Rabu, 07 Agustus 2019

Pressure on Blue Jays’ Grichuk, Hernandez to fulfill potential increases - Sportsnet.ca

Buddy Boshers came so close to a massive moment for the 2019 Toronto Blue Jays. Entering the season, did you ever expect an article on this team to begin like that? And knowing what you know now, is that not an absolutely fitting start to an article about this team? Did you know Boshers was pitching in Mexico in May? Were you aware Buddy’s last name is pronounced bo-SHEERS? Is this real life?

Anyway, there Boshers was in the bottom of the 10th at Tropicana Field, having loaded the bases with none out in a 6-6 game after a double, a walk, and a sacrifice bunt that produced zero outs. Tampa Bay Rays surrounded him. The infield moved in.

But then Boshers — who spent his entire 2015 season playing independent ball — got Tommy Pham to look at a beautiful, full-count curveball for an out. And he got Travis d’Arnaud to swing through another curve for a second. The infield moved back.

Suddenly, Boshers was ahead of Austin Meadows, and within a strike of escaping the jam of all jams when he let loose a curveball with just a bit too much bite, which hit the dirt in front of his catcher, Danny Jansen, and skirted to the backstop. Kevin Kiermaier raced home with the game-winning run. Moment dashed.

Oh well. They’ll do it all over again Wednesday, a mere 14 hours after Tuesday’s game concluded. Boshers — 31-years-old, breaking ball specialist, only about a year-and-a-half of service time, pitching for his seventh MLB organization — isn’t the kind of guy who gets gif’ed by Pitching Ninja or talked up on MLB Network. But he came within a strike of a massive moment Tuesday at The Trop. And if you’re hanging in for extra innings with these 46-70 Blue Jays as they wander deep within the rebuild forest, you get to see stuff like that go down.

Three in a hurry
Rays opener Andrew Kittredge was featuring some pretty unhittable stuff in the early going, striking out the first five batters he faced while piling up eight swinging strikes and making Blue Jays batters look silly:

But it was the bottom half of Toronto’s order that finally got to him, as Randal Grichuk shot a 1-0 slider into left field for a two-out double before Teoscar Hernandez worked an excellent plate appearance, battling back from 0-2 to earn an eight-pitch walk. That set the table for Brandon Drury, who got ahead 2-0 before turning on a pitch at his belt and driving it into the left field seats for a three-run shot:

Let’s have a quick word about the two players Drury drove in. Grichuk was given a five-year, $52 million extension early this April, which significantly raised fan expectations of his performance. Suffice it to say, many were disappointed to see him sporting a .687 OPS on July 28, a game shy of his 100th of the season. That came at the end of a miserable, 17-game run in which Grichuk went 11-of-61 at the plate.

But he has 13 hits over 35 at-bats since that slump, and has raised his OPS by nearly 35 points. He has a while to go to match the .803 OPS (above average for an MLB outfielder) he posted last season, but Grichuk’s on a real tear at the moment, and has done plenty to get himself out of the hole he dug last month. Ultimately, he’ll need to find a way to be more consistent at the plate going forward.

Hernandez fits a similar offensive profile to Grichuk (high exit velocities, low on-base percentages) and has had a similarly disappointing year, which resulted in the 26-year-old being demoted to triple-A earlier this season. But Hernandez has been slowly reversing his course as well, raising his .562 OPS at the time of his demotion all the way to .724 entering Tuesday’s game.

Most encouraging is that he’s upped his walk rate to 8.8 per cent this season from 7.8 per cent in 2018. The more Hernandez can lay off pitches outside the zone, the more he’ll see hittable ones he can attack with his undeniably powerful bat. Becoming more disciplined and selective is an extremely difficult thing for a hitter to do. But Hernandez is making progress, and he demonstrated that in his plate appearance against Kittredge, laying off a pair of very tough sliders with two strikes from a pitcher featuring nasty, swing-and-miss stuff:

With Derek Fisher — who the organization clearly likes a great deal — now in the fold, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., not going anywhere, and Billy McKinney and Anthony Alford occupying 40-man roster spots at triple-A, the pressure on Grichuk and Hernandez to fulfill their potential has increased. They’re currently receiving everyday playing time and ought to make the most of it if they want to still be seeing that many plate appearances once the Blue Jays are ready to contend again. In the final third of a losing season, those two have plenty to play for.

Thornton’s inconsistent season continues
Blue Jays starter Trent Thornton was steady through his first three innings, allowing only a walk and two singles as he cruised into the fourth. But that’s when it all fell apart, as the Rays broke out with six hits — including three two-run homers — to chase Thornton from the game.

What went wrong? A collection of things. For starters, Rays hitters seemed to have a better approach after getting a good look at Thornton’s stuff in the early innings. And the 25-year-old has struggled when going through an order twice this season. Coming into Tuesday’s start, Thornton had allowed a .741 OPS his first time through, and an .844 OPS his second.

But Thornton also left far too many hittable pitches over the heart of the plate as his outing went on. Two of the three home runs came off pitches that were essentially middle-middle, and his pitch chart tells the story of a guy who was struggling mightily to find the edges of the strike zone:

The rough start continues a frustrating run of inconsistency from Thornton this season. He’s had stellar outings against good offences, like when he allowed two runs over 13 innings across back-to-back starts in Boston and Houston this June. But he’s also sprinkled in lacklustre outings like Tuesday’s, which raised his season ERA to 5.55.

Thornton will get his opportunities to improve over the next two months as the Blue Jays continue to evaluate him. But with plenty of pitching prospects on their way up Toronto’s system, he’ll need to show much more consistency if he’s going to hold down a rotation spot long term.

Odds and ends
Plenty of history was made by Bo Bichette, who extended his hit streak to nine with a single off Ryan Yarbrough in the third inning. That broke a Blue Jays record — previously shared by Jesse Barfield and Ryan Goins with eight — for the longest streak to begin an MLB career. And with his double in the seventh, Bichette became the first player in MLB history with 10 extra-base hits through their first nine career games. He now also has the most hits (17) through the first nine career games of any Blue Jay, topping Aaron Hill (15).

Thornton’s season of adjustments continues as he’s now ditched his glasses in favour of contact lenses. Meanwhile, Anthony Kay — one half of the return in the Marcus Stroman trade — is still pitching with his glasses, and had a decent outing for the Buffalo Bisons Tuesday. The left-hander allowed two runs on four hits and three walks while striking out six over five innings. It was a good bounce back effort after Kay was rocked for seven runs (three earned) on nine hits in his Bisons debut.

Thornton’s rough outing didn’t only affect his team in Tuesday’s game, it impacted Wednesday’s as well. Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo was planning to open the afternoon affair with Wilmer Font and bring in Sam Gaviglio behind him. But Montoyo was forced to go to Gaviglio Tuesday instead, which could necessitate a move prior to Wednesday’s game. If no one’s called up, Brock Stewart could be an option to pitch behind Font. The right-hander was working as a triple-A starter when the Blue Jays plucked him off waivers from the LA Dodgers last week.

Cavan Biggio took a Yarbrough sinker for a ride in the third, driving his 10th home run of the season 381-feet over the wall in right. Nearly half (48 per cent) of Biggio’s 248 MLB plate appearances this season have resulted in one of baseball’s three true outcomes: a home run (10), walk (41), or strikeout (69). As long as he can balance that third category with plenty of the first and second, he’ll enjoy a long MLB career.

After his homer in the second, Brandon Drury went on to add a couple more hits. He’s batting .317/.364/.634 in 44 plate appearances over his last 10 games.



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August 07, 2019 at 11:01AM
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