That's an interesting point, Gerry. I only saw the highlight, but if my memory serves correctly, the pitch that Bautista popped up to Smoak in Tuesday's 8th inning looked like a fastball. Last year you wouldn't have seen Bautista pop a hittable fastball up to first base.

I'm a firm believer in the "go slowly" approach to promotions - Tampa does it beautifully & we should follow - I remember all the "Free Travis Snider" postings in 2008 &  Travis is yet to establish himself in the show, while accumulating valuable service time  - I think he could have benefited from some more time in the minors - I hope fans remember this with all the "Free Brett Lawrie " hype I've read.

Carlos Delgado made the Jays in 1994 & after starting off red hot on fastballs, proved he couldn't hit the breaking pitches & was given more minor league seasoning - he and Alex Gonzalez were fast-tracked that year because the jays were expected to be contenders and gambled - I have no problem with this approach as when Atlanta went with Heyward last year.BTW, the team shouldn't be concerned if this "go slow" approach shortens the ML career of the player - their responsibility  is to get the best production of the player while he is employed by the team.

Sano,

My reading of the article doesn't suggest any "new" strategies to developing players - just different from the previous regimen which is to be expected - actually, it mentioned that the Cleveland organisation used this approach when John Farallel & Tony lacava worked there - I don't think the Jays are reinventing the Wheel when it comes to developing players,just that they believe they are following a proven strategy. 

If Luis Perez is called up recall that Tom Signore, his pitching coach, told me that he felt Perez was best suited to a bullpen role:

From 2010:

BB: Speaking of relievers last season you told me that you felt Luis Perez would be best suited to be a reliever.  Do you still believe that?

TS: I still believe he would be an outstanding relief pitcher.

BB: Is he the same pitcher in 2010 as he was in 2009?

TS: Yeah he is quite frankly, he is not much different.  We are trying to get him a harder breaking ball and it's there, he just doesn't have that confidence to break it out.  It might be a deal where we force him to throw it.  But he has been good again last time out, he didn't get the victory but he pitched a complete game for us.

Carlos Delgado made the Jays in 1994 & after starting off red hot on fastballs, proved he couldn't hit the breaking pitches & was given more minor league seasoning

Delgado not being able to hit breaking pitches was a popular urban legend at the time.  In 1994 Delgado started off hot and then went into a slump. The team had high expectations, being defending champs, so they panicked and sent Delgado down.  On top of that he was playing out of position in LF.  They had Olerud and Molitor at 1B and DH and I think they'd basically decided by then that he wasn't going to be a catcher in the majors.  He went to AAA and hit about .315 in 1994 and 1995 so I don't think he really learned anything there.

That's not really the whole story. Out of curiosity and randomly I checked Grady Sizemore's path to Cleveland. He spent 2.5 years in the Cleveland minors, from A+ to AAA before arriving with the big club. That counts to player development too, they had to transition the player from the Expos organization (determine the appropiate level for him), establish a plan for him, and introduce him to a whole bunch of new people with a bunch of new ideas. Still counts.

Sano:

Cecil had problems with velocity, movement and command.  I think movement and command would be the first two in my list to correct.  The velocity may come once he relaxes on the mound.

I thought Cecil slowed up in his delivery over the last three innings and that seemed to help his control.

I`ll take m y chances with Patterson over McCoy.

Is Rivera still on this team?  I`ll ask again in the morning.

I too, was amazed that Farrell let Zep face Lowrie.  He had already thrown 25 pitches in the inning, and Lowrie kills lefthanders, while he struggles against righties.  Rzepczynski was struggling with his control, similar to the Seattle fiasco.  He's got so much movement on his pitches, I think he basically needs to do what the Indians pitching coach told Justin Masterson this spring - "just throw that little white thing over that larger white thing over there".  It's working great for Masterson.  Rauch looked very good.  Worst start in Red Sox history. 

Regarding Rivera, I mentioned on another thread that he is typically terrible in April.  Have a look at his monthly OPS splits.  Terrible in April, mediocre in May, very good the rest of the year.

That was a very strange home run/foul ball in the first inning.  It looks like the foul pole is behind the fence, and the ball may have hit the top of the fence fair, but then bounced past the pole to the right of the pole.

I suspect those pitcher/batter numbers vs Beckett are too small to have any relevance.

 Pit Of Despair

That`s not good.

It's not just you. I traded for Lowrie in my keeper league this offseason for that very reason. He has a good approach at the plate and doesn't miss many pitches he should hit. Red Sox fans are upset that Francona isn't playing him more already this season. Interestingly, Lowrie is probably the only non-Canadian/non-Blue Jay major leaguer to spend a good portion of his offseason in Toronto.

I'd love nothing more than to kick the Red Sox when they are down, but today's game was a pitching mismatch. I'm curious to see what Litsch will go against the Red Sox tomorrow, but even with the way the Red Sox are playing now, a split would be a good result. Things might have been different if the Jays got to face Lackey.

Lowrie should certainly be starting vs lefties.  He absolutely mashes them.  The thing is, though, he's one of these switch hitters who probably shouldn't switch hit.  He hasn't been very good vs righties so far in his mlb career, with an OPS below .700 against them, about 250 points lower than his OPS vs lefties.  Hard to believe he couldn't do better by simply staying with his strong side and batting right vs righties.  Being weak against righties, is of course, a significant problem for a switch hitter, since so many AB's come against them.

Another example of the problems caused by the more aggressive baserunning approach the Jays are taking this year.  McDonald caught stealing in the 8th inning down by 3 runs.  May have been a busted hit and run, but still, trailing by 3 runs late is not the time be burning baserunners.

I think Reyes may have just pitched himself off this team.  I certainly hope so, anyway.

Interesting analysis of the foul ball call on Adam Lind's fly ball on the Fan and on the TV broadcast.  It seems pretty clear that the ball hit the wall in fair territory and bounced to the right of the pole.  Should have been a HR.  At least it didn't cost the Jays the game.  I liked the comparison to the NFL where the referee explains the call after replay review to everybody.  In mlb it's all a big secret.  Apparently, they even said the Farrell "you can't ask questions" when he tried to get an explanation.  Ridiculous.

I think Reyes may have just pitched himself off this team.

Maybe he and Purcey can be packaged in a trade.

Alex, you raise an interesting point:  could Litsch be optioned to the minors when Morrow returns, rather than trying to squeeze Reyes into a severely-overcrowded bullpen?  It's an interesting idea, worth considering.  For a contrary view, here's Wilner defending Litsch on his blog today:

"Litsch was terrific against a tough Boston squad, save for one rather large swing.... In the overall, he gave up four earned runs on seven hits in six innings, walking one and striking out five.  He threw 97 pitches to get 18 outs, compared to the 94 pitches Reyes threw yesterday to get his nine.  Again, Litsch retired 13 in a row at one point -- Reyes’ high water-mark on that score yesterday was three."

The baserunning on this team is getting to be terrible.  Snider picked off on a line drive - we don't make that mistake on my slopitch team.  The first thing the 1st base coach says after "nice hit" is watch out for a line drive, don't get picked off.  Then that ridiculous move by Patterson trying to steal 3rd in the 8th inning down by 5 runs - that's beyond stupid.  Granted, the fake steal earlier in the game netted them a run at the cost of an out, which is a good trade, but there's a big difference between aggressive baeball and stupid baseball.  The Jays have crossed that line.  That's 2 games in a row they've had a runner caught stealing while trailing by at least 3 runs late in the game.   At the start of the season, they talked about adding a bit of variety to their offense, which is fine, but they have gone way, way beyond that.  Burning all these baserunners is not the way to build a successful offense.  If they keep doing this, it's going to make it tougher for them to contend once the talent is in place to do so.  Hopefully, they will figure that out before that time.

With Francisco and Morrow back soon, and the return to a 12-man staff, 3 pitchers will have to get the boot or be sent down.  I'd say it's Reyes, Perez and Janssen. 

Glad to see them change the nutty scoring decision on that grounder to 3rd and charge Nix with an error.  So how many errors is that now for Encarnacion, Nix and Lawrie - 10, 11??  The hot corner is causing this team some serious grief.