Jumping To Conclusions – April 2015 Edition

Apr 18, 2015; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Blue Jays pitcher R.A. Dickey (43) walks back to the mound as Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run in the second inning at Rogers Centre. Mandatory Credit: Dan Hamilton-USA TODAY Sports

Starting Pitching Woes

The Jays have not been pitching well at all.  Whether it is as simple as our guys not hitting the strike zone or as complicated as a Dead Arm issue things have not been going our way.  Seems like our bad luck can be traced back to Marcus Stroman‘s injury and it has continued to go down hill.  Drew Hutchison has had his ups and downs thus far but hopefully he will put things together and ditch that 6+ ERA that he is hanging out with currently.  He does have a 2-0 record but the rest of his stat line looks pretty sad when he is considered our #1 starter.

R.A. Dickey has had terrible issues finding the plate so far.  When he does finally put one over it gets tagged for a big hit it seems.  He has allowed 16 free passes in 31 innings this season and has yet to show signs of improvement.  The Knuckler just is not flying like it used to at the moment.  I hope as the weather improves he will.

Toronto Blue Jays

Mark Buehrle was looking pretty good thus far until an outing the other night against the Red Sox.  He has yet to look like the typical innings eater that we know though.  He has only pitched 6 innings in each game thus far.  I hope this trend does not continue seeing we are used to him pitching 200 innings a year.  If he loses that consistency this season the Jays will have a hard time making it to the post season.

The 2 Rookie hurlers have had mixed outings thus far.  Aaron Sanchez has shown signs of slow improvement.  He needs some more confidence which should come from Russell Martin as they get more familiar with each other.  Daniel Norris has been trying to work through a dead arm period and will get the ball tonight versus Cleveland.  Norris looked better this past start where he logged 7 innings for the first time and only allowed 1 run.  During his first 3 starts he never pitched past the 6th inning and gave up at least 3 runs each outing.  That includes one start the he only pitched 2.2 innings and gave up 4 runs.

Is it time to trade the farm and go for Cole Hamels I think not.  I do think we should be looking for help where we can though.  The Blue Jays currently hold the second worst ERA in all of baseball at 4.96.  Only the Red Sox have a higher ERA at 5.04.  There has been talk of giving Marco Estrada a chance but I think that would hurt the development of Sanchez or Norris.  Right now I think we are forced to stay the course and hope our offense can handle 3-4 runs being allowed every night.  I really don’t like it but that appears to be how it is.