I've read that Price will pitch Saturday to give Buerhle another day of rest.

Also I heard that Justin Trudeau was at the ballpark today trying to see if he's better luck to the team than Mulcair and Harper.

Terry Doyle is a minor league vet having a nice season in double A and triple A. 

It's all in the game.

Bautista is sadly now awful in the field.

And Drew Hutchison remembers he's '2015 Drew Hutchison' at the worst possible moment. Blech, what a shame.

I have no clue if there's some way to look this up statistically (I can't even make a proper link for cryin' out loud) but I feel like Drew has been a classic 'One Bad Inning' pitcher. He looks unbeatable five innings out of six, but that one inning is so unspeakably awful it distorts any overall analysis. But that's my half-assed theory.

Nice job by Hendriks there.

Come on, Showalter. Don't you have some cotton uniforms to green light?

Stroman to replace Hutchison on the 12th. To think of Hutchison as anything other than an expendable 5th Starter might not be the wisest move right now.

I think Drew was a ticking timebomb of crapitude in this game, Eephus. Obviously, the 3 homers he coughed up sucks, but 2 Ks in 5+ innings? Boo.

Hopefully The Stro Show can make us forget about him, assuming the Jays make it to the ALDS.

If this current score (10-2) holds up, it will be only the second game all season the Blue Jays have lost by more than six runs. It would be the fourth game they've lost by six or more.

So that's something I guess.

The visa issues link doesn't work for me. Looks like it is trying to link to an edit admin link and asking for an admin signin to see it.

I was only following on Gameday at the time, but I was surprised that Gibbons didn't pull Hutchison after Wieters' homer.  In September with all the extra pitchers, the leash is usually a little shorter.  I'm not suggesting that it would have made any difference with all the double plays and the subsequent explosion against Schultz.

Didn't the Wieters home run come on Hutch's fourth or fifth pitch of the inning? Can't imagine he had a reliever ready at that point.

Isn't the usual drill in these situations- Davis Homer, Hendricks up, Martin to mound, long slow walk by the appropriately named Walker to the mound, thorough discussion broken up by umpire, Wieters' Homer, long slow walk by Gibbons to remove Hutchison.

I'd rather have the offense and defense both fizzle at the same time than on alternate day.
Ideally, they get to the O's pen early tomorrow.

Definitely should have been the drill. Didn't see the game either, but listening to Jerry on the radio I had the distinct impression that the Orioles were hitting balls hard all night. I would have had him on a short leash, but maybe the six pitch fifth gave Gibby a false sense of relaxation.

What surprises me is no defensive replacements in the 9th... you are losing by 8 with one inning to go, why not give Martin & Donaldson & Bautista an inning off of the turf?  You've got the bench, use it.  I expected to see Thole, Kawasaki, and Pompey in the field for the 9th.  Glad Loup & Francis got into the game along with Tepera, Hendricks, and Schultz - a batch of guys who shouldn't get many innings from here on out except in blowouts like this.

I think the bench was not used because everyone is well rested following an off day. It's either that or Gibby was expecting an other come back.

I believe the pitcher for Baltimore tonight will be Mike Wright who was just taken off the DL.

"...What surprises me is no defensive replacements in the 9th..."

I wonder if Gibbons was making a symbolic statement:  it's a pennant drive, we don't give up on games, no matter how far behind we are.  Players like Donaldson and Tulo are high-intensity competitive players who have been sending an implicit message to their teammates that every inning counts and you have to be intense and focused for the entire game.  If you're then visibly surrendering, even for one inning, it sends the opposite message. 

Of course the message would backfire if someone got injured in the 9th inning of a 10-2 blowout.  But I suppose an extra inning doesn't make a huge amount of difference, and the injury risk would be extremely small.   More important, I think, is the symbolic gesture that you never give up, regardless of the score.

hopefully this is the end of hearing about meaningless home/away splits, at least.

It would take 2 or 3 more games like that to even the home/road split.

My comment last night about the catcher/pitching coach/manager two minute delay drill, when a reliever needs to get warmed up, got me thinking.  It's kind of boring for fans, so why isn't there striding to the mound music?  Pete Walker might have Fitz and the Tantrums' The Walker. John Gibbons' long lost uncle Billy Gibbons once fronted a band Zed Zed Top who did a song "I Got The Six".  It seems like a natural.  Don't know how John Gibbons would look with one of those beards.

That was a nice piece of hitting from Pillar.  He'd hit .300 if he did it a little more often.

Why was Pennington ejected?

"They're all good umpires now." - Pat Tabler. I'm just going to leave that there without further comment.

Why, FS?  Do we really need to remember that pearl of wisdom? 

Wouldn't it be fun to have a broadcaster who told it straight- "man, if you think the umpires now are bad, you should have seen them 40 years ago.  I can't believe a couple of them are in the Hall of Fame."

Kind of miss the old confrontations that used to be common.  Earl Weaver had a ton of them with many umpires.  For fun - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6cmqUTPn08 warning lots of very bad language.
When looking for it I found this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8j3EzYBSGM - our current catcher and how he reacts when terrible calls are made.

Several articles are up on the TSN site and the Sportsnet site about adjusting the Rotation. There sure is a lot riding on Stroman's next Start. As long as he can do what he needs to do, I'm all for it.

Umpires are getting better - at calling strikes strikes.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/umpires-are-less-blind-than-they-used-to-be/

That statement came at the end of what was, to me, an unusually interesting and somewhat informative discussion between Buck and Pat on umpiring during their playing days, and while they were lamenting the fact that players and umpires don't know each other as well as they used to, I was left with the sense that they believe the overall level of umpiring to be higher today than it was a generation ago. I think that is almost certainly correct, but to describe all of today's umpires as "good" requires a delivery far more sarcastic than Tabby's typical effort.

Hmm, personally I was cringing that entire discussion, as Buck's baseball stories are just the worst and I swear he tells the same ones every time someone gets ejected from the game. But to each his own.

Ditto on the repetition. Buck has grown a bit as a play by play man but his well of stories seems to have been exhausted. I don't agree that they are the worst on the surface, they are kind of like a drunk uncle reminiscing.

I think it would be nice to find a color guy who played from the 90s to mid 00s.They interplay could be amusing for awhile with "In my day..." and "But in my day.." contrasts. But I have given up on Rogers attracting any talent to either booth.

As much as the Jays have struggled against Ubaldo Jimenez, they have feasted on Chris Tillman.  The club is hitting .327/.387/.566 against him, and nobody has an OBP under .300.  Dalton Pompey has only 7 PAs against Tillman, but has a double, two triples and a homer for a lusty 2.286 OPS.  I wonder if he might get a start today.

With the Jays facing Tillman and the Yankees facing Archer, the Jays have a good chance to extend their lead to 2.5 games over the Yankees by the end of the afternoon. 

The Jays trail the Royals by 5 games for first overall in the league.  Eyes forward.

Ryan Goins continued his ascension yesterday- I especially liked the double to left-center way beyond the outfielders on a line.  The memo is going to go out that you cannot play Goins shallow.  It's amazing what you can do when you don't swing at pitches outside the zone.  It sounds easy, but it isn't. 

Goins: 322 OBP, 362 SLG, 90 OPS+
Tulow: 322 OBP, 368 SLG, 91 OPS+

There identicalness is not something I would have anticipated.

Pompey is still on the bench in today's lineup, with Pillar remaining in CF.  Navarro is catching Estrada, and Colabello at 1B.

I haven't researched this to be absolutely certain, but it almost seems that Colabello and Smoak are in a strict rotation, regardless of the pitcher.  Neither seems to be in the starting lineup for two consecutive games -- or rarely so, anyway.  (I'm sure there are cases of them playing two consecutive games in recent weeks, but they are relatively few.)   I wonder what's the thinking behind this?  It can't be to "rest them" since neither has any health issues.  Is it simply that Gibbons likes both of them for different reasons, and wants them both to be playing in 50 per cent of the games?  If I wasn't so lazy, I'd check to see if Gibbons gives the start to Smoak when he wants to improve the defence or when he thinks the Jays pitcher is more likely to be a groundball pitcher.  But honestly I haven't detected any such pattern in recent weeks, so it seems almost like a strict game-by-game rotation between Smoak and Colabello.

Chuck, what's the sample size on those numbers?

There identicalness

Their. Their. Their. Rats.

definitely not 50/50, china. smoak has been starting 2 out of every 3 games for the most part.

Just using Aug. 18 as the arbitrary starting point:  Smoak has started 8 games since then, Colabello has started 5 games.  Smoak has 39 plate appearances in that period, Colabello has 23 plate appearances.   Smoak has definitely started more games than Cola and has more PAs, but I'm not sure if I see a pattern to the usage (aside from Smoak obviously being used as a late-inning defensive replacement).

Goins >>> Tulo for lead-off!

[The sound of a can of worms being cracked open at The Baux].

I was hoping that Pompey would be in right field today, with Bautista DHing and Encarnacion at first base.  With Estrada being a fly-ball pitcher, it would be a way to upgrade the outfield defence and let Bautista rest his throwing arm for a day.

Gibbons is trying to keep Colabello fresh.  He does look a little bit antsy on the bench. 

Courtesy of David Laurilia at Fangraphs:

A Yankee player walked into clubhouse today and exclaimed to no in particular, "Blue Jays playing today?  Is it 6-0 yet?"

The player-who shall remain unnamed- uttered the words with a wry smile.

iirc cola's generally being given the starts vLHP but i wouldn't be surprised if the platoon was also being used as cola facing the guys who feature tougher breaking balls.

"They're all good umpires now." - Pat Tabler.

Although Pat is the primary reason I turn the sound off while watching Jays games, I'm going to defend his comment somewhat.

Fact - The worst pitch calling ump's accuracy this year is closer to the best 2008 ump than the average 2008 ump.

Strikes are being called strikes over 90% of the time now vs under 82% 7 years ago, even though balls are being called strikes are at similar rates. I'm sure some of that is the increasing emphasis on pitch framing.

But there may be more to it, and for that I have a theory. Games have gotten way too long, especially with instant replay and MLB is trying to speed them up. Umps making incorrect calls on the bases is a huge time-waster, so that would be an area of focus (and to be fair, even with teams having access to video replay prior to challenge, less than half were overturned last year).

Now to balls and strikes. Calling strikes speeds up the game. Calling balls slows down the game. It almost seems the league has told umps something like this:

"Unless you're positive a pitch is a ball, call it a strike."

I think that Tabler was trying to avoid insulting anyone, and so fell into an untrue generalization.  It's hard because if one is trying to compare umpiring, you really need the data and it's not data that it is accessible to the average viewer.  The best thing is to avoid the topic entirely, except as it relates to the game at hand.  "Laz Diaz has been calling a consistent game today, but a little generous to the pitchers" or "Laz Diaz' strike zone is all over the place tonight" works a lot better than comparison between umpires of yesteryear and today.

Mike. I posted umpire data.

Batting 1st

Tulo: .227/.325/.373/.698, 96wrc+
Revere: .229/.250/.229/.479, 28wrc+

Tulo

Batting 1st: .227/.325/.373/.698, 96wrc+
Batting 5th: .261/.280/.348/.628, 53wrc+

are we done with the "comfort" argument yet?

I know, hypobole.  I know that we can have a thoughtful discussion about these issues here.  It's harder on a TV broadcast.

I agree uglyone, this Rivera leading off experiment needs to end. Jonah Keri said it pretty well, Revere is just not a good hitter and especially not a good lead off hitter. Move Tulo up, heck put Donaldson as one and put Tulo at two if that works. (Donaldson did fine leading off earlier in the year) Reveres two strengths in his speed and his contact ability do very little in the lead off role. Put him at six or seven where he can advance our sluggers after they get on base and not hit into double plays.

It is fairly amusing reading the above right after Revere singles and then Donaldson drives his speedy self home from first with a double. It's not like the three big boppers only hit homers, ya know.

That said, I'd prefer Goins lead off the way he is getting on base, plus he's quick too.

In the end who bats where is secondary.  #1 is getting the right guys in the lineup and right now it isn't too hard to do that.  A platoon at 2B, mix and match at 1B, everyone else is an everyday player with no real questions.  Tulo leading off or hitting 5th, Revere 1st or 9th both have an effect on the team but not enough to make one go nuts.  Myself, I'd have Tulo first, Revere 7 to 9th depending.  At #7 his speed becomes more useful (with Pillar & Goins/Pennington 8th/9th).  Speed in the #1 slot isn't going to be fully used as who would steal with Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion, Tulo, Martin due up?

My ideal lineup would be Tulo/Donaldson/Bautista/Encarnacion/Martin/Smoak or Coloabello/Revere/Pillar/Goins or Pennington. Pretty straightforward.

don't care so much about the order, just think the narratives are funny given those stats.

oh man if that was Bautista jogging all the (not-racist) media and fans would br freaking out.

I'm not sure if it's racism there, ugly.  Donaldson made a mental mistake, as many players sometimes do, and it probably cost the Jays a run.  But I don't think anyone would freak out about it, unless it was a player with a long history of laziness or mental errors.  And Donaldson is certainly not that.  Given his history of incredible efforts (diving into the stands for foul balls, scoring runs on shallow pop-ups, flying over catchers to reach home plate), it's pretty hard to berate him for sloppiness or laziness in this one instance.  He gets a bit of a pass on it.  I think Bautista probably would too, even if his past efforts haven't always been as spectacular as JD's.

i've even heard people talking about Donaldson's calming influence on bautista and encarnacion in complaining about balls and strikes.

this after bautjsta has had to physically intervene between donaldson and the home plate ump. and while ee is the calmest player of all time.

Overheard in the Yankee dugout today:

Nah, it's only 5-0...

Ugly, if you mean "a few fans" when you say "people" -- then yes, I agree, there are some idiots out there in fandom, and maybe even a few racists. Just please don't apply the brush too broadly.

Guessing Donaldson gets fined by his teammates.

i am quite comfortable with the breadth of my brush, thanks.

Ouch we were kinda relying on Archer to shut the Yanks down today. Guess old guys can still hit homers.

Royals down big early, tho!

Cueto bopped for 5 runs so far today. He's given up 22 R/21 ER in his last 20 IP.

Yeah we certainly picked up the right rental. Than again always felt that someone who relied so much on windup/delivery tricks had to be compensating for something.

I don't know if the subject has been breached here before, but since the Orioles are here...

Apparently throwing a cutter is not allowed in Baltimore.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dan-duquette-doesnt-like-cutters/

Interestingly enough an ex-Oriole named Jake Arietta is leading the Cubs in War using, predictably, a cutter.

I'm sure Cueto can't wait to go back in the NL.

what's real interestint about Cueto to me is that it's only over the last year or two that analytics types started seeing enough sample size to buy into his apparent FIP-beating tendencies.

and so far while his fips and such have been a bit worse in the AL than the NL (though nothing unexpected from the league change) the big difference has been that his era is no longer beating the underlying numbers.

It seems he throws his fastball more than before, which is weird for a guy with 7 pitches.
He walks less, strikeouts less and gets hit more. Fewer ground ball outs, more line drive hits.

Are you sure Arrieta is throwing cutters? PITCHf/x calls them sliders, and everything I read about him recently raves about his slider.

FG PITCH TYPE says he throws cutters but zero sliders.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/jake-arrietas-one-grip-multi-slider/

Small sample size alert! Those numbers are just as worthy of scare quotes as "comfort".

Last I looked, Tulo's BABIP was on the low side which is another hand waving argument/ad hoc explanation. Tulo has seemed to be fooled badly fair frequently he's clearly not comfortable or adjusting well to AL pitchers he's faced -- the comfort idea for either success or failure, is not scientific in that we'll never have the insight into what's going on.

the comfort idea for either success or failure, is not scientific in that we'll never have the insight into what's going on.

Agreed. "Comfort" is a terrific post hoc explanation, at least when fulfilling the human need to attach causality to a set of events. It's the rare hitter indeed who looks comfortable while he's busy hitting .220.

Tulo SwStr%

2011 - 4.6%
2012 - 4.4%
2013 - 6.5%
2014 - 7.1%
2015C- 9.4%
2015T- 9.9%

royals lose.

4 games back.

It's been 22 years since I last had to compute "magic numbers", so please help me out.  The Jays are 8 games ahead of the Twins (the team closest to a WC spot) with 26 games remaining in the season.   Does this mean that their "magic number" is 18 for clinching their first playoff spot since 1993?  With the caveat that some other team could overtake the Twins and then the magic number would have to be recalculated, of course.

Magic number = games remaining - (difference in losses) + 1 (the "+ 1" ensures the leading team will be ahead, not tied, with the trailing team.)

So it's 19 over the Twins at the moment.

Thanks!   It's much too early to be calculating magic numbers anyway, but I want to be ready in a couple weeks when the number becomes a lot smaller.  And then the magic number for the division title....

The edge case, the the Jays go 0-26 and the Twins go 26-0. In that case the Jays have 78 wins and the Twins 104. If the Jays win 18 and they are at 96. If my thinking is correct the magic number is 34.

But like you China it has been a long time...

Hm. Thanks for your help, I think I can wrap my head around the number now and see where my holiday weekend brain went wrong.

A simpler formula is "Magic Number = 163 minus (Jays Wins) minus (Twins Losses)", e.g., right now that's 163 - 78 - 66 = 19.

Ugh that's embarrassing. The formula is on wikipedia... forgot to do what is nwcessary in the internet age -- when in doubt Google it.

Checking magic numbers... Phillies 'tragic number' to be eliminated from wild card contention is 1, Atlanta 2, Oakland is the worst in the AL at 13.

For the AL East tragic numbers are...
Boston: 13
Baltimore: 14
Tampa: 16
NYY: 26 (also the Jays magic number).

Milwaukee & Cincinnati have both been eliminated in the NL Central race.  No one else is lower than 4 for tragic number.  So it'll be a few days before Philly is fully eliminated.

All though games of today.