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If this team can finally get the starters, offence and bullpen firing on all cylinders at the same time they will be able to go on an epic run reminiscent of the second half of 2021. Early on the starters and bullpen were good but the offence was s***, then the offence caught fire but the starters and bullpen were both s***. The team is good defensively and has an elite offensive lineup, but it would be a shame if this is all undone by bad pitching, particularly from the bullpen.

He's built from the same mold as Kevin Pillar in that they both completely lack in self preservation instinct. Buxton and Kiermaier are afflicted with this as well.

Tabby is awful but Dan Shulman has the ability to raise his broadcast partners to the point that he's only semi-terrible. When Pat is placed with Buck the two of them rely so much on tired baseball cliches that it's basically unlistenable.

Having somebody blow a start every 5 day goes further than just losing that game. Having your bullpen cover 7 or 8 innings blows up the pen and can really affect the team for the next week. We've seen recently how the blowups by Kikuchi and Berrios have overly taxed the bullpen, and as a knockoff result you end up seeing low leverage pitchers being forced into leverage situations.

This team is going nowhere if they don't make additions to the bullpen. Hopefully they can eventually get Berrios turned around, but another starter is almost certainly a must as planning on both Berrios and Kikuchi getting their s*** together is an awfully tall order. It would be a shame to waste this offence as it very well maybe the best lineup in baseball now that the team is clicking offensively.

That's a good point if they are missing quite a few players, but the Jays aren't exactly playing at full strength either. Ryu is out for the season, and they are missing Garcia, Merryweather and Pearson from the pen. Each team is missing plenty of contributors so this does not somehow take away from a nice victory for the Jays last night. No excuses are needed here, the better team for the evening won the game.

A depleted Red Sox team? They were missing one player, that's not exactly a team decimated with injuries or something.

Lots of interesting s*** from tonight's game. Teo had one of the worst lazy don't give a f*** baserunning blunders I think I've ever seen. How can you seriously manage to get thrown out on the bases on a pop-up to the catcher, especially with speed like he has? That's almost bad enough to warrant a game on the bench to wake the f*** up but that would likely just mean more Tapia in the lineup. I couldn't believe Charlie didn't give Stripling a chance to pitch in the 6th inning, especially given how short handed the bullpen is right now. Expecting to cover 4 innings against the Red Sox with a 2 run lead intact was asking for way too much, and all too predictably they coughed up the lead. Thank f*** the Red Sox have a s***** bullpen as well. Kirk needs to be in the lineup more often. I get that the team wants Springer manning the DH spot with regularity, but if having to choose between Springer and Kirk getting regular at bats it should be an easy choice to run Kirk out there. It's certainly nice to have one of baseball's hottest hitters off of the bench but the man needs more at bats than he's been receiving.

Wacha's good batted ball fortune is completely being reversed in this game.

Why is that? He actually had a few pretty decent seasons out of the pen for the Royals.

Why does it matter so much how old he is? I can't see any way he debuts in MLB this season but if he continues to dominate in high A to the degree that he has so far and he's hit the developmental milestones set in front of him then there's no reason to hold him back just because he's 19. Hitting AA this season leaves a good chance we see him in MLB next season. This front office has a history of aggressive placements for their top prospects, and Atkins is on record stating Tiedemann could retire MLB hitters already given his combination of raw stuff and command. If he's ready to be pushed for an appropriate challenge then so be it.

With everyone at full health the bench is actually pretty decent. Backup catcher is either Jansen or Moreno which is basically elite compared to most teams, super utility player of Biggio is very good assuming he continues to produce, and even Tapia as 4th outfielder isn't the end of the world if he can continue to pitch in with some hits like he has been. A late game defensive replacement center fielder who can actually hit his weight would certainly be nice to have, but that's the only glaring weakness on the bench to my eyes.

You may not have noticed but Teo has produced a 165 WRC+ over the last 30 days. He had a very slow start after the oblique injury but has been in peak form offensively for quite some time now. Bo has been good at the plate for nearly two months now. He was actually hitting the ball hard with regularity in April but since May the hits have been falling for him. Over his last 48 games he's produced a 129 WRC+, which is quite a bit higher than his career average. Each of these guys will have frustrating at bats where they swing at pitches out of the strike zone but neither of them is an issue offensively right now. The team does not need a DH bat, there are already multiple players on the roster who regularly receive DH time in order to keep their bats in the lineup and keep them fresh/healthy. The Jays regularly run players like Springer, Kirk, Gurriel and Vladdy through the DH spot. Does this really look like something that requires some kind of upgrade?

I'm not sure I fully agree here with regards to the bullpen and injuries. Pearson was expected to be a big contributor, and he's missed the entire season up to this point due to mono (that's about as bad of luck as possible), Merryweather is injured (no surprise there obviously), Garcia is injured, Mayza missed time due to injury and Borucki missed time due to injury. Many of these guys were obvious injury risks and a few of them were ineffective even when healthy, but injuries in the pen have absolutely been an issue. Why LOL to Stripling being a rather effective starter? Just because he came from the Dodgers it doesn't mean he wasn't a great pickup that the front office deserves credit for. There have been success stories in the past with unheralded players who were effective out of the bullpen. The 2020 bullpen had several such stories in players like Dolis, Cole and Bass. 2021 saw a sneaky good pickup in Cimber who was attained for peanuts, and Richards was a good pickup as well. Gage has the appearance of being one of these types of successful turnarounds in the early going, and it remains to be seen who will be acquired in the not too distant future to shore up the pen this year.

Your start date of April 26th is basically irrelevant. Espinal is in the throes of a deep slump which extends over the last 8 games. Over these 8 games he's really struggled to the tune of a -74 WRC+. From the start of the season until June 15 he produced a 125 WRC+ and was the second most valuable position player on the team behind Kirk as he was worth 1.9 FWAR. As a whole Espinal was a tremendous contributor over the first 2 months of the season and I don't see any reason he won't eventually emerge from this mid-season slump. I certainly don't think he should be hitting at the top of the lineup right now but benching a player who was as productive for an extended period as Espinal was is only going to weaken the team long term.

I think this year is indicative of the direction the front office is headed in with regards to pitching development. There are a number of really high profile success stories happening in the low minors, and I suspect this may be a sign of things to come in the future as well. I recall somebody from the front office stating recently that their draft methodology has changed and that they are going to start targeting more potentially high ceiling arms. I think the player development complex will soon start bearing fruit as well in regards to coaxing the best velocity and pitch design out of their young pitchers.

Yeah Orelvis is starting to lose his shine quite a bit. His hit tool looks like it's being exposed quite a bit in AA this season. The biggest saving grace that he is still very young for the level.

I'd maybe consider trading for a Montas/Castillo type, but only if one of the top 3 members of the rotation were to get hurt and end up missing the remainder of the season.

Those are my thoughts as well. Tiedemanm is close to approaching the same status as Moreno where I would only send him out in trade for an elite player with control.

Oh for f***s sakes. This s***** bullpen is about to get even worse.

I still think the team is going to have a preference to which catcher(s) they want to keep long term. The Alomar/Carter trade was actually pretty similar to the current catcher scenario in that the team had replacements for Fernandez and McGriff already available to take over.

I don't agree with Jim's take that you don't pick which catcher(s) you want to keep based on value to the MLB team instead of what's coming back in trade, but I do see his point in a way as the team has 3 MLB capable starting catchers on the roster. The front office has a ton of flexibility in determining how they want to shape the roster with 3 assets such as this, where they don't have nearly that same type of flexibility elsewhere. You can't just trade Vlad or Bo in the same way as there aren't equivalent replacements available, but with Moreno, Kirk and Jansen you could choose any one of the 3 as your MLB starter and receive very good production out of the position.

It's odd that Kikuchi is so fearful as prior to yesterday's game he had actually pitched very well against the Yankees this season.

Yeah I don't think it sounds crazy at all. I think it's far crazier to concoct conspiracy theories when the information that's been presented to you is perfectly reasonable.

Great post man. The front office and coaching staff have repeated as nauseam that Kikuchi is going to be a bit of a long term project to fully unlock. If Kikuchi can start to command his fastball a bit better he has the opportunity to be a very effective starter, and this should allow him to also utilize his splitter more often as this has potential to be a true swing and miss offering. Just last season Matz was sitting at a 4.58 ERA/4.02 FIP on August 1st before going on a very nice run to end the season. I think Kikuchi has more potential than Matz and he's locked up for a few more seasons after 2022. Definitively stating a 3 year deal is a failure based on less than 3 inconsistent months into the first season just seems premature.