Blue Jays Series 8/6-8/8

[Moose Milligan]

The Orioles travel to Skydome to take on the cellar dwelling and perennially underperforming Blue Jays.

Your matchups:

Tuesday: G-Rod vs. Bassitt

Wednesday: T-Ro (now I know why they acquired him, there’s a built in tie in with his name and our new sponsor) vs. Bowden Francis

Thursday:  Kremer vs. Gausman

IMO, we should sweep this series. They’re limping to the end of the season and their starters in this series aren’t anything to be afraid of. Hopefully Trevor Rogers can turn in a good start Wednesday. That’s a good matchup with Francis who’s sporting a 5.64 ERA.  Even if Rogers gets shelled, we should be able to put up runs, too. 

Don’t pitch to Vlad.  And thank God Kikuchi is gone. 

[Aristotelian]

We miss Berrios, their only good pitcher. I agree, I expect to win at least two, and honestly less than a sweep would be somewhat disappointing.

[Frobby]

Moose pre-empted me while I was writing this, so I’ve deleted a thread I just started on the same topic and will post my thoughts here, though they’re somewhat redundant now.

The O’s come to Toronto for the final three games of the season series, leading it 6-4.   The matchups for this series are:

Grayson Rodriguez (13-4, 3.86 ERA) vs. Chris Bassitt (8-10, 4.02 ERA). Grayson has beaten Toronto both times he’s faced them this year, allowing 1 ER in 6.2 IP in June and 3 ER in 6 IP in July.  Bassitt lost to the Orioles in July, allowing 5 ER in 4 IP.

Trevor Rogers (2-10, 4.76 ERA) vs. ???  Rogers hasn’t faced Toronto since 2021.  It appears Toronto hasn’t named a starter yet.  [Edit: Moose says it’s Bowden Francis, 4-3, 5.64 ERA.  He beat the O’s in game 2 of last week’s doubleheader, allowing only 1 ER in 5.2 IP.]

Dean Kremer (4-8, 4.39 ERA) vs. Kevin Gausman (9-8, 4.58 ERA).  Kremer hasn’t faced the Blue Jays this year; he’s 3-3 with a 4.35 ERA against them in his career.  Gausman allowed 6 ER in 6.1 innings in his only start this year against the O’s, losing to Grayson.

The Jays come in averaging 4.13 runs per game, 24th in MLB, with a 97 OPS+, 18th.   The O’s average 5.10 runs per game (3rd in MLB), with a 121 OPS+ (1st).  Since the all star break, the Jays are averaging 4.56 runs per game, the Birds 6.00.   Vlad Jr. has been a force of nature since the break, posting a 1.608 OPS with 8 homers and 17 RBI in 16 games.  If we let him beat us, shame on us.

The O’s appear to have the edge in the bullpen, with a  3.98 ERA (14th) compared to Toronto’s 5.02 (28th).   Whereas the O’s added Seranthony Domínguez and Gregory Soto to their pen at the deadline, the Jays subtracted  Yimi Garcia and two other relievers.

it would be nice to see the Orioles start to build some momentum in this series.

Edited August 6 by Frobby

[Frobby]

9 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

We miss Berrios, their only good pitcher. I agree, I expect to win at least two, and honestly less than a sweep would be somewhat disappointing.

I try not to think this way.  They’re a below average team, but fully capable of rearing up and biting us.  They’ve won 46% of their games, and haven’t been swept in a series since late June.  I’m just focused on Game 1 for now. You can’t sweep a series if you don’t win Game 1.   

[sportsfan8703]

Do we retaliate for Westburg and McCann?

[Say O!]

The rest of their lineup is so bad right now that I would be tempted to walk Guerrero nearly every time. 

[Spy Fox]

11 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Do we retaliate for Westburg and McCann?

No, there is nothing to be gained by stirring up trouble and neither was intentional anyway. 

[sportsfan8703]

3 minutes ago, Spy Fox said:

No, there is nothing to be gained by stirring up trouble and neither was intentional anyway. 

Intentional or not they happened. Usually I’m on the side of heck no. I don’t think we can keep letting division foes continue to pitch inside wildly and hit our guys. 

Pitching inside is earned. They can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry, doing it then cry “poor command”. Then if the command is so poor, don’t do it. 

Edited August 6 by sportsfan8703

[accinfo]

1 minute ago, Spy Fox said:

No, there is nothing to be gained by stirring up trouble and neither was intentional anyway. 

The pitcher that hit McCann came over to the Orioles dugout and apologized to McCann for hitting him and told him he had zero intention to do so.  

[e16bball]

52 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

We miss Berrios, their only good pitcher.

Berrios has the reputation, but I think Bassitt and probably still Gausman are better than him. He’s hanging on by a thread this season.

14 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Do we retaliate for Westburg and McCann?

I sure hope not. Getting into a beanball war with a team that’s going nowhere is just bad business.

Which is not even to mention that it’s more than a little silly to “retaliate” against someone for hitting your guys accidentally — that’s a Yankees move.

[andymax]

13 minutes ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Intentional or not they happened. Usually I’m on the side of heck no. I don’t think we can keep letting division foes continue to pitch inside wildly and hit our guys. 

Pitching inside is earned. They can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry, doing it then cry “poor command”. Then if the command is so poor, don’t do it. 

Weren't we all just laughing at Yankee fans for saying this a month ago? I guess we've gotta laugh at you now to save face.

[Say O!]

Three RHP starters for the Jays and three night games…do we see Adley catch all 3?

[O's84]

I'm going to go out on a limb and say Mountcastle starts all 3 games.

[Frobby]

8 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

Intentional or not they happened. Usually I’m on the side of heck no. I don’t think we can keep letting division foes continue to pitch inside wildly and hit our guys. 

Pitching inside is earned. They can’t have every Tom, Dick, and Harry, doing it then cry “poor command”. Then if the command is so poor, don’t do it. 

Guys have the right to pitch inside, but I think you’re giving Toronto’s pitchers too much credit if you think they were even trying to do that.  By the time Yariel Rodriguez hit McCann, he’d thrown 43 pitches in a single inning, only 21 of which were strikes, and he’d already walked 4 batters in the inning.  He was exhausted and had no idea where the ball was going.   I’m sure he was very shaken up by that whole experience.  It wasn’t quite as drastic with Yerry Rodriguez, but he had walked two straight batters on 9 pitches before facing Westburg, and after that, yielded a grand slam and a double, throwing 31 pitches in the inning.  The pitch he hit Westburg on was a pretty garden variety tailing fastball that just tailed a little too far.   

And, it’s not like Toronto hits an inordinate number of opposing batters.  They’ve hit 47 batters all year, compared to the Orioles’ 43.   

Bottom line, our team should focus on scoring more runs than the Blue Jays and not “retaliating” for unintentional acts.  

 

[dystopia]

10 hours ago, Say O! said:

The rest of their lineup is so bad right now that I would be tempted to walk Guerrero nearly every time. 

They won’t. They never do this, even when they absolutely should.