Not often you see a shortstop take a bad route to a ground ball.

Doing a little spitballing here, but it kinda looked to me Buerhle had a few words for Kawasaki there right after the inning ended. Anyone see that?

No, but Kawasaki had just started an inning ending DP. I doubt Buehrle was complaining.

I was thinking that one of the reasons Arencibia's so jumpy behind the plate is he has a bunch of pitchers who don't hit his glove very often. But he's been in a very good rhythm with Buehrle for some time now, and Buehrle will hit the glove for you.

unlucky for Colby that that wasn't HR #2. crushed the ball both AB tonight.

Rain? In Arlington? They're kidding, right? Do Texans even own umbrellas?

Is it wise to own an umbrella when every storm is a thunder storm?

Nice reprieve for JP so far tonight - he's hit a HR (possibly wind-aided) and his pitcher has yet to allow a run. That has to feel good.

JPA's elite pitch-framing has Rangers' ejecting theselves over borderline calls. nice.

Weird game - the guy with the shutout has reached 100 pitches after 7, while the guy allowing 6 runs is only at 85 pitches after 7 IP.  Not common for that to happen.

So Buehrle lowered his ERA from a career-worst 5.06 coming into tonight all the way down to 4.66......which is "only" the SECOND worst of his career now (worst was 4.99 in '06).

Next up: his 4.28era from '10.

Kawasaki smokes one to right-center.  Good start.

The Jays are now within 6 games of .500 for the first time since April 26.

That was kind of impressive. And Buehrle is 2-2, 2.54 in his last 7 starts, six of which were very good (and even the game he lost wasn't all that horrible.) The start before this streak was the Tampa game where they torched him for that 7 run inning. What's different? Well, he's keeping the ball in the yard. He allowed 11 HRs in his first 7 starts, and has allowed just 2 since.

Buehrle is 2-2, 2.54 in his last 7 starts

They made him bat twice? And he got two hits and they don't let him bat no more?

The Mariners DFA'd Kelly Shoppach and signed Henry Blanco, and their fans are now baffled and confused.

The Mariners DFA'd Kelly Shoppach and signed Henry Blanco, and their fans are now baffled and confused. I guess Mike Zunino is not going back to Tacoma anytime soon. He hit his first homer tonight to help the M's beat the A's. I was in Seattle for Monday's game against Houston, just a day before he was called up from Triple-A. Last year, the Mariners promoted him from Everett to Double-A just before the AquaSox came to Vancouver. I was just not meant to see Zunino for his Canadian debut or his MLB debut.

Do the Mariners not have access to MLB TV? Kelly Shoppach may not be the next coming of Johnny Bench but I'd rather have him than Hank White.

The Jays are now winning at a .700 clip over their last 10 games. With the return of Reyes and Lawrie in the next few weeks, their offense is clearly very solid, if not better. The bullpen, obviously, is solid too. I think it's increasingly clear that this team will go as far as its rotation takes it. And there are definitely signs of hope there too. After a poor start, Buehrle has turned the corner. Wang looks useful; Rogers has been great; Dickey has been inconsistent but has shown signs of what he can be. Johnson and Morrow are the key question marks. If those two can finally get it together, this can be a good rotation. To win games, this doesn't need to be the best rotation in the division -- it just needs to be good enough. And that's not an unreasonable expectation.

Another sign of hope: looking down the road, there is rotation depth. When Morrow comes back, Wang looks like a good 6th starter. Happ will be back at some point; Drabek and Hutchison are beginning their rehab assignments (although I agree with those who see Drabek as a reliever, rather than starter); and Romero is finally starting to look good in Buffalo.

I'm not giving up on the season yet.

Continuing with the positive stuff: The Jays have scored an average of precisely 5 runs per game over the past 10 games. If they can continue at that rate (which is not entirely unreasonable), their production would be higher than any team in the league this season, except for Boston and Detroit. And they've done this without their best hitter, Reyes.

The Jays are currently 7.5 games out of a wild-card slot, and Reyes could reportedly be back on the team as soon as the Tampa series (June 24). Their record has been hampered by their dismal luck in one-run games (a record of 8-14), but I think that's going to inevitably improve, given the role of chance in close games.

Optimism? Why not?

If they could get Johnson and Morrow healthy and contributing on a regular basis, along with Beurhle, Rogers and Wang/Happ, they might be able to get Dickey a much needed stint on the DL.

And they've done this without their best hitter, Reyes.

Their what now?

The number of games back needs to be looked at in conjunction with (1) the number of teams ahead of the Jays, (2) the respective records of those teams, and (3) the relative difficulty of the playoff-contending teams' schedules from here on out. Among other factors (such as those teams' ability to improve their club at the deadline or internally).

Not saying the Jays can't climb back into contention, but the path ahead is more difficult than "7.5 games back" might suggest on its face. In any case, I think the Jays were 6.5 GB in the WC race a few weeks ago.

I'd probably hesitate putting any faith of projected improvement based on the likes of rogers and wang.

it's going to be the performances of buehrle dickey johnson morrow and maybe romero that we're going to need to be significantly better.

"....their best hitter, Reyes...."

*footnote: I meant "in the first 10 games of the season" anyway. As for now and the future? I'm glad that there are several contestants for the honor now. Bautista, Encarnacion, Lind, Reyes -- that's a pretty solid core to build on.

Greenfrog - i'm not sure this early in the year the number of teams ahead of us matters too much.

and to flip what you said around a bit - looking at the teams ahead if us, especially in the AL East, is actually pretty encouraging. our division mates seem to me to have been mostly overachieving so far.

BOS - unsustainably high mlb-leading (by far) team babip that wil certainly regress. 4 or 5 starters plus a couple of bench players with babips at ir near .400. That just won't keep up. They've also had a dream bounceback season for their pitching staff, which isn't necessarily unsustainable, but probably will slow down at least a bit.

NYY - their fluke early season hitting from the likes of hafner wells overbay cervelli has dissappeared and they are now relying almost completely on pitching to win games. And their pitching staff is more good than great, not to mention old. there is some optimism based on the potential returns of their hitters from injury, but tex and grabdy have looked awful since returning, while jeter and arod don't seem anywhere close to coming back, and at this point may never be big contributors again.

BAL - they've been good this year mostly thanks to chris davis' awesomeness, with assists to mclouth and machado at the top of the lineup. al three of them are likely due some major babip regression, though...and there's not many underachievers to pick up the slack. wieters will likely improve...maybe markakis a bit...not much else. tgeir pitching has been about as expected.

TBL - they rode some surprising performances from the likes of cobb moore hernandez loney johnson to start the year, but those guys have been coming back down to earth lately, and that will probably continue. not too many underachievers to hope for improvemeent from, either - only Price qualifies as a significant underachiever for them this year

TOR - Lind and the bullpen are the only areas of the team to have met or exceeded expectations. Pretty much every other hitter and all the starting pitchers should be expected to improve.


this might sound homerish but if you look up and down the teams rosters i think you'll find it's true - the other Al East teams have benefitted from a large number of major and unsustainable overachievers so far, without many major underachievers. the jays are the opposite so far. the one caveat being the yankees - the returns of tex grandy jeter arod could be a big boost for them going forward.

Kelly Shoppach doesn't appear to be the worst - 84 OPS+ this year, 96 lifetime, age 33 season.  Not great, but a world better than one should expect from Blanco.  Plus Blanco didn't impress defensively so it just doesn't make a lot of sense.  I could see a club with injury issues taking him but one with a reasonable backup?  Seems very odd.

Of course, this is the Mariners we are talking about.  They seem to be running in circles for awhile now.

Cabrera, Encarnacion, Bautista, Rasmus, and Buehrle have all met my expectations.

Encarnacion and rasmus i'll buy, but saying the other three have met expectations strains credibility, tbh.

Cabrera: .794zips, .778steamer, .798oliver, .828rotochamp --- .691 actual
Bautista: .948zips, .925steamer, .912oliver, .977rotochamp --- .870 actual

Not really very close to expectations.


Buehrle: 4.39zips, 4.83steamer, 3.57oliver, 3.82rotochamp --- 4.66 actual

with his performance last night, Buehrle did finally come down into the range of his most pessimistic projection, though prior to last night, with an ERA over 5 (and well over for most of the year), he wasn't even in that range. Still has a ways to go to get back into his average projection range.


But you are right about Rasmus and Encarnacion:

Encarnacion: .865zips, .844steamer, .848oliver, .922rotochamp --- .878 actual
Rasmus: .748zips, .758steamer, .750oliver, .749rotochamp --- .768 actual

Right around expectations, and maybe a tick above.

Projection systems have no idea how to evaluate steroids. Melky's 2013 line is consistent with his 2005-2010 career numbers and what AA paid for.

It was just over 2 weeks ago that Bautista's line was .299/.410/.585. He slumped badly for 10 days, but has appeared to be coming out of it since.

I wasn't sitting there staring at numbers when I made my comment; it was based on feel.

sure his numbers this year are consistent with what he did prior to the last 2 years - but he was also 20-25 yrs old in those years. Looking only at a player's 20-25 yr old years and ignoring his 26-27 yr old years is probably not the best way to go about it, especially considering we have no idea when he started taking steroids.

and going by "feel" isn't always enough, IMHO.