"Better teach this Vaughn kid some control before he kills somebody..."
After salvaging one game of the four game set versus the Angels, the Blue Jays open up a series tonight against the Cleveland Indians. The Clevelands have been consistently mediocre all season, though the club is clearly missing the dependable innings of starting pitchers Scott Kazmir and Ubaldo Jimenez, both departed via free agency. Beyond the threesome of Masterson, Kluber and McAllister, Cleveland starting pitching has been as ugly as Cerrano swinging at a breaking ball. The bats, particularly Bourn, Swisher and Carlos Santana have also been scuffling all season, which hasn't helped. Santana is "batting" an astonishing .148, and he isn't exactly Goinsian with the glove.
Pitching Matchups!
Tuesday: Justin Masterson (2-1, 3.86) versus R.A. Dickey (3-3, 4.72)
Wednesday: Corey Kluber (3-3, 3.48) versus Dustin McGowan (2-1, 4.63)
Thursday: Danny Salazar (1-3, 5.65) versus J.A. Happ (1-1, 4.63)
Injury Report
Blue Jays catch a break with Jason Kipnis out for another few weeks with an abdominal injury. Jason Giambi is also on the disabled list with a case of I Can't Believe This Old Guy is Still Playing. Er, I mean a calf issue.
Assorted Nonsense
With this three man bench and Reyes and Rasmus battling minor hurts, the bench tonight with R.A. Dickey pitching could very well be just Dioner Navarro. Yeah, that's really great. I hope Dioner has an infielder's glove lying around somewhere. Hey, Adam Lind has played left field before! That thing on his chin is practically a second glove, this will work out fine.
Questions
Will Michael Brantley stop abusing our pitchers already? (Seriously, we must've run over the dude's puppy or something). How many times will we fans curse the Rogers/Gomes trade when Yan does something good? Will Steve Delabar, or "Delabeard", shave? (I sure hope so). Will J.A. Happ's high pitch at-bats drive us completely crazy or just a little bit crazy? How many times will Chad Jenkins actually stand up? Lets find out.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20140513125005100