Terminator

Tomorrow we have Soriano vs that prepubescent teenager. I think we can get them again. Guardians are facing that hot Royals team again.

Ok you guys I know I said I was done with this team yesterday but hear me out. We need to be just 2 games back of WC3 before we can open up the JAYS PLAYOFF TRACKER thread We started tonight 3.5 back but after we beat the poop out of those dopey grunge-loving Mariners AND the Guardians’ loss, we are only 2.5 back now. That means we only need to make up .5 games until we can open the playoff tracker again. And if we can get to the point where we can open it back up, I honestly think the playoffs will be easy to make. What does everyone think?

Gotta win with Cease on the hill tonight. And if we win this series and the next one against the Guardians, we can at least open the playoff tracker thread back up.

Olerud was the one who asked how much money would you spend to protect your $500M asset? Would another $50M be worth it? We all agreed yes. Let's get Vlad his own personal hitting coach. Who wants 4 million bucks a year? Joey Votto do you need a job?

He's still hitting fastballs okay but his wOBA vs. breaking balls is .218 on the year. That's not a misprint.

We tried but we suck at that even

.710 OPS is a cleanup hitter for this team. Get his bat in the lineup.

Lorenzen's career ISO power is higher than anyone else on the team this year other than Oak. Let's get him some ABs while were at it. We need his pop.

Chandler Simpson has a higher attack angle lmao

Yep, Ted Williams lays this out beautifully in The Science of Hitting. From the book: To add to this, Joey Votto explained how pulling the ball requires better timing as well: (1) It shrinks the sweet spot of the bat and (2) you also have less time to react as you must get your bat out in front of you to meet the ball. Vlad doesn't pull the ball in the air much at all and it's no surprise because it's already hard to do for any hitter for the reasons Votto mentioned, but it's even harder for Vlad because with his downward swing has his bat path in the ball's trajectory even less than everyone else. He's got to be perfect to pull a ball in the air. Despite all this, he's been able to make it work, even if it's frustrating because he could show more power. But this year, something is happening and I'm not quite sure why. I think he's simply (1) having a down year and all the mental struggles that come with that but (2) it's exacerbated by the league figuring him out. If you look at his zone percentages from previous years and compare them to 2026, pitchers are throwing him up more instead of down. Attack angles on pitches up are always worse for every hitter than they are for pitches down, but I wonder if with Vlad it gets to the point that a ball up just breaks his swing completely. Someone like Springer who has as 10 degree attack angle still has a 6 degree attack angle on a pitch up in the zone. But when Vlad has a 1 degree attack angle, he has a -4 degree attack angle on pitches up. You just can't do much with a ball when you are swinging down like that. So pitch Vlad up and he's cooked? https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/vladimir-guerrero-jr-665489?stats=statcast-r-zones-mlb

Cameron's splits aren't very pronounced. (He's a lefty.) He's got a good changeup that he uses against righties. Against lefties he ditches it and uses a slider instead. It's tiny sample sizes, but Cameron and McAdoo both hit changeups well and Gimenez can't hit a slider off a lefty to save his life. Gimenez has that hammy issue so might be a good idea to get him a day off here.

Thank god we won yesterday. Twitter is full of delusional Royals fans who think they still have a chance to make the playoffs.

Yeah there will definitely be some moves. Optioning Little for Mantiply makes sense. Mantiply was on the 60 day IL so they would need to make a 40-man move. Probably Celluci.

Thanks a lot you bums

Don't worry, the Angels are pinch hitting for Tyler Heiniwoman (.448 OPS) with Travis D'Arnope (.506). They got this.

If you need a way to off yourself, might I suggest watching the Angels bullpen try to cling to a lead in a game we need them to win? My cortisol levels are approaching fatal numbers and they haven't even coughed up the lead yet.

They are pulling a 2026 Jays. Outhitting the Angels 7-2 but losing 3-1. Tigers lost and the Mariners are getting clobbered. If these scores hold and we win, please forget everything I said today.

Sean Keys is playing LF in Buffalo this week.

Finally get to the "easy part of the schedule" Only to face the Royals while they are in the midst of a historic winning streak followed by the Mariners right as Big Dumper finds his 60-homer stroke This season friggin' sucks

Ok you guys I guess the path forward is this: Get 1-2 production out of Cease and Soriano. We squeeze more juice out of Spaghetti almost instantly and he pitches like a #3 or 4. Scherzer is showing a pulse with a 4.41 FIP in the 2nd half but he needs to be more consistent. Taillon comes back and pitches like a #5. Trey comes back in 2-3 weeks. Vlad snaps out of it. 2 or 3 of the other guys in our lineup get hot like Kirk. Each point above is possible in its own right, but we need at least 5 or 6 of them to happen and that seems pretty tough. So while I can't say that the playoffs will be easy to make, it is still possible.

The path to the playoffs was there, and the team was executing it. But these latest injuries might be the death blow. Losing Trey was a huge hit, but Bieber dealing again gave us some hope. Now that he’s out too, it’s getting hard to see how we pull this off. Cease, Soriano, Bieber and two s*** starters was doable. But winning series after series with only two real starters is a much tougher ask. You all know me. I’ll find a way to polish this turd, but you're going to have to give me a minute.

I was reading how the AA ball is different from the AAA and MLB ball. Skipping AAA might present a bigger challenge than it used to? The Mariners do this all the time but I'm not sure if things are different with the ball now than they were then.

It really doesn’t matter if he takes 2nd though. Hell they’d probably give it to him on indifference the next play anyway.

Yeah we are getting to the point where it’s time to shut it down and get ready for next year Not worth pushing Cease, Soriano, Trey, etc. when we can’t hit and the rotation features Scherzer, SWR and Spaghetti