Blue Jays Morning Brew: J.P. Arencibia, Edwin Encarnacion and Sidearm Knuckleballs

Credit: Debby Wong-USA TODAY Sports

Is is still only Friday? I swear I thought it was the weekend. So this must be what a five-day work week feels like. Summer can make you forget. I miss summer. Well enough rambling, I might as well get into this since today’s Toronto Blue Jays news is brewed up and ready to go.

The Blue Jays are still playing baseball games (apparently). Richard Griffin recaps as the Jays were swept at home by the Angels in the battle of underachievers. I really wanted to get down to the ‘Dome this week to watch Mike Trout play baseball like only Mike Trout can, but then I thought it almost wouldn’t count since he was technically playing against a Triple-A baseball team. All jokes aside, if I didn’t feel like a bag of crap from being sick I would have most definitely been down to see the freshwater fish. I guess that I’ll have to wait until May 2014 now.

Drew Fairservice gives us a great piece at Getting Blanked about J.P. Arencibia. It’s amazing how historically bad JPA’s 2013 campaign has been. Drew shows us just how empty J.P.’s power is – he’s the only qualifying batter in history to hit 20 home runs yet have an OPS of less than .650 (or OPS+ less than 70). But maybe we can take solace that Arencibia even qualifies for the batting title? The Jays could still probably do worse at catcher, but not by much.

Gregor Chisholm tweets that Edwin Encarnacion hopes to return this weekend. Evan Peaslee follows up with quotes from Encarnacion in his BlueJays.com notebook. With a historic season of 40 HRs and less than 70 Ks within his grasp, I wouldn’t be surprised if Edwin makes a run at returning but at this point I only want to see him back if he’s 100%.

I missed this one earlier in the week but DJF’s Andrew Stoeten takes a look at R.A. Dickey‘s splits using the non-arbitrary endpoint of his June 26th start in Tampa, which correlates nicely with a bump Dickey’s velocity. It doesn’t make losing Noah Syndergaard or Travis d’Arnaud hurt any less but at least Dickey doesn’t look as bad as he did not quite that long ago.

Missed this one too (h/t DJF, @birenball) but a rather drool-worthy scouting report of Marcus Stroman via Batting Leadoff.

At Blue Jays Plus, Chris Sherwin takes a critical look at the weighted-ball and asks if the Jays should hold up before going all in?

GAMEREAX takes us through Munenori Kawasaki‘s pregame routine with Moises Sierra.

The Blue Jay Hunter shares Dickey’s sidearm knuckleball through Tumblr.

And for your non-Blue Jays (or baseball) link of the day here’s what it looks like when a 10-year old kid goes Beast Mode.