John_Havok

It might just be wishful thinking but there’s clear times in the games where he’s able to locate the fastball in the zone and easily blows guys away. His slider, when properly working off an effective fastball can be good. His change/splitter is a good pitch too, though he hasn’t really thrown it much lately, and should probably be throwing it more. Todays game, it was clear pretty early his fastball command was bad, the Yankees were sitting slider and because they knew it was coming could easily take or swing away depending how it looked out of his hand. He needs to work that changeup in more and he needs to get that fastball under control. It doesn’t even have to be impeccable command where he dots the corners with it at will, just a solid non-meatball strike kind of command. He’s not that far off from being a 5th starter that throws like a 2-3, but as always its the last incremental adjustment that he and Walker need to figure out to make that happen. There’s not many 5th starters in baseball with his talent and upside. Most of them are already at their ceiling and just eating innings and hoping not to give up 4 runs over 5ish. His talents are plain to see, and with the team winning despite his erratic performances he’s going to be given every opportunity to get it right, especially now with Ryu probably done as a Jay. In any case, he won’t be seen in the playoffs anyways except maybe out of the pen because Manoah, Gausman and Berrios are clearly the top 3 the team will be counting on in any series.

If you follow mlb on yahoo they’ll have a highlights package you can watch, takes about 7 minutes and usually tells the story quite well

Kikuchi isn’t Ray, he can’t be a 2 pitch fastball/slider guy. He needs that third pitch. He threw a couple really good splitters early,

Saw that coming a mile away lol

White flag by Charlie early it looks like. Kikuchi looks like he doesn’t even want to throw right now. Human rain delay between every pitch and the rookie warming in the pen.

Kikuchi is barely surviving right now. Has no fastball command at all, Yankees are just sitting on the slider

Lemahieux definitely trying to to rf here

Great. Another game where every close pitch is going to go in favour of the Yankees, which will force the Jays to swing at garbage all day

Not trying to rain on the parade but, keep in mind he’s probably getting a lot of these strikes on swings and misses well out of the zone due to minor league hitters being s*****.

Way too many sliders being thrown right now.

They’re probably all nursing something to some degree. Vlad has DHd on opposite sides of an off day, we know Bichette has a foot contusion that he’s playing through, Chapman and his hand also. You could probably find a reason to DH any regular in the lineup right now, which is why we keep seeing Tapia continue to get way more starts than he should. I’d be playing Biggio over Tapia, but it’s obvious the staff sees things differently.

Judge

I can’t watch this game, this ump is f***ing infuriating

I was looking at the past month numbers. Yeah, he’s hot right now, but he should not be in the starting lineup as often as he is. He’s just not that good and he’s utter trash in the field

I’d dispute your definition of “well” but he has hit well enough to be a backup over the past month. Too bad he’s playing way more often than he should be

Espinal been scuffling lately, some bad swings early in counts

That was a fortunate hop right into the glove.

So sick of seeing Tapia in the lineup.

FO has been perfectly clear on Pearson, he’s being built up to be at least a multi inning reliever and he has to earn the promotion. Hasn’t done that yet, so far having thrown 4 appearances, all out of the pen, hasn’t gone more than 2 innings and has been 6 days between each appearance. Doesn’t sound like he’s coming back to the rotation this season to me.

Just checking in, seems the one bad inning curse as a result of using the worst relievers available isn’t a good recipe for success

GS spent $175m on team salary and another $170m on luxury tax penalties in 2021-22. Damn.

Probably Espinal at 3rd, Biggio at 2b and the rest largely the same I would guess. never know what course they would have taken with Biggio's injury time early one, maybe Lopez comes up sooner ... maybe Taylor ... hard to say really. But if that was the case, arguably the lineup might not have suffered at all. Espinals D at 3b isnt a massive drop from Chapman, though it's not top tier elite like Chappy for sure. I think if they had signed verlander, maybe they chase Ramirez that much harder and land him and he'd be playing 3rd, Espinal at 2b, Biggio and a pile of prospects gone. so hard to speculate.

Maybe, though if Lopez is already with the team and both Bichette and Chapman banged up, I dont think they carry 3 catchers and they'll just activate Lopez and punt Lawrence.

They signed Gausman on Dec 1, and were still offering 25 million to Verlander in mid december. Then Kikuchi and Chapman were added for about the same amount, just 12m each in mid March. It's kind of an interesting thought exercise to go back and consider if the Jays would even have traded for Chapman ( no way they would have signed Kikuchi at that point for sure).

INteresting that it took this long and an injury to BIchette to put the best players in the lineup.