Another win for the good guys yesterday but it wasn't a totally good news day. Jesse Litsch and Marc Rzepczynski were good and very good respectively while Travis Snider had the one big hit the Jays needed.
On the not so good side Yunel Escobar is being examined to see if he has a concussion after a collision at third base.
Elsewhere there must be panic in the streets of Boston as the Sawx drop to 0-5. On the streets of Tampa, whose team is in the same predicament, there might be a slight note of concern.
Jesse Litsch pitched well giving up six hits while pitching into the seventh inning. Jesse had seven K's. In watching the game Litsch kept the ball down well, unlike Reyes on Tuesday. There are divided opinions on Litsch among Jays fans and I think that comes down to the type of pitcher Litsch is. Litsch's fastball averages 89 mph and he needs to hit his spots to be successful. If his command is off he will be hit around and be gone from the game early. Jesse is very much a hit or miss pitcher, one good start can be followed by a poor one. Someone with better "stuff" can get by better when his command is off but Litsch is less likely to escape an off night.
It was interesting that Farrell left Litsch in until he reached 100 pitches. Last season Cito would yank Litsch after eighty or so, Gaston appeared be happy to get five or six innings out of Litsch.
From Brooks Baseball here is a summary of Litsch's start.
| Pitch Statistics | |||||||||
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % | Linear Weights | Time to Plate |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 89.40 | 91.1 | -4.54 | 5.92 | 25 | 15 / 60.00% | 2 / 8.00% | -0.3203 | 0.418 |
| SI (Sinker) | 88.82 | 90.9 | -7.62 | 3.44 | 21 | 10 / 47.62% | 1 / 4.76% | 1.7761 | 0.421 |
| CH (Changeup) | 81.95 | 84.3 | -4.39 | -0.88 | 11 | 8 / 72.73% | 1 / 9.09% | -0.0269 | 0.456 |
| SL (Slider) | 85.01 | 87.9 | 1.38 | 0.47 | 18 | 10 / 55.56% | 1 / 5.56% | -0.4588 | 0.438 |
| CU (Curveball) | 82.55 | 84.1 | 2.12 | -3.94 | 13 | 10 / 76.92% | 5 / 38.46% | -1.1773 | 0.454 |
| FC (Cutter) | 89.68 | 91.4 | -1.61 | 6.79 | 12 | 8 / 66.67% | 0 / 0.00% | 0.0407 | 0.418 |
|
Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate. | |||||||||
You can see that Litsch throws three fastballs, a four seamer, a cutter and a sinker, all around 89 mph. He adds a change-up, a slider and a curve. His pitch count shows great mixing of his pitches, 25 four seamers were the most of any pitch. Jesse had good results from his curve, he threw 10 and five ended with swinging strikes.
JP Arencibia continues to play well. He did have his first passed ball last night, he looked like he took his eye off the ball. But he threw out another runner, even though he stepped away from the batter first to give him some room to throw the ball. JP has 10 at-bats and do you know how many K's he has? How about zero? That could be the most unexpected stat in the young season so far.
Travis Snider's home run was the key hit in the game, other than the one to Escobar's head, but the Jays caught a break just before the homer. Cliff Pennington was unable to make a play on a ball that was called a hit but could have been called an error. Pennington is playing with a sore shoulder and it might have hindered him making a play on a ground ball from EE. Had Oakland got at least one out the game would have been a lot closer and might have had a different result.
Marc Rzepczynski was outstanding in relief. Here is his chart.
| Pitch Statistics | |||||||||
| Pitch Type | Avg Speed | Max Speed | Avg H-Break | Avg V-Break | Count | Strikes / % | Swinging Strikes / % | Linear Weights | Time to Plate |
| FF (FourSeam Fastball) | 89.80 | 89.8 | 10.97 | 4.83 | 1 | 0 / 0.00% | 0 / 0.00% | 0.0369 | 0.424 |
| SI (Sinker) | 90.53 | 91.6 | 10.22 | 0.82 | 16 | 10 / 62.50% | 3 / 18.75% | -0.8227 | 0.413 |
| CH (Changeup) | 82.60 | 83.2 | 7.21 | -2.41 | 2 | 2 / 100.00% | 0 / 0.00% | 0.0000 | 0.456 |
| SL (Slider) | 83.35 | 84.6 | 0.10 | -5.63 | 8 | 6 / 75.00% | 1 / 12.50% | -0.9246 | 0.449 |
| Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate. | |||||||||
16 sinkers and 8 sliders makes Jays fans happy.
Finally, adding to a comment by Mike Green in yesterday's thread, many will say that Escobar wouldn't have hurt his head if he had been running hard out of the box. He wasn't and he probably never will. Bobby Cox hated that and there are many in the game who hate it but I think that trait is one that is hard to change. I don't expect Escobar will ever run hard out of the box if he presumes he will be out. So what do we do about it? We can run him out of town like the Braves did. Or we can say he is an imperfect player. Some players always swing at the outside pitch and try and pull it. Some players swing at the pitch in the dirt. Some pitchers make the same mistake with the same pitch again and again. Most, if not all, players are imperfect. Escobar is one of those but I think the plusses outweigh the minuses.
What did you see in yesterdays game?
Day baseball today, getaway day with a good pitching match-up, Romero vs Cahill at 12:37. Escobar is not in the lineup, John McDonald is at short and Jayson Nix at third.
