Series Recap: Yankees @ Blue Jays, Aug. 4 - 5.

The Yanks were in town for a quick two game set against the Jays this week. The Jays came into the series undefeated in August (hey, I know it's only 2-for-2, but at this point in the season, any glimmer of success feels damn good). Well, the Bronx Bombers quickly stamped the shit out of any feel-good feelings; late inning shit pitching was the story in both losses.

Game 1:
Yankees 5, Blue Jays 3

I'm really getting sick and tired of this horseshit: Why was Kevin Millar hitting 4th? Why is he even on the team. His slash line going into the game was an absolutely pathetic .227/.302/.386 with 5, yes 5, home runs. And how about that rainbow toss to Halladay on a routine grounder hit his way. That costly error lead to the second Yankee run in the first inning. Can we please rid the Jays of Kevin Millar already? Here is an Open letter to Cito gaston by some (drunk) fans—I couldn't agree more.

Despite the little league infielding of the first inning, Halladay pitched a pretty good game until the 8th inning. Let's take a look at Halladay's pitching.

Halladay Pitch Location

The above plot shows where Halladay's pitches crossed the plate from the catcher's point of view. The standard strike-zone is shown in red. Units are in inches. Pitch types are Change Up (CH), Curve (CU), Cutter (FC), and 4-seam fastball (FF)

First thing I noticed right away was that there were a lot of 4-seamers in the middle and upper half of the plate. Halladay is known for good sink on his fastball. Looks like he had issues keeping it down in the zone. He did, however, have a 52% GB rate; even the fastballs in the upper part of the zone were deceiving batters. Halladay also showed great control of his change up, the majority are down and in on righties. Let's take a look at his pitch movement.

Halladay Pitch Movement

(The above plot shows how each pitch moved compared to if the same ball was thrown without any spin.)

Immediately, this plot struck me as being a little odd: Look at the wide distribution in horizontal movement of his 4-seam fastball. It looks like the pitch f/x system had a hard time defining Roy's fastballs. I find it hard to believe that his 4-seamer could vary in horizontal break between about 12 to 3 inches. I'd infer that some pitches that had more inside-out (in on righties) are probably 2-seam fastballs, while some pitches that had more outside-in (away from righties) are cutters. Maybe this is part of Roy's pitching genius: If the computer has trouble deciphering a 4-seam fastball from a cutter, maybe batters face that same problem? Looks like a 4-seamer until the last second and breaks to the right. Rivera has made a great living with a cutter like that.

I just don't understand why Halladay came out to pitch in the 8th. Although his pitch count wasn't overwhelmingly high at the point, it was obvious that Halladay was starting to run on fumes. Why was he still in the game? Lack of confidence in the pen? Probably had something to do with it. But, let's be honest: Roy Halladay was kept in the game just because he's Roy Halladay. Cito Gaston, grow a pair of balls. Halladay gave up back-to-back jacks against Damon and Teixeira putting New York up 4-1. The Jays made a an attempt at a comeback in the bottom half on hits by Scoots and Hill—always doing the lion's share of the clutch offense along with Lind—who were then doubled in by Wells (with a clutch hit against Rivera! Vdub, you shouldn't have, and at home to boot!).

Game note: Kevin "K-lean up" Millar was 0 for 3, 2 SO and a walk. That's some quality 4 spot hitting.

Game 2:
Yankees 8, Blue Jays 4


Cito's open audition for the cleanup stop brought candidate number 2, Lyle Overbay, to the stage—Kevin Millar, you will NOT be going to Hollywood. The Jays were in this one right until the 7th inning when things got Roenicke ugly. Adam Lind came up with a huge solo blast in the 5th to tie the game up at 2 and it looked like the Jays were picking up momentum. Then came the 7th. Cito decided to let Rzed start the inning, which turned into a disaster: First batter Nick Swisher; home run. Second batter Cano; double. That was it for Rzed. Up until that point, he had pitched a pretty damn good game. In total, he allowed 5 hits on struck out 7 and walked one—walked one. Great news. His ball% is started to come down a little too, he threw 40% of his pitches for balls. This still isn't a great number, but he's showing big league improvement. Control has been an issue in all of this other starts; he's starting to get a handle on the ball:

Rzepczynski Pitch Location

What a thing of beauty; there are practically no pitches in the upper half of the plate. Great control of the slider; he kept to the lower left half of the zone. Great control of the 2-seamer; he kept it on the right side of the plate. A great distribution of 4-seamers; he kept them down in the zone.

Rzepczynski Pitch Movement

You can see that he love to throw his slider and he's got good movement.

Rzed was replaced by newcomer Josh Roenicke who had a less than ideal home debut in Toronto. Roenicke was hit around the park—frankly, Rolen could have had a better showing on the mound—and gave up 3 hits and 2 runs on 8 batters. One bright spot—I'm digging here, but I want some optimism for not-Rolen—was that he recorded two Ks in his one inning of work. Carlson came in in the 8th and was hit around a bit, then a hairless and mustacheless Brian Tallet came in in the 9th and gave up a leadoff homer to Mr. Hollywood, Johnny Damon.

The Jays are now 2-2 in August.

Thumbs up goes to...

Marco Scutaro. Scoots was 4 for 10 with a HR(!), which gave him a wOBA of .465 for the series.

Not much great came out of this series...

I'll give an honourable mention to Lyle Overbay. He only played in the second game, but went 2 for 3 and drew a walk in the 4 hole.

Thumbs down goes to...

Josh Roenicke. When you come over in a deal that sees fan favourite Scott Rolen go the other way, you certainly don't want to start off like Josh did at home.

Kevin Millar. See above. Fuck Kevin Millar.

Cito Gaston. Honestly Cito, what the fuck. The lineup is a mess and you're pitching decisions have been questionable over the past few weeks. Don't you let me know now, Cito. Don't you fucking let me down now.

The next series starts on Friday in Toronto against the Orioles. The pitching match-ups are, Cecil (5-1, 4.36) vs. Berken (1-9, 6.93), Romero (10-4, 3.53) vs. Tillman (0-0, 6-75), and Halladay (11-5, 2.75) vs. Matusz (1-0, 1.80)

That Sunday matching will be the one to watch: old versus new. In Matusz's first start last week, he showed some wicked stuff.

Go Jays Go.

Game Recap: Indians-Jays, Game 3.

I just don't get it: how is it that both TSN and RSN don't show a Jays' home game? This makes not fucking sense to me at all. Anyway, luckily for mlb.tv, I got to watch the game, but I was forced to endure the Cleveland feed. To add a little insult to injury, somewhere during the begining of the game—through my rage, I can't remember the exact point—Pat Tabler was shown alone in the TSN broadcasting booth watching the game. Fucking Tabby Cat—put on the damn headset and let's do this! I just don't get it.

R-zep made his fourth start of the year yesterday against Cleveland's David Huff. Marc's line was 4.1IP, 4R, 2ER, 6K, 4BB; definitely the worst of his three outings. I could pretty much describe his start today by copying and pasting my descriptions of his last three starts: control was an issue. On 92 pitches, he threw 53 strikes; this is up slightly from his other outings, but still only 57.6%. Again—like all three of his other starts—walks got him into trouble. The top of the 4th started with a single by Cabrera. R-zep then hit Shin-Soo Choo with a pitch and walked Victor Martinez. Shawn Camp was warming up in the bullpen as all this was unfolding. Here we sat, no outs and the bases jacked. I felt this to be another situation where Cito leaves his starter in for one, two, or ten too many batters.

R-zep then struck out Peralta and then Gargo, both swinging; now it was two outs with the bases still full. I was thinking to myself that the kid found his arm again and would get a little pop-up or a ground out to end the inning. No. Like his first start, he gave up a walk to score a run. He then struck out Jamey Carroll swinging.

I just don't understand how R-zep can be so up and down in one inning of play. Whatever it is, he needs to control his walks a lot better than he has. They've been the problem in all of his starts. For the season, he's now averaging 8.87 K/9 but 6.04 BB/9. Over his outings, he's averaging 4.21 P/PA. If he could throw more strikes, he's sure to win more games.

FanGraph's win probability graph shows that the Jays were in it for most of the game. The spike in the 9th came when Rios stole second to put himself into scoring position with no outs. Unfortunately, Baw-tista—all Jay fans know that's how it's pronounced, not Ba-tista like the Indians' announcers kept saying all game—Barajas and Overbay couldn't bring in the equalizer.

Rios's play as of late has been a tiny bright spot in a sky of black. Over his last 10 games he has gone 11-34 at the plate, which has him batting .324/.415/.500, with 3 doubles and a home run. Rios has also stolen 5 bases on 5 attempts over that time as well.

Today is Halladay's second last scheduled start before the "Jays Line." Should be a good one; I bet the Dome will be full.

Game Recap: Indians-Jays, game 1.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I didn't get a chance to watch much of the game live. I did take advantage of one of my favourite mlb.tv features, and I watched the condensed game this morning.

The starting pitchers certainly did their part in this one: Cecil line was 7.0IP, 7H, 0ER, 4BB, 9K and Lee pitched the complete game with, 7H, 1ER, 0BB, and 4K.

One this I did notice in this game was that Cecil gave up a lot of extra-base hits, but they were spread across the game, so they didn't result in any earned runs. Cecil also had a decent strike count, recording 67 strikes on 108 pitches. He also had a very good ground balls to fly balls ration at 10-4, which might explain why he gave up hard hits for extra bases, but no home runs. Brett also did a great job peppering the strike zone as shown in the PitchFx graph. He also showed great speed on his fastball which averaged 91.6mph, peaked at 93.4mph and he was able to keep excellent control

Yet another very good outing from a young arm. I'm looking forward to tonight's matching where Romero takes on Pavano in the Dome.

Game Recap: Sox-Jays, Game 2

After his first two Big League starts were very repsectable, LHP Marc Rzepczynski got his first win MLB win. Yesterday's performance was similar to his other two starts: 6.0IP, 4H, 1ER, 4BB, and 4K—another quality start, keeping his QS to GS ratio at a perfect 1.000. In total he threw 109 pitches where 59 of those where for strikes; he his still struggling a little at finding the strike zone and, although he's striking batters out—8.00 K/9 over 3 three starts—his walks have gotten him into some trouble—5.50 BB/9 over his last three starts. Also, over his three starts only 58.4% of his pitches where strikes. Comparing this number to the other Jays starters, Halladay (68.7%), Tallet (60.4%), Romero (60.8%), and Richmond (60.8%), if he could get that number up a bit, he could dominate deeper into games. That being said, he's currently averaging just about 103 pitches per start, which I find to be impressive for a kid who has spent most of this time in New Hampshire this season.

Adam Lind continued his great offensive season with a homerun and a pair of RBIs. Scott Rolen had another great day at the plate going 2-3 with a walk and scored two runs. He also added another gem to his already long highlight real when he robbed JD Drew of a base hit on a liner near second (Rolen was player over in the shift). Overbay also had a good day at the plate, going 2-4 and scored once. It's slightly disturbing to me that trade rumours involving Rolen and Overbay are swirling around, especially since it seems like Boston is interested in Rolen to replace Lowell who has been struggling with injury. Hopefully Rolen didn't showcase his talent too well yesterday.

Vernon Wells sat out his second straight game with what head athletic trainer George Poulis described as violently explosive diarrhea. I really don't mind the outfield looking like Bautista-Rios-Lind, not at all. Although, Delucci has been playing good defence lately, but he injured his foot—x-rays came back negative—during the first game of the series. His bat has been absolutely attrocious though.

Today's game should be a pitching gem: Halladay versus Lester. This is the first of three starts that Halladay will probably have before the July 31st no waiver trade deadline.

Game Recap: Jays-Orioles, Game 3.

The Jays suffered another disappointing loss yesterday to the fucking Orioles; they lost the series 1-2 and go into the all-star break two games below .500 at (44-46). With a win by the Red Sox, the Jays now fall to 11.0 GB in the ALE: below the Medosa Line I created for myself last week.

That's it. I've officially lost hope on this season. Let's now all pray that JP doesn't completely fuck all hopes for next season. With all of these trade rumors about Halladay floating around, who knows what will happen. Am I against the Jays trading away the number one pitcher in baseball? Absolutely not. Although Halladay is signed through next season, I ask myself, what is the probability that we get to resign him past 2010? Not good. If that's the case, we might as well get some damn good tier fucking A+++++ prospects that are damn well near Major League ready.

It hurts me to think of Halladay in any uniform other than the Jays', but this is 'big picture' stuff. Do they Jays have a chance at the post season next year? Somewhat. With all these young arms coming back from the DL (Marcum, McGowan, Litch), other young arms who have proven that they at least deserve a shot at a legitimate spot in the Bigs (Romero, Rzepczynski, Ray), consistency might be a big issue next year; I'd put their chances of the playoffs in 2010 somewhere around 20-30% and that's with Roy. So, do we keep him around and probably loose him about the '10 season, or do we deal him when he's ripe for the pickin' and get something good in return? I tend toward the latter, but we better get an unbelievable package in return.

I think all Jays' fans are going to have to come to terms with one obvious fact: we will not get fair value for Halladay, in a strict linear dollar-for-dollar sense. No team has or would be willing to give up the number of prospects and players that would equal to Roy's true value (this article explains this concept quite well). In my opinion, something really good—not excellent, as what Halliday would be truly worth—is better than nothing.

Back to yesterday's game and a more positive note. Rzepczynski had another very good start. Here's the line on his outing:

IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	SO	GSc	DEC	ERA
6	5	3	3	1	3	5	52	L(0-1)	3.00

He's now 2-2 for Quality Starts, but unfortunately his record is 0-1 as the bats just haven't been there to back him up. He still struggled a bit with control with a pitches-strikes count of 94-59, which is marginally better than his first outing. If Mark can find the strike zone a little more, he'd be able to go longer into games, produce less walks (which have gotten him into trouble in both his outings), and probably produce a few more Ks. Take a look at the graph to the left; it shows the position of all balls, strikes and hits. There seems to be a lot of scatter on the left-hand side. The outing produced another respectable Game Score of 52.

This all looks very promising.