron Hill was listed as the ‘best of the bubble’ type players by Jay Jaffe in the Baseball Prospectus article (BP Daily: Let them play!)
nod for the third spot should go to Hill… A catalyst of Toronto’s surprising showing, he’s hitting .301/.341/.504 with a career-high 19 homers.
More of a surprise was Buster Olney’s quick blurb about Ricky Romero in his article How should we pick the final All-Star?
This quote is pertaining to the additional all-star roster spot designated for a inning eating pitcher in-case of extra innings:
The managers could make it a tradition to pick an excellent young pitcher: Ricky Romero of the Blue Jays, for example, or maybe Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers. It would be a way to highlight a rising star.
Nice to see some Jays respect from the mainstream media, eh?
Tags: 2009 season, aaron hill, All-star, ESPN, ricky romero, toronto blue jays
Brandon League Best AL Reliever at…
Brandon League is one of those guys that always irks me. He has some nasty, nasty, stuff, yet at times he can be inconsistent. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised to see that he’s tied as the AL’s best in
Inherited Runners Scored Percentage
This season Brandon has inherited 14 base runners. And only two have come around to score. This gives him a IR scored rate of 14%. This score is tied with other pitchers (Wheeler, Betancourt and Zumuya) as the best percentage in the American League.
5.45 ERA aside, Brandon has been Jays best option to bring in with runners on this season. Second on the club is Scott Downs, with a 30% rate, which of course is more than double League’s. Third is Jesse Carlson at 31% and fourth is the great Jason Frasor, at 43%.
This season League’s been unlucky. His real ERA (5.45) is 1.64 runs higher than his FIP (fielder independent ERA) which is 3.81. This is the highest differential on the Jays staff. If Brandon can continue to throw exactly as he has to this point we should expect to see his ERA shrink as the season continues.
Jason Frasor 2009 Stud
We all know how awesome Jason Frasor has been this season. But I didn’t realize that he’s been this good.
While I was nerding it up inside Jays split stats I came across Jason’s month-to-month stats.
April: 0 ER
May: 5 ER
June: 1 ER
Two whole months with only one earned run allowed! Domination. May wasn’t too shabby either, as four of the five runs allowed were in one appearance. Throw out Frasor’s one bad outing this season (May 24th vs Atlanta) and he’s allowed only two earned runs in twenty-six IP! That’s a 0.69 ERA.
Later in the week I’ll be back with one of my favorite homebrew reliever statistics, TRRA.
Tags: 2009 season, Jason Frasor, toronto blue jays
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