Game 24 Recap: Timely Hitting, Quality Pitching = Blow Out

Your Toronto Blue Jays put up a bunch of crooked numbers on the boxscore.  A 10 - 2 thumping tends to include that.  Looks like the team has done some sort of voodoo ritual on the bats.  Thank God.  Hopefully we can keep it going.  We were 3 for 7 with runners in scoring position and had 6 two out RBI.

Everybody except Fred Lewis and Jose Bautista got in on the fun.  A quick look at some of the individual hitting performances:

Alex Gonzalez went 2 for 3 with 2 homers and 4 RBI.  The first one was a three run job to get us on the board in the second inning.  The other one he hit in the sixth was a frozen rope to the pull field.  He got his average up to .289 for the season.  Impressive display from the all glove shortstop.

Vernon Wells went 3 for 4 with a homer his 200th for the career.  It took him nearly 5,000 at bats to reach the milestone.  Congrats is in order.  Oh, and one more thing: #SorryVernon.

Aaron Hill was 1 for 4 with a walk and 2 RBI.  He seems to still be a little banged up from his hamstring injury.  Playing on the turf can not be helping. 

Travis Snider was 1 for 3 with a walk.  His plate appearances are getting a little easier to watch.  Still swinging for the fences but at least now he seems to be grasping the concept of working towards a hitters count.

John Buck continued his hot streak with a 2 for 3 night.  He managed to get his average up to .215 for the year, which is 60 points higher than it was on Thursday.

The pitching side of the house did a fantastic job tonight as well.  Brandon Morrow seems to have found his groove and won his second game of the year.  Just keeping pounding that zone down early in the counts, then climb the ladder with the hard stuff Brandon and everything will be ok.  I promise.

Tonight his line was 6 IP, 7 Hits, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 K on 109 pitches.  73 of those were strikes.  Nice outing.

Jason Frasor came in and tried the pitching thing again.  First pitch he threw almost took his head off on the comebacker.  To his credit, he settled down and striking out two batters in his inning of work.  Mr. Umpire missed the call on the back end of a double play or else he would have faced the minimum.

Looking Forward:

We got Dana Eveland taking the ball for us against Gio Gonzalez for the 1:07 start.  Eveland is coming off a bad start against Boston where he gave up 7 earned runs in just three innings pitched.  I wonder if he has another bad one or two, will he be a candidate to move to the pen?  He is out of options and would need to be exposed to waivers if the brain trust tries to send him down.  Wolverine is scheduled to begin his "rehab assignment" soon and will do so as a starter.  His return is said to be sometime in May.

Quickly:

Speaking of waivers, much to my surprise Merkin Valdez passed through them unclaimed on Thursday!  He will join the 51s in Vegas after being outrighted to the minors.  Bonus.

Game 20 Recap: We Lose A Slugfest 13 - 12

EPIC GAME.

Here are some notes in no particular order:

4 hours and 3 minutes long
13, 847 in attendance (including 1 Blue Jay Hunter)
399 pitches were thrown
25 runs scored
34 hits
13 pitchers used
20 strikeouts

How the fuck do you recap that?

In the third inning alone 10 Jays combine for six runs on six hits with two singles, two doubles, one triple and a homer.  We hit for the cycle in one inning as a team!

Travis Snider was the only Blue Jay not to get a hit.  His 0 for 4 with 2 K puts his season average at .133.....Concerned yet?  I'm not.

Lyle fucking Overbay had a big game.  He ended up raising his average to .183 with a 3 for 5 night.  2 of those hits came of a lefthanded pitcher including a dinger. 

If you can believe it, the real fireworks started AFTER the game was over.  Your Toronto Blue Jays made two roster moves and both of them involve the bullpen.

The first: Merkin Valdez was Designated For Assignment.  It's a bit of a harsh move considering he had only 2 appearances 11 days apart.  He never got a chance really.

The second: Jeremy Accardo was Optioned to the minors.  He has surrendered a earned run in everyone of his appearances this year except one.  He allowed all 6 runners he inherited to score.

Called up to take the spots are:

Josh Roenicke has a chance to stick around here for a while.  Great arm.

Rommie Lewis was closing out ball games in Vegas and will be making his Major League debut. 

Analysis:

I doubt Merkin makes it through waivers.  Remember how we got him don't you?  Although his 20.25 ERA might not be very appealing to a GM desperate for an arm.  But I think he gets claimed.

Accardo is in his last option year.  He got a fair look up here but if he can't get it going we may end up non tending him a contract next offseason.  That is if he makes it that far within this organization.

I wrote in an earlier post about Rommie Lewis:

Aside from Rommie Lewis, who opened some eyes in camp, the rest of the guys on this pitching staff are known as organizational depth and are expendable.

And now check out what The Cito had to say last night:

"He opened up a lot of eyes in Spring Training," Gaston said. "I liked the kid all spring, but it was just one of those things where you can't bring everybody. He happened to be a guy that we could send out." 

How about that.....

You're going in, whatever your name is.....

Your Toronto Blue Jays acquired RHP Merkin Valdez AKA Manny Mateo from the San Francisco Giants in exchange for an undisclosed amount of cash.  He got caught up in the fake Dominican birth certificate scam when he was a prospect but only shaved 9 months off his real birth date.....why bother?

Merkin fills the final spot on the 40 man roster.  He currently has 2.033 years of major league service time and is salary arbitration eligible in 2011.  Last season he was under contract for $401K.  

Courtesy of Fan Graphs: As Buster Posey will probably tell you in private, there are not a lot of rookies that get a fair shake in San Francisco. Valdez was one of a few rookies that saw “significant” playing time in 2009. The right-handed reliever allowed 57 hits in 49.1 innings of work and posted a walk rate of 5.11 BB/9 and a strikeout rate of 6.93 K/9. A former hard-throwing top prospect, Valdez has had injury problems and his lack of minor-league options meant that San Francisco had to hold on to him all year even though he struggled. With a fastball that sits around 95 mph, Valdez is an intriguing commodity but he needs to improve his secondary pitches (He threw the heater more than 80% of the time).

In fact it was 80.3 percent of the time.  He mixed in a slider 13.4 percent and a splitter 6.2 percent.  I wonder what the other .1 percent was?  Could it have been the gyro ball?  Hat tip to Remember '51 for the data.

The spin courtesy of Boy Wonder: 
"Valdez has a power arm with a fastball that can reach up to 98 mph," Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos said. "He's out of options, so we're taking a chance on a reliever with a good arm."

Speaking of options, a big thank you to Jordian Bastian for giving us the list of pitchers who are currently out of them. 

• Scott Downs
• Shawn Camp
• The Wolverine
• Merkin Valdez

Analysis:

In an earlier post I looked into the make up of the bullpen.  At that time I concluded that we have two spots open.  I also concluded that they would go to the guy who is out of options and the Rule 5 guy.  I stand by that.  I think this Merkin fellow and ZZ will get the longest looks in camp.  If either of them show the brain trust any signs that they can get major league hitters out, then they get the jobs.  That means that everybody else vying for those open spots is going to have to show something extra special or risk being caught in the numbers game. 

• Jeremy Accardo
• Josh Roenicke
• Casey Janssen
• Dirk Hayhurst

If I was anyone of these guys, I would be pissed right now.  It basically doesn't matter how good they pitch in camp.  Somebody better have a microphone in front of Accardo after he inevitably gets told he is going back to Vegas for some more seasoning.