glory

Kirk's wRC+ up to 122 now.

Usain Bolt couldn’t have run faster than John Schneider just did to take the ball from Berrios’ hand.

I'd be pretty shocked if Vlad isn't voted in as the starting 1B. As far as Clement, super utility IF that can hit LHP (hopefully that part of his offensive game is sustainable) is fine. The Jays are going to twist themselves into a pretzel to get him everyday AB's this season, so he will get a lot of PA's, but ultimately he's someone you'd want on the bench to cover all the IF positions.

I remember reading that Cherington was apparently trying to trade for Horwitz for a while. So just demote Roden, let him have a 1.100 OPS in AAA by hitting nothing but 89 mph line drives, and then trade him to Pittsburgh.

There’s definitely some necessity involved here, but Francis has a -1.0 WAR. Easton Lucas had 2 good starts followed by 2 bad starts and was immediately demoted. He came up and pitched really well as a long man and was demoted again. Lauer actually has a MLB track record as a serviceable back end #5 SP, and they are using him in a bulk role rather than trying to get him to eat up as many innings as possible. I’m not saying Lauer and Lucas would be any good but better than a -1.0 WAR and 19 HR in 60 IP? It would be difficult to be as bad as that, much less worse than that. Either way maybe you get lucky and someone surprises for a few weeks/months. That’s really all they need. They’ll definitely make a trade closer to the deadline so they just need to keep throwing s*** at the wall and hope something sticks until then. You can’t keep throwing Francis out there and expecting different results when nothing indicates that what he’s doing now is a fluke. Would they be giving him this much rope if those 9 starts last year didn’t happen? Maybe but I doubt it. Either way, as others have said, they really need to make a trade soon rather than closer to the end of July, Margin for error isn’t very big for this team, and they won’t last with 3 SPs and 2 bullpen games a week. I agree Alcantara is a great target as a buy low and the Marlins are beyond cheap. Don’t think the Marlins would sell low like that but who knows.

It's amazing how much rope Francis has been given due to essentially 9 starts in 2024. Before those last 9 starts in 2024, he had a 5.64 ERA/5.61 FIP in 44.2 IP (10 HR allowed) that season. Then he went on a fluke run for 2 months, and now they are allowing him to give up 19 home runs and 24 walks in 60 innings apparently without fear of losing his rotation spot. Hopefully it's just a timing thing and he's the next demotion.

Francis and Swanson pitching 4 of the 5 innings today and the Jays only being down 3 is probably a miracle. Still a winnable game, but I have no clue how they get through another 3 innings in relief, much less 4 if the offense actually does come back from this. The Jays are going to have to decide if they want to maximize Lauer's effectiveness or not run the pen into the ground. He can't be a 3 inning bulk guy when Francis is also in the rotation. The pen is on fumes because of that.

Turnbull throwing 86 mph is better than Francis. Make the switch.

Bring the pen in and demote Francis after the game to get a fresh arm tomorrow. That's all you can do at this point. Keeping him in is just asking to lose this game.

Shulman mentioned that possibility (Swanson in the 9th) during the broadcast, which terrified me, but thankfully it didn’t happen. He was just spitballing assuming Hoffman wasn’t available.

That was more my fear of Swanson in the 9th, but yeah Fisher might be safe in more high leverage spots.

7 HR's allowed for Hoffman already. Not good. Hopefully it's correctable as the rest of his numbers look fine. Another good win on the road. Nice to get the first 2 with Francis up next.

Not watching the game so not sure who is warming up, but I'd have Fisher pitch a 2nd inning before I trust Swanson with a 1 run lead in the 9th.

Fisher + Swanson to end the game (possibly). Let the rain come down hard now.

Green is going to end the season with a -1.0 WAR and 3.80 ERA.

6 IP/3 ER against is a great start for Gausman against Minnesota. All I remember the past couple of years is him getting wrecked by the Twins. Now need the bats to wake up.

Big time win on the road.

Swanson better pitch the 9th. I guess I’ll give Schneider the benefit of the doubt here because the low leverage relievers on the team will all be pitching tomorrow hoping to get through 6, so options aside from Swanson (who better pitch the 9th!) were limited.

Doesn't seem likely with Schneider managing, as he is probably twitching to make a pitching change even now, but Bassitt going 7-8 innings today would be huge for the weekend. The Jays have an intentional bullpen game on Friday, and then an unintentional bullpen game on Sunday with Francis starting, so having a fresh pen for the weekend would be ideal.

Below average speed and fielding will hurt his upside a bit, but if the bat is legit, then it certainly help compensate for that. Let's see what he does with more AAA PA's. If he's destroying AAA like he destroyed AA, with underlying/Statcast numbers to match, then he becomes a very interesting piece. A bat-first anything would be helpful to the Jays given their offensive struggles from 2023-2025 (pre May 2025).

Pinango hit a HR last night that went 448 feet with a 109 EV. Apparently based on a screenshot someone posted on X, he also hit 3 balls that were 113, 104, and 109 (single and 2 groundouts) two days ago. No idea how his defense and baserunning grade out, but if he’s hitting the ball that hard then there might be some real upside with the bat. He’s been drawing walks and not striking out that much either so far this season (15.2 BB%, 20.6 K%). At least he might be someone to keep an eye on.

Nice start by Berrios. The bats need to get it going now.

Haven’t seen this posted anywhere else but justified if true. He’s already 24 and doing well in AA. Not much else to do at that level. The team really needs to move some Buffalo position player depth for a SP. It won’t be a great one but “better than Francis” shouldn’t be a high bar to climb.

Yeah Francis is awful, and they have no 5th SP. Not sure how this fix this barring a lot of luck.

Francis is not a big league starter with the amount of taters he gives up. Very frustrating to watch him start. Unfortunately the Jays aren't facing the A's rotation, so this might be a tough hill to climb.