Blue Jays Player of the Week: Second time for Marco Estrada

The Blue Jays are only three games back into the season after the All-Star break and it’s Player of the Week time. The already tiny sample sizes we deal with here are further cut in half this past week. Got to keep on schedule though, right? The Blue Jays should be feeling a bit better than they did heading into the All-Star break. They’ve gotten back to .500 and won a series against the pesky Rays. Although, the feeling that something is still missing lingers. They know they should have won all three games and there doesn’t seem to be any reliability in the bullpen aside from “Bosuna.”

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The offence had an average few games but they did face some difficult pitching. Chris Colabello hit a big home run in yesterday’s game but only had 4 ABs in the last week. Justin Smoak picked up more ABs (11) and delivered with a home run, a double, a single and 3 RBI. Jose Bautista led the way offensively with two home runs, a single and a walk in 10 ABs.

Bo Schultz continued to be a very pleasant surprise in the bullpen. He tossed two scoreless innings with 4 Ks and no hits/walks. Roberto Osuna, not to be outdone, also threw two scoreless innings with 4 Ks but with one hit against. Their reliability has earned them the collective epithet Bosuna. Perhaps soon with Aaron Sanchez joining the pen, we’ll call the trio, Bosunez.

The three starters collectively were great. Drew Hutchison continued his perplexing home/away split trend with a solid 6 inning effort. RA Dickey put his team in an excellent position to win with a 1 earned run, 6 inning start. Then there was Marco Estrada who put in another ace-type performance. He faced the minimum over 8 innings and struck out 5. Marco did have three hits against but he and Dioner Navarro managed to erase them all on the base paths.

Marco’s outing earns him, once again, player of the week honours. Perhaps I should stop stressing how hard it is for a pitcher to beat out a position player over the course of week because Buehrle’s done it once and Estrada’s done it twice. The last time Estrada won, it was more of a close call, but this time he was the clear winner. He had twice as much WAR (0.4), WPA, REW or what ever else you want to use, as any other Jay. Wow. Marco. He has massively improved his free agent value for 2016.

Razzie goes to Aaron Loup for the home run he allowed that ruined Dickey’s start.

Next: Blue Jays' Bench Providing Consistency