The battle for fourth begins.
Before the weekend, the Jays were hanging in the race and could reasonably have been lumped with the big three in the mix for AL East supremacy. Now they're 7.5 games out, just a half game better than Baltimore. I'm not saying this is the end, because 7.5 games in mid-June is not that much, but it is when you consider the state of the team's rotation: Morrow hasn't been great, Drabek has been awful, and Reyes and Villanueva aren't supposed to be part of it. 2012 was the plan all along, anyway.
Anyway, the boys get to take it easy for a few days now. Read: the Orioles are in town.
On paper, the Orioles have a pretty good offense. They've got aging veterans who were once very good (Derrek Lee, Brian Roberts, Vladimir Guerrero), young guys with supposedly bright futures (Adam Jones, Matt Wieters), and solid players in their primes (Mark Reynolds, J.J. Hardy, Nick Markakis). And Luke Scott (I couldn't decide to put him in category 1 or 3, since he's 33, older than I thought).
So why have they only scored 258 runs, only 18 more than the AL-trailing A's? Well, the entirety of category 1 is showing its age (OPS+ of 76, 68, 95, respectively), and Nick Markakis has forgotten how to hit. He's regressed badly from the 24-year-old who posted an .897 OPS in 2008, and has just 10 extra-base hits on the year.
The rest of the offense has been solid, especially Hardy who's having his best-ever season, but they don't have a Bautista-level hitter (who does?) to balance out some of the holes. You've gotta think things will pick up, though - the "old" guys are between 33-35, which isn't that old, and some of the other hitters are capable of more.
Tonight it's Carlos Villanueva vs. Chris Jakubauskas. Jakubauskas is filling in temporarily while Chris Tillman figures some things out, and he isn't very good. This one could be a high-scoring affair.
Wednesday night sees Ricky Romero square off against Jake Arrieta. Arrieta has good hit and walk rates, but he's walking a batter every two innings. The Jays would be prudent to make him throw a lot of pitches, both to get base-runners and to get into the bullpen, which has been, aside from Jim Johnson and Koji Uehara, terrible. Particularly, they would be prudent to get to the 9th inning down by a couple runs so as to face Kevin Gregg. He's got a 3.20 ERA, but that 1.6 WHIP has gotta give. Law of averages!
On Thursday afternoon, Baltimore's "ace" Jeremy Guthrie matches up against Jo-Jo Reyes. Guthrie has been a solid pitcher for a few years, but isn't dominant. Though Baltimore has the edge here, all of these games are winnable.
First pitch, 7:07.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20110614125646738