Blue Jays Series Preview: Jays look to bounce back in Tampa Bay

Coming off a lifeless sweep at the hands of the AL-leading White Sox, the Jays got a much needed day off, and head into Tampa Bay for a three game set. The struggling offence won’t get a break though, as they’re lined up to face three young, talented arms.

The Jays seemed to be deflated after the bullpen blew the 4-run lead in the series opener, and didn’t really show any life in the following games. Mind you, Chris Sale is one of the games top arms and is utterly dominant, while Jose Quintana is a very good starter who get criminally underrated year after year.

However, there was just no spark, no energy from anyone. Hopefully they can put it behind them and put together a good string of games in Tampa Bay.

The aforementioned starters the Jays lineup will face are Drew Smyly, who has looked phenomenal since his first start against the Jays in the season opening series, Chris Archer, who rebounded nicely in his last start after starting the season slowly, and Jake Odorizzi, who has had a decent start to the year and struckout 10 Jays hitters on April 5th.

It will be a tough task for the middling Jays offence, but they’ve had plenty of familiarity with all three, and have shown success against them in the past, so hopefully they can turn it around.

The Jays will counter with two of their best young starters as well, with Aaron Sanchez and Marcus Stroman, who sandwhich veteran J.A. Happ, who has had a very nice start to the year. These teams split the four game series that kicked off the season, with the Jays losing the final two games in disappointing fashion.

First up, we take a look across the diamond at the Tampa Bay Rays…

Next: The Rays enter Friday's series middling to a 10-11 record

Across the Diamond

The Rays, in a similar fashion as the Jays, have gotten off to an underwhelming 10-11 start. However, the Rays we’re coming into the season with lower expectations; therefore, making their slow start more of what could be a season-long reality.

For the Jays to stay under .500 for the majority season, something would have to go incredibly wrong. Thus far, their bullpen has been a sore spot, and as disappointing as it’s been to witness, it’s also very unsustainable. Their rate at which inherited runners have been scoring will inevitably regress to the mean, and proven starters are bound to improve. The offence is as talented as it was last year, and it put up a historically good campaign, it’s not the time to be concerned about their performance. The same can’t be said about the Rays.

Despite the advantage that the Jays have on paper, the Rays are always a scrappy team that can find ways to win, and their starting pitching can give opponents a very difficult time. The Rays 3.52 rotation ERA sits 8th across the entire MLB, and their FIP is 5th, largely due to their ability to strike out hitters in bunches (10.13 K/9).

They possess an array of young arms that offer different repertoires and abilities. But while that area of their team is strong, their lineup leaves plenty to desire and all three of Sanchez, Stroman and Happ had success against them earlier this year.

The Rays own a team wRC+ of 92, which puts them 17th in the league, right in the region where I’d expect them to be at season’s end. Steven Souza Jr. and Logan Forsythe, both of whom hurt the Jays in the series prior, have gotten off to great starts, meanwhile Corey Dickerson offers the best home run threat from the left side. Steve Pearce and Brandon Guyer have been good early on as well, but have more success against left-handed pitching, so that’s something to watch for against Happ.

From a defensive standpoint, they haven’t been as good as you would expect, or nearly as effective as they’ve been in the past. Their defensive rating on Fangraphs currently sits at -6.9, which places them 25th in the entire league. They have posted a team mark of -7 for DRS and -1.9 for UZR.

This is considerably worse than the 4.6, 7, and 3.6 ratings the Jays have posted so far. It’s still early, so the defensive metrics might not hold a ton of weight, but they do act as a potential indicator that the Rays defense isn’t as strong as it once was.

Next: Can the Jays offence turn it around against a surging Smyly?

Game 1: April 29, 2016 @ 7:10 ET

Aaron Sanchez (1-1, 3.33 ERA, 3.93 FIP) vs.
Drew Smyly (1-2, 2.51 ERA, 2.80 FIP)

This an intriguing matchup of two young arms who’ve had strong starts to the season, but are very different from a repertoire and style standpoint. Sanchez offers a right-handed heavy sinker as his best pitch, combines that with a hard overhand curveball, while mixing in both a change and cutter under 10% of the time. According to Brooks Baseball, Sanchez has also been throwing his four seam about 11% of the time, as it looks like he’s been using it up in the zone with two strikes to give batters a different look.

Sanchez has been able to get double digit whiff totals on three of his offerings, with the fourseam sitting at 11.54%, curve at 11.86%, and the change at 18.75%. Combining those offerings with the sinker acting as a front door and back door weapon to lefties and righties respectively has led to his sizeable strikeout bunch in the early going.

Sanchez’s repertoire is in need of continuing improvement, but his velocity has always been there, and he’s shown this year that it can stay as a starting pitcher. His sinker and fourseam are averaging 95.27 and 95.50, and topping out at 98.78 and 98.36. That kind of velocity combined with the life on his fastball is nasty, and he’s starting to show the potential he has with it.

Sanchez’s latest start didn’t go as well as the three prior, as he gave up 10 hits in just 4.1 IP, costing him 6 ER. It seems like more a blip in the radar than cause for concern, as his stuff and control was still there, but the contact he gave up managed to find holes. One thing to note is that he has struggled a bit with the home run early on (1.11 HR/9), despite getting a high number of groundballs (58% GB%). It’s still early and could just be a matter of small sample size or a bloated 18.88 HR/FB%, but it’s key for Sanchez to keep the ball down and generate weak contact.

Smyly offers a completely different look. His left handed delivery is deceptive, making his average fourseam fastball velocity of 92.03 mph play up. He has a very high spin rate on his fastball, and he’s near the top of the leaderboard in fourseam fastball vertical movement. This movement makes it seem like his fastball is “rising”, making it a weapon in the upper regions of the strike zone, giving him a very high fourseam whiff percentage of 14.74%.

Also near the top of the list is Marco Estrada, and as we’ve seen with him, a rising fastball can make an average fastball look much faster and make a changeup look a lot better too. Happ is also someone who possesses a fastball such as this.

That fourseam is an offering that Smyly will go to with two strikes a lot, but he also generates plenty of swing and misses with his cutter (19.28%), curve (15.48%), and change (9.52%). He doesn’t offer the velocity of Sanchez, and his repertoire gives a different look, but he can be dominant in his own right.

With that being said, I still like the matchup for the Jays. Smyly is a flyball pitch, largely due to his rising fastball, he performs worse against RHH, and the Jays hit him hard in the season opening series. However, since that start, Smyly has been dominant and the Jays did nothing against back-to-back lefties in their latest series, so you have a favourable matchup on paper, but not when it comes to recent performances.

Next: Happ looks to continue his early season success

Game 2: April 30, 2016 @ 6:10 ET

J.A. Happ (3-0, 2.42 ERA, 4.03 FIP) vs.
Chris Archer (1-4, 5.47 ERA, 4.36 FIP)

Happ is making his offseason contract look like a steal for the Jays so far this year. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not going to keep his ratios at where they’re at now for the duration of the year, but you have to be encouraged with how he’s performed so far.

The lack of walks and overall command of his repertoire has been very encouraging. His 86.1% LOB% is bound to regress closer to his career total of 73.9%, and the 7.1% HR/FB rate he’s delivered so far is also going to move towards the mean. However, the same could be said for his K/9 rate, which sits at only 4.5, despite a career mark of 7.56.

His swinging strike rate is exactly at his career rate of 8.0%, and only 0.2 points below last years number, while his contact rate has only seen a 1.2% increase. His stuff has largely been what you would expect, solid yet unspectacular, but if he continues to pound the zone and keep hitters off balance, registering an ERA in the mid to high 3’s is very much a possibility.

Archer’s first start against the Jays was dominant in terms of getting swings and misses from Jays hitters, but also very inefficient. He only went five innings as the Jays worked counts and Archer found himself in many counts that ran up to 6+ pitches. But, he also struck out 12 batters, showing the kind of nasty stuff he possesses.

His following three starts weren’t very good, as he gave up piles of hard contact, leading to 25 hits and six HR’s in those three games. In his latest start he reverted back to what we became accustomed to from him last year: 6.2 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 10 K.

His velocity on the fourseam fastball has dropped from 96.11 mph to 94.79, and he’s giving up hard contact on 46.6% of balls put into play, but his K/9 is still very high at 13.33. This suggest he’s giving up hard contact with less than two strikes, but once he gets to two strikes, his stuff is still elite and he’s able to get swings and misses on pitches outside of the zone.

It will be important for the Jays to be aggressive on pitches inside the zone with less than two strikes, because allowing Archer to get to two strikes and expand the zone is an invitation for him to pick you apart.

Next: Stroman looks to deliver again against the Rays