I'd like to ruffle his plumage
That Baltimore Oriole

Road trip! Beginning with a double-header against the division leaders.


Zach Eflin makes his Orioles debut today - he pitched a good game against the Jays just last week when he was still a Devil Fish (the Jays scored four runs late against Jason Adam, when he was still a Devil Fish, to win it.) Cade Povich is a skinny southpaw coming up to work the double header, rather like Bowden Francis for the Jays.

Yusei Kikuchi is still the scheduled starter for Wednesday, what with him still being on the team and all, although it seems unlikely that he'll still be a Blue Jay by the time Wednesday comes around. Justin Turner is also doing his level best to impress anyone who might be paying attention - he's hitting .565/.600/.783 over the past week.

For the first three months of 2024, Trevor Richards was one of the few competent, reliable people in the Blue Jays bullpen. His manager leaned on him, heavily. Very heavily. Richards appeared in 35 of the team's first 81 games - you can all do that math, he was on pace for 70 appearances over the whole year. It's quite a bit more work than the 56 games he appeared in last season. He had also been ridiculously lucky on his Balls In Play - his strikeout rate was actually down, rather significantly, from 2023 but the opposition was hitting a feeble .157 on their Balls In Play.

It seemed unlikely that either his workload, or his good fortune, or both, would be sustainable in the long run. The reckoning has come, and it has been For Mature Audiences Only. In his last 6 outings, Richards has faced 33 batters and retired just 13 of them. He's pitched 4.1 innings, allowed 14 Hits and 6 BB, and seen his season ERA go from 2.54 to 4.83.

Richards has still allowed just 36 Hits in his 50.1 IP this season, which is still an outstanding level of performance - 6.4 Hits/9 IP. Only Chad Green is stingier with the base hit. Genesis Cabrera, who like Richards, has issued 3.9 BB per 9 IP and allowed 1.3 HRs, has allowed 9.3 Hits per 9 - it's by far the largest difference in their performance (besides the fact that Cabrera doesn't strike out very many hitters.) Richards has put 58 hitters on base, and 30 of them - more than half - have come around to score. Cabrera has put 63 hitters on base, but just 23 of them have scored. That's not really random luck, of course - Richards has given up almost 40% of the hits he's allowed all season in the last six of his 44 appearances (which is also when he's given up more than half of the runs he's allowed.) You might say that the opposition has effectively bunched their production against him.

We all bid a teary goodbye to Danny Jansen and Yimi Garcia this week (and a not-so-teary goodbye to Nate Pearson), and I know some people pointed out that the team could always pursue them this winter in free agency. I instinctively recoil from the suggestion. I associate it, probably unfairly, with the Maple Leafs and hence a Thing To Be Avoided. (I don't know that the Leafs have actually brought back more people for a second tour than the Blue Jays, or if it just seems that way.) The Jays have even brought back two of the thirteen people they've hired to manage the team for a second tour of duty, and I'll wager not many other teams (non-Steinbrenner division) have done that. Anyway, I generally think it's a mistake and should be avoided. OK, J.A. Happ's second tour was actually better than his first, and each of Tony Fernandez's three (!) returns to the fold had something going for them, even if they never quite matched his first stint as a Jay. I remain dubious.

Matchups

Mon 29 July - Ya. Rodriguez (1-3, 3.69) vs Elfin (5-7, 4.09)
Mon 29 July - Francis (1-2, 5.82) vs Povich (1-4, 6.27)
Tue 30 July - Bassitt (8-9, 3.78) vs Burnes (10-4, 2.45)
Wed 31 July - Kikuchi (4-9, 4.75) vs G. Rodriguez (12-4, 3.82)