With the Yankees in town and just under six weeks remaining in the schedule it felt like a good time to catch up with the major league club. Sure, the Blue Jays are out of it, but with 38 games to go here are a few interesting tid bits about the Jays season.

Schedule - Yankees x 8, Tigers x 4, Rays x 6, Rangers x 4, Orioles x 6, Red Sox x 3, Mariners x 3, Twins x 4. 22 Home, 16 Away

Hitting: Jose Bautista's home runs last night were number 39 and 40, and team home runs 189 and 190. The individual single season team record for home runs is 47 hit in 1987 by MVP George Bell. Bautista is now tied with Jesse Barfield for the 8th best season in team history, and has 38 games to pass Tony Batista (41), Shawn Green (42), Carlos Delgado (41, 42, 44), Jose Canseco (46) and Bell. He's on pace for 52, which would be the first time a player has broken 50 since 2007 when A-Rod (54) and Prince Fielder (50) did it. His .600 slugging percentage would be third best in franchise history, just behind Bell's .605 from 1987 and way behind Carlos Delgado's .664 in 2000, arguably the finest player season in team history. Meanwhile the team is on pace for 248 home runs, which would fall short of the Major League record of 264 home runs set by the 1997 Seattle Mariners. The scary thing about that team? A-Rod only hit 20 home runs that year and they still set the record. 

248 home runs may not set the ML record, but it would be just enough to eke by the team record of 244 set in 2000, when the Jays had seven players hit 20 home runs (Delgado, Fletcher, Batista, Stewart, Cruz Jr., Mondesi, Fullmer) and another hit 15 (Alex Gonzalez the first). This year's Jays team probably won't accomplish that feat, but could have 10 different players hit 10 home runs -  Snider and Lewis have 8 each. As far as I can tell this would put them 1 player behind the all time leaders in this category, the 2004 Detroit Tigers. who had 10 players hit between 10 and 20 home runs and Carlos Pena hit 27. I guess Yunel Escobar better get swinging.

In slightly more ignomius fashion, the Jays are also on pace to finish with their 3rd worse stolen base total of all time - they have 41, on pace for about 54, which would put them ahead of only the 2003 squad (37, the Dude had more than twice as many as the next Jay with 12) and 28 (against 52 CS) for the 1978 team (RIck Bosetti was 6/16 which led the team; Luis Gomez was 2/12). If not for the early season acquisition of Fred Lewis things would be even grimmer. Their .250 team batting average is also 3rd worst in franchise history, behind the 1997 team (.244, Carlos Garcia anyone?) and the 1981 team (.226 and 3.1 runs a game, Damaso Garcia led the team hitting .252) and tied with 1978. On the flip side the team's slugging percentage is t-4th best right now, at .455, behind the 1999-2000 teams and behind the 2006 squad which hit a million doubles.

Pitching: As Sportsnet noted yesterday, Brandon Morrow is on pace to shatter the franchise record for K/9 IP for a starter with 10.81/9, ahead of Roger Clemens in 1998 (10.39/9). He is easily lapping the big league field as well, leading Francisco Liriano by a full strikeout. His is the third best mark in the Majors since Kerry Wood in 2003; he is a 1/10th of a K/9 behind Erik Bedard and Oliver Perez in the intervening time. He's also just a hair behind Duane Ward (11.07) for the all time team lead, and if he keeps posting double digit strikeouts he will get there. Since the beginning of June Morrow has pitched 80.1 innings and struck out 99 batters (11.09/9) against 28 walks, with an era of 3.25 in 13 games. In contrast over his first 11 games he struck out 66 in 57 innings (10.42/9), but walked 34 and had an era of 6.00. As Alex pointed out to me yesterday, all this has been accomplished despite allowing a .341 batting average on balls in play, the 4th highest mark in the bigs this year.

The Jays pitching as a whole has been rather good this year, with a FIP of 3.96 good for 3rd best in the American League. The team has been particularly good at striking people out (7.5/9, 1st in AL), and not giving up home runs (0.90/9, 3rd in AL) and have been middle of the road in walks (3.28/9, 7th AL). Brandon Morrow is 4th in the AL in FIP at 3.17, behind Francisco Liriano, Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee (not bad company!) while Romero, Marcum and Cecil are 11th, 21st and 23rd (3.40, 3.82, 3.90). In this regard they have by far the strongest front four in the AL.

Defense: The team's defense grades out as about as average as can be (0.8 UZR/150) though with a few interesting outliers. Alex Gonzalez was a very good defensive shortstop and graded out well, 4.7/150, but Yunel has surpassed him and then some, grading out at 20.7/150 in his time with the Jays. These numbers should be taken with a boulder of salt given sample size issues, but Yunel was doing almost as well with the Braves and had consistently been a slightly above average fielder before this year. John Dewan's +/- also sees him as one of the best defensive players in the Majors. Meanwhile Lyle Overbay, master of the scoop, gets a good grade (4.3/150), and Aaron Hill is fine (2.5/150) and has consistently been good in the past; I believe he picked up a fielding bible award at some point. Vernon Wells has had a minor renaissance in CF, basically being average (well, -1.0/150), a welcome change from the past. His outfield counterparts haven't fared so well, as Travis Snider, Fred Lewis and Jose Bautista all get pretty abysmal marks in the corners (-3.9/150 and -31.3/150, -12.6/150 and -9.3/150).

Did You Know? The Jays non-Morrow pitchers have 3 of the best change ups in baseball. Shaun Marcum's has been the most valuable, at 17.9 runs above average, while Brett Cecil and Ricky Romero are 21st and 24th at 4.9 and 4.1 respectively. Brandon Morrow and Brett Cecil both have nasty sliders (9.6, 10th and 7.2, 18th respectively) and Ricky uses the curveball (5.8, 10th). Just for comparison's sake, old friend Roy Halladay throws by far the best cutter in the bigs (16 runs above average) and the 4th best curveball (12.3) in addition to a plus fastball and changeup. So yeah, he's pretty good.

Aaron Hill and Jose Bautista have the worst and 4th worst averages on balls in play in baseball at .201 and 2.39 respectively, though neither hits a ton of line drives (10.5% and 14.4% respectively.) Hill's LD% is actually the worst in baseball by 20%, and Bautista's 4th worst. Gpo figure. Adam Lind has also been unlucky, hitting the ball hard (19.1 LD%) and not popping up (4.6% IF/FB) but having only a .275 average on balls in play to show for it. Last year he hit it a little harder (20.2 LD%) and popped up a bit more (8.5%), and had a babip of .323. His career mark, including this year, is .305. However he is walking slightly less than last year (8.9% v. 7.2%) and striking out far more (18.7% vs. 26.2 %). His somewhat lukcy HR/FB numbers have also fallen back.

After last night's game Jose Bautista has the 9th best WPA of any hitter in the bigs. And although I cannot confirm it, I believe Brandon Morrow has the best single game WPA of any pitcher in the AL this year at .762, though well behind the Halladay perfect game at .888.

Thats all the useless ephemera I can come up with at the moment. Feel free to add your own.