Blue Jays (Lauer) vs Rays (Martinez): 5/4/26, 6:40pm

[Brandon Glick]

It sounds like Lauer is grabbing the start again. Let's hope for the best.

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Tyler Rogers	0	0	9	0	0	9
Tommy Nance	7	18	0	0	14	39
Spencer Miles	26	0	0	15	0	41
Mason Fluharty	0	27	0	12	0	39
Louis Varland	0	0	27	0	0	27
Joe Mantiply	10	5	0	0	14	29
Jeff Hoffman	0	0	16	0	12	28
Braydon Fisher	17	0	9	0	18	44

[Laika]

Rays are 21-12 

4th best record in baseball

8th best run differential 

BUT 

25th in hitter fWAR, with a 96 wRC+ and negative DEF and BsR
13th in pitcher fWAR, 4.19 FIP against 3.78 ERA

WAY over their skis and getting lucky, Toronto better than them at everything

So I am looking forward to getting swept 

 

[Olerud363.354]

9 minutes ago, Laika said:

So I am looking forward to getting swept 

Just root for as many watchable innings as possible.   There will be 2 blowouts and a dramatic blown loss.  So root the blowouts to start inning 4, and then could get 15 watchable innings (first 3 of the blowouts and the whole 9 inning dramatic blown loss). 

5 under 10 back of Yankees, 9 back of Rays, headed home to play Detroit.  But still within 2.5 or something of 3rd wild card.

Season won't be quite over-over even after this sweep due to weakness of 3rd wild card. 

[harvey16]

Hate playing in the house of horrors aka The Trop, I'll be happy of we can win the series. 

[Olerud363.354]

Still a little weird what happened with Heineman.  Almost thinking maybe he had a real negative moment and Schneider pulled him because his head wasn't in the game?   

Like just started muttering 'I'm worthless.  I suck."  I mean what else? 

Missed a take sign?  Why would there be a take sign early in the count?  Not sure I ever heard that because you don't want to get behind in the count and want to hammer an early cookie if it comes. 

Hungover and just became obvious after that at bat?  Hates his team-mates and called them names?  Told Schneider he was a stupid-ass for not pinch hitting for him? 

[Olerud363.354]

https://torontosun.com/sports/baseball/toronto-blue-jays/fallout-blue-jays-tyler-heineman-john-schneider

Sun makes it seem Schneider was just pissed at the "quality" of the at-bat.

Didn't see it.  Where was the pitch?   I mean if he swung at a first pitch and missed it... so be it.

How many times has Vladdy done that and grounded into a double play?

How many times last game did Sosa swing at pitches no where close to the zone?

Like they are behnching guys now for missing a pitch?  Or swing at a bad pitch?

Then bench Sosa too. 

[Laika]

This was the pitch, Context:

• Sweeper is Taylor Rogers' best pitch. So you swung at a pitcher's pitch, on the first pitch, and hit a pop fly. 
• It was the second time Heineman saw Rogers in this outing. The Twins really stretched Rogers out as the Jays didn't make him work. Rarely do you get to see a reliever twice in one game; this probably played into why Heineman was even allowed to hit in that situation and Schneider's frustrations. The first PA was 3 pitches. So Heineman gave this soft-tosser 2 outs on 4 pitches. 

But yeah, Lenyn Sosa swung at two sweepers that inning that could have hit him if he didn't foul them off. 

So part of this is also the fact that Heineman has one of the worst xwOBA's in baseball. Just complete offensive incompetence. But he's a backup catcher... 

I think something had to have been said. 

"Why did you swing at that?"
"Piss off, John" 

[RA Whiffleball]

42 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Still a little weird what happened with Heineman.  Almost thinking maybe he had a real negative moment and Schneider pulled him because his head wasn't in the game?   

Like just started muttering 'I'm worthless.  I suck."  I mean what else? 

Missed a take sign?  Why would there be a take sign early in the count?  Not sure I ever heard that because you don't want to get behind in the count and want to hammer an early cookie if it comes. 

Hungover and just became obvious after that at bat?  Hates his team-mates and called them names?  Told Schneider he was a stupid-ass for not pinch hitting for him? 

Don't know why JS didn't pinch-hit for him in the first place. Taking him out after the fact doesn't really help us; that was a key moment of the game. 

Perhaps JS was being clever by taking him out to distract the media from grilling him about the decision not to pinch-hit in that situation.

[RA Whiffleball]

1 hour ago, Laika said:

Rays are 21-12 

4th best record in baseball

8th best run differential 

BUT 

25th in hitter fWAR, with a 96 wRC+ and negative DEF and BsR
13th in pitcher fWAR, 4.19 FIP against 3.78 ERA

WAY over their skis and getting lucky, Toronto better than them at everything

So I am looking forward to getting swept 

 

It doesn't seem to matter what they're doing, where they are in the standings, we just s*** the bed against them, especially at the Graveyard.

[Brownie19]

It almost seems like our approach at the plate has disappeared since Donnie Baseball left the bench...

[RA Whiffleball]

This has opener written all over it. I would be surprised if JS feeds Lauer to the top of their order in the 1st inning.

The other concern is Berrios is doing his best Max Scherzer imitation in his rehab.

Anyone know what's going on with Bieber? 

[RA Whiffleball]

1 minute ago, Brownie19 said:

It almost seems like our approach at the plate has disappeared since Donnie Baseball left the bench...

Yeah, we miss his baserunning expertise.

[G-Snarls]

8 minutes ago, RA Whiffleball said:

This has opener written all over it. I would be surprised if JS feeds Lauer to the top of their order in the 1st inning.

The other concern is Berrios is doing his best Max Scherzer imitation in his rehab.

Anyone know what's going on with Bieber? 

Idk but we need him 

Berrios is getting lit up in AAA

[Olerud363.354]

25 minutes ago, Laika said:

"Why did you swing at that?"
"Piss off, John" 

I guess he should have said "Got fooled skip, looked like a hanger.  You probably remember that feeling from your cup of coffee in Syracuse.  Or maybe you don't as they didn't sweep like that 2006 in the International League"

Or maybe he did say that. 

 

 

[Olerud363.354]

10 minutes ago, Brownie19 said:

It almost seems like our approach at the plate has disappeared since Donnie Baseball left the bench...

Donnie baseball Tips - "back in 1985 I had henderson on 350 times in front me, on second base 120 times, so what I'd do is wait till the last microsecond and if was a breaking ball I'd line it over the short porch, if it was a fast ball I'd line it up the middle, try to get it into the gap.  Key is to just wait to the last second then react.  Let your hand eye coordination work for you.  And don't get distracted by anything, I mean I had Ricky running all over the place and still squared it up all the time.  Just got to let your hand eye coordination work for you.  That's what I did."

Leonys Sosa - Never thought of that Donnie, I'll let the ball get a bit deeper and let my hand eye work for me.  

[G-Snarls]

14 minutes ago, Olerud363.354 said:

Donnie baseball Tips - "back in 1985 I had henderson on 350 times in front me, on second base 120 times, so what I'd do is wait till the last microsecond and if was a breaking ball I'd line it over the short porch, if it was a fast ball I'd line it up the middle, try to get it into the gap.  Key is to just wait to the last second then react.  Let your hand eye coordination work for you.  And don't get distracted by anything, I mean I had Ricky running all over the place and still squared it up all the time.  Just got to let your hand eye coordination work for you.  That's what I did."

Leonys Sosa - Never thought of that Donnie, I'll let the ball get a bit deeper and let my hand eye work for me.  

Worked for him!  145 legendary RBIz

Mattingly:

[G-Snarls]

Goddamn he didn't strike out much either

[Olerud363.354]

1 hour ago, G-Snarls said:

Worked for him!  145 legendary RBIz

Mattingly:

Back in '85 145 rbizzzz.  MVP.  Deservedly.  145 RBIZZZ.  

Mattinlgy's hitting tips part 2:  Ricky was distracting as f***.  All over the bases.  Being Ricky.  But I just let my hand eye do the work and I won the MVP.  5.6% k %.  You gotta make contact.   I had 100 more rbizzzz then strike-outs.  You guys are the opposite.   Take this Davis Schneider kid, 45 rbiz 144 strike outs.  Like literally the opposite compared to me in 1985.     We gotta reverse that.  We gotta your hand eye coordination working for you.  Let's watch some video of me driving in Ricky.  I'll show you how it's done.