The Jays had a day off yesterday, but welcomed a new member to their bullpen, Scott Downs. And just in the nick of time for this 3rd installment of the bullpen report. If that hadn't happened, I would have resorted to the Friday the 13th Fake Game Report.
You know the one. The War of the Worlds, the Clash of Pretenders. The Las Vegas Aliens of Caesar's Palace ("Working for the Clampdown since before you were born") vs. The New York Yankees ("It's a thin line between superstar and superannuated"). Believe me, you should be thanking Scott Downs for saving you.
Let's leap right into the numbers for the last 2 weeks.
April 29-May 12
(entrance inning/batters faced/opp. GPA)
date Batista Speier Frasor W'side Schoen Chulk Walker
Ap 25-------------------day off----------------------------
Ap 26 8.0/3 7.0/2 7.0/1 6.0/4
.000 .000 .700 .175
Ap 27 7.2/2 8.0/4
.225 .175
Ap 28 8.2/2 8.0/4 6.2/4
.350 .413 .000
Ap 29 -----------------Doc's complete game-----------------
Ap 30 7.0/3 8.0/5
.000 .527
Ma 1 8.0/3 6.2/4 5.0/7
.000 .000 .129
Ma 2 11.0/3 7.1/7 10.2/3 10.0/3
.000 .000 .225 .150
Ma 3 8.0/3
.000
Ma 4 7.1/2
.000
Ma 5-------------------day off----------------------------
Ma 6 7.1/4 8.0/3 6.0/7 5.0/4
.308 .175 .242 .363
Ma 7 1.2/11 8.0/3 6.0/6 3.1/8
.589 .000 .117 .088
Ma 8 8.1/2 7.0/5 6.0/3
.000 .000 .233
Ma 9 8.0/3
.000
Ma 10 ------------------Doc's complete game----------------
Ma 11 7.2/4 6.1/8 6.1/2 5.0/5 3.2/7
.113 .431 1.35 .190 .424
Ma 12-------------------day off---------------------------
Miguel Batista pitched 8 times over the last two weeks, each time facing 2-4 batters. The very definition of the modern closer, and effective in this role so far. We are almost at the 1/4 point of the season, and Batista has thrown only 15.2 innings. So, what will the club do with him from here?
One option is to continue with him in the closer role for the remainder of the season. Another is to pull a Firpo Marberry on him. That is, put him in the rotation if a vacancy occurs. Batista had not thrown more than 135 innings prior to 2001, and has since then thrown 180-200 innings per season, but with declining effectiveness in August and September. It might be that he would pitch well later in the season if he had relatively few innings under his belt early on.
With the arrival of Scott Downs, the Jays now have 2 lefties in both the rotation and the pen. Naturally, this may lead to increased attempts by John Gibbons to gain the platoon advantage. Here are the opponents GPA since 2002 for each of the members of the pen against left and right:
pitcher vs. LH vs. RH Batista .260 .233 Chulk .297 .221 Downs .215 .305 Frasor .239 .248 Schoeneweis .204 .282 Speier .257 .222 Walker .285 .250
These figures come with the warning that only Batista, Speier, Schoeneweis and Walker have faced significant numbers of batters from both sides of the plate.
I certainly am not recommending the use of short stints to gain the platoon advantage. We will see how this new bullpen alignment plays out.
Your comments on the Jay bullpen and any other baseball news, horrifying or otherwise, are welcome here.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050512211556323