Jays Journal Notes: Tough Weekend, Jays Depend on Romero

I was actually away this weekend (Sat-Sun), so I picked up game reviews, highlights, and read articles and blogs to get a feel for how the games went. You just knew that going up against Jon Lester was not going to be a lot of fun. If the Jays were going win Sunday, it was going to have to come by a few good opportunistic runs and some excellent pitching. Well, the Jays got neither yesterday and we’re now left hoping for Ricky Romero to get the Jays back on track Monday as he heads to the mound against Dice-K.

What I will say is this: please get Jo-Jo Reyes out of the rotation. Bring Scott Richmond up if you don’t feel that Brandon Morrow is ready, but if I have to read about or watch many more of “the adventures of Reyes”, Iwill be very disappointed. If the Jays were waiting to see how he fared against AL East opponents, they now have their answer. They’ll get 3-4 innings maximum, and most likely will never get less than 4-5 runs scored against them.

Why, you may ask? Well, I, for one, do not believe that Reyes trusts his stuff. I believe that it may be there, and that he could be effective if he threw strikes and stayed in the lower portion of the strike zone, but such is not the case. To top it all off, he offers very little deception. That’s why he gets knocked around so much. No trust in stuff, gets up in the zone too often, and has little deception. Fixing all of those issues before he loses 7,8,9 or more games is highly unlikely.

I know Alex Anthopoulos endorsed him, but please, let him go. The Jays have enough in the stables to do well without him, and I fear that letting him run out there every 5th day just limits the number of wins we can expect to receive from this Jays team.

Whether the answer is to move him to the pen or to release him altogether is another question that needs to be answered. If the Jays believe he can be effective in the pen and is requried as a possible spot starter, then he should make it to the pen. But, that also means that someone needs to head down (probably Casey Janssen again).

His replacements (until Morrow returns that is) could include one of the following:

• Scott Richmond (RHP, 5.00 ERA) 9 IP, 11 Ks, 3 BB, won last night – going 5 innings with 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 Ks.
• Brad Mills (LHP, 1.29 ERA) 14 IP, 8 hits, 3 BB, 10 Ks, only allowed 1 hit in 7 IP his last time out.
• Mike MacDonald (RHP, 0.63 ERA) 14 IP, 8 hits, 2 BB, 10 Ks, threw a complete game 2-hitter shuout Saturday with no BB and 7 Ks.

For those fans who want to see Zach Stewart get the call, he hasn’t done much thus far to warrant such a move with 16 hits allowed in 12 IP, 5 BB, only 5 Ks, and a 4.50 ERA and ugly .327 average against.

As for Jesse Litsch, he fared much better than Jo-Jo Reyes and at least gave the Jays a shot to win while allowing as many runs as Reyes but with double the IP. It wasn’t a stellar outing, but with a few unearned runs hurting his cause, Litsch could have fared a little better overall. To me, with a 3.63 ERA thus far and going far enough in games to not tax the pen, he has earned the #5 spot in the rotation.

Today’s game should result in a Jays win. Ricky Romero (1.66 ERA) goes up against Daisuke Matsuzaka (12.86 ERA) and should be able to give the Jays more than enough of a chance to win. Therefore, the Jays should have a decent series split and will likely take that win with them as they head towards a 2-game series vs the Yankees.

OTHER JAYS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS

There are plenty of people around MLB, including fans, that believe Brett Lawrie may not make it at 3B now that he has struggled some with 5 errors at the position. I’ll caution it by saying that we didn’t see how those errors were committed, so we can’t really pass immediate judgement. Maybe Lawrie had knocked balls down that would otherwise have gone into LF and made an error on the throw due to rushing his motion, ect.. ect.. We just don’t know. I can tell you that from what we saw this spring on TV and MLB.tv, he looked GREAT at 3B. I would be very surprised if the Jays move him off 3B quickly. They want him at 3B. They need him at 3B. At 3B he will stay until he proves to be “Ryan Braun like bad”.

Adeiny Hechavarria is really taking to the lead off role in AA New Hampshire. He  is 4 for 12 (.333) since taking over the role (only 1 K), which has also seen Anthony Gose moved down to the 3-hole. Gose (.200) has struggled thus far in the season, but did manage his first extra base hit of the 2011 season yesterday with a double. He only has a .238 OBP, and thus hasn’t been able to use his speed much, managing only 2 SBs while being caught once.

Everyone already knows that the Jays signed OF Dewayne Wise, but the Jays also made another signing that week as they signed Javan Williams who is 6’2″ 185 lbs and bats LH. He’s a 21 year old outfielder who was last with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2010. He had a .274/.330/.326 line for their Rk league club and only managed 2 doubles, 1 HR, and 7 SBs in 95 ABs.

The Jays have released RHP Steve Raburn, C Al Quintana, and 2B Nick Bidois.

The Jays placed C Matt Liuzza and 2B Justin McClanahan on the restricted list.

The Jays placed the following minor league players on the 7-Day DL: RHP Henderson Alvarez, RHP Dustin Antolin, RHP Matt Fields, RHP Bobby Korecky, RHP Andrew Liebel, RHP Robert Ray, RHP Sean Shoffit, RHP Brian Slover, RHP Marcus Walden, LHP John Anderson, LHP Aaron Loup, LHP Jared Potts, 1B Lance Durham, 2B Callix Crabbe, 2B Ryan Schimpf, 3B Scott Campbell, SS Luis Sanchez, OF Daniel Perales, OF Scott Podsednik.

The Jays reinstated LHP Tyler Ybarra from the inactive list.