Blue Jays: The Good, the Bad and the Not So Ugly

The Blue Jays just finished a three-game set with the New York Yankees featuring a walk-off home run by Bo Bichette to take the series two games to one.  Here is a look at the Good, the Bad, and the Not So Ugly from the Series.

The Good
It was stated in the opening paragraph that the Blue Jays took the series against the New York Yankees so that is always the best news.  With the win, Toronto is now back to .500 and are currently sitting in second place in the AL East.

The top player for the series goes to Bo Bichette who went 6 for 12 (.500), adding one walk while collecting a pair of home runs and also stealing one base over the three games.  Both of Bichette’s home runs came in the finale on Thursday where he lifted the ball over the opposite field fence on each occasion.  The young shortstop has an 11-game hitting streak that was started during the second game of the season.  His four home runs now sit just one shy of last year’s mark when he hit just five over 29 games.

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The top pitcher for the series goes to Hyun-Jin Ryu after he shut down the Yankees in the second game of the series.  Ryu allowed a soft infield single to start the game to DJ LeMahieu but got Giancarlo Stanton to ground into a double play.  He did not allow another base runner until there was one out in the fifth inning, which he responded by inducing another ground ball for a double play to the next batter.  Ryu finished the game pitching 6.2 innings and allowed just one unearned run while striking out seven.  Over three starts so far, Ryu has a 1.89 ERA and 0.89 WHIP.

The Bad
Overall there was not a whole lot bad in the series, as the only game they lost was to Gerrit Cole, who the Blue Jays were able to raise his pitch count to get him out of the game after the sixth inning.

T.J. Zeuch’s numbers look a little bad as he allowed four earned runs over for innings, however, two of these runs were due to Josh Palacios who misjudged where the wall was.  He gave up on a fly ball to right field that could have been caught and two runs would come into score because of it.  Both were considered earned runs as no error was giving to the rookie outfielder but his other two runs were both solo home runs by Aaron Judge.

At the plate, Lourdes Gurriel Jr is still struggling as he went 1 for 10 in the series with three strikeouts.  It looks as though he is not picking up the ball from the pitcher’s hand as he is making soft contact.

The Not So Ugly
The starting rotation is starting to look a lot better now with the return of Robbie Ray.  Tanner Roark had been removed from it and placed in the bullpen, and you have to expect Ross Stripling isn’t far behind him. When Ray starts a game you at least feel you have a chance to win, however with Roark and Stripling you just wonder how long they will pitch and how many runs they will give up before being pulled.  Ryu has done nothing short of showing he is an ace on any pitching rotation and Matz is fallen in as the number two quite nicely.

Rowdy Tellez had a turnaround weekend as he collected his first hits of the season.  Tellez went 4 for 12 (.333) including a home run and scored three times which saw his batting average rise up to .121.  When he wasn’t collecting hits, Tellez was making good hard contact.

The Blue Jays will now head out to Kansas City for a four-game series with the Royals.  No starter has been announced for Thursday and is speculated it will either be a bullpen day or one of Anthony Kay or Roark will start.