Blue Jays: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Baltimore

The Blue Jays swept their first series of the season by taking all three games this week when they flew into Baltimore to face the Orioles.  Here is a look at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the series.

The Good
The obvious good is the Blue Jays as a team, sweeping a series over a divisional rival.  Toronto distanced themselves from the Boston Red Sox for last place in the AL East and caught up with the Orioles.

As for individuals, Randal Grichuk has had an amazing week and it continued in Baltimore.  Grichuk went 6 for 14 (.429) with four home runs and 11 RBI.  It seemed every time Grichuk was up to the plate he was hitting the ball and driving it over the fence.  He has now extended his hitting streak to eight games, and has hit six home runs over his last six contests.

While Grichuk has been on fire and batted .429 in the series, two players had higher averages, albeit with less at bats.  Santiago Espinal got two starts in the back end of the series and went 4 for 8, which included collecting his first career extra base hit on Wednesday afternoon.  At the point of where Toronto is in their rebuild, I feel Espinal should be getting a bulk of the time at shortstop while Bo Bichette is injured.

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The other player to bat well in the series was Cavan Biggio as he went 4 for 9 (.444) and added three walks to have an on base percentage of .583 in the series.  As a part of his hits, Biggio had a home run on Monday and a double on Wednesday.  Biggio was able to raise his average 27 point in the series from .208 to .235, his season on base percentage is now .397.

It is truly refreshing to watch a legit ace pitch for your team.  The Blue Jays haven’t had a real #1 pitcher since the departure of Roy Halladay, and the team finally has one in Hyun Jin Ryu.  Ryu started the opener and pitched six strong innings allowing just one run on four hits.  Over his last three starts, Ryu is 2-0, while pitching 17 innings and allowing just two earned runs.  I am curious how long until manager Charlie Montoyo starts pushing Ryu a little deeper into his starts to help save the bullpen for other games.

The Bad
Vladimir Guerrero Jr is still struggling and went 1 for 12 in the series with just one walk.  It seems like a broken record, but all of his at-bats seem to end in ground balls.  It almost looks like he is trying too hard to lift the ball and is pulling off too soon.  His approach needs to get back to hitting line drives up the middle and see if he can snap out of it.

Offence from the catchers continues to be a problem.  Danny Jansen and Reese McGuire combined to go 0 for 9 in the series.  While controlling the pitching game needs to be the focus, a little offence out of the two would be nice.  The tandem is now batting .156 on the season and if it continues for the season, Alejandro Kirk could really make a push for a spot next year.

I’ll give a pass to Teoscar Hernandez who led the team in strikeouts (4) in the series and went just 1 for 10, as he has been so hot during the season and threw out a runner at home on Wednesday.

The Ugly
Nate Pearson almost landed on the Bad category until I heard he went to the injury list Wednesday.  In Pearson’s start on Tuesday night he appeared to be throwing way too many breaking balls during the game, which led to him pitching just four innings and allowing three home runs.  It was learned after the game that he was having some arm troubles and was moved to the injured list.

I’ll add an ugly for the Orioles on Tuesday night.  In extra innings with the Orioles trailing by one, Dwight Smith Jr. had his head down and didn’t see the third base coach giving him the stop sign until it was too late.  Watch the video for the ending:

The Blue Jays head back to Buffalo for a double-header on Thursday against the Phillies before leaving for Tampa Bay for a three game set. As of right now, what would you do with the shortstop position?