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When you combine that with a guy that offers 90th percentile defence at both second base and third base and 86th percentile at short stop you have a guy that you might just want to keep long term.

Drunk posting is never a good idea (just ask Spanky!)

Good call, I forgot that Saucedo was even on the roster since he's the last option in a 10 man bullpen. If the starters continue to succeed we won't need to see him pressed into game action unless there's a blowout and some mop up innings are required.

Maybe it wasn't that the manager had a gut feeling but Moreno was having gut feelings after a bad burrito or something.

There are some interesting parallels between the start this year's team is off to compared to the 2021 team. Each team started off slowly offensively and missed key contributors from the lineup early on. The bullpen did a great job keeping the team in games both years giving the team a chance to win each night even when the starter was off of his game. The biggest differences are the quality of the starting rotation and defence. Early season defence was pretty abysmal last season as Gurriel resembled a deer in headlights most nights, Springer was out so Grichuk had to cover center field regularly, Bo really struggled early on and Biggio was a fish out of water at third base. The difference this season is pretty astounding as the infield has really been flashing the leather with regularity. Despite the occasional weakly hit ground ball sneaking through the shifted infield the early shifting has allowed the infield to make plays on a lot of well hit balls saving a ton of runs defensively. The front office will have some tough decisions to make when the rosters shrink at the end of the month. Two relievers will need to be sent down, but if I recall correctly the only relievers with options remaining are Thornton and Merryweather. Thornton's contributions have been immense as he allowed the team to keep the game within reach a few nights ago and he really doesn't deserve to be sent down. Merryweather has been pretty shaky at times so heading to AAA to iron out his command might ultimately be good for him. The return of Borucki complicates things further as he flashed a glimpse of what kind of late inning weapon he can be as he pumped in 97 MPH sinkers in todays game. A lot can change in a week in regards to performance and injury so ultimately some of these decisions may be able to be delayed a bit. All in all having too many effective relievers is a good problem to have.

You better get your eyeglass prescription checked dude. If you don't wear them it's time to start. Espinal has been having a statement series with elite defensive plays and home runs in back to back games.

Vladdy with the sweet pick to end the game!

Apparently it's too much to ask for a clean 9th inning nowadays.

Bo looks like he's starting to lock in. Once he gets his timing dialled in the AL needs to watch out.

You can see he wasn't happy with the outing during the congratulatory handshakes even though he shut down the Astros after the first.

I'm really liking the more patient Bo the last few games.

Early on in his Jays tenure Teoscar had a lot of trouble switching outfield positions and he was a far more experienced outfielder than Gurriel at that point. Teoscar still takes a lot of heat for his early career outfield misadventures and I would still argue that Gurriel has regularly looked far more lost than Teoscar ever did. Maybe one day Gurriel will offer that type of versatility but I just don't know if the risks of once again having a deer in headlights outfielder costing the team runs is worth the unlikely payoff.

Left field vs right field differences aside I certainly wouldn't want Gurriel switching to the opposite side of the field mid season. It's taken him several seasons to finally get start getting used to playing left field so it could be a recipe for disaster to move him around without a ton of practice time first.

Lourdes has only recently started to resemble an actual MLB outfielder in left field which is the easiest position to play in the outfield. While he has the cannon arm for the position I cringe at the thought of moving him to a more challenging position.

Maybe this is partially related to positional need given the dearth of decent outfield prospects in the upper levels of the minors.

Yeah I definitely wouldn't place any money down on the chances of him having sustained success. I recalled him having a hot streak as well last season. I looked up his numbers and he had one good month in June where he managed a 124 WRC+ for the month. This was largely BABIP driven at .396 and the k rate was obviously still concerning at 30%. The BABIP so far this year is far more reasonable at .347 (just about the same as his season average from 2021) so this may be more sustainable for him.

Logan Warmoth might be turning into something useful after largely underwhelming for most of his career up to this point. He's currently sporting a 165 WRC+ in AAA. The most encouraging sign is that he's managed to cut his strikeout rate fully in half dropping from last season's 33.2% down to a much more reasonable 16.3%. If he can even turn himself into a trade piece ala Kevin Smith that will feel like a small victory.

Super amazing short sample size MVP level performance. Going back to when he came off of the injured list in July of last year his numbers are crazy, with a 224 WRC+. This is in only over 91 plate appearances but given how he's maintained this level of offence despite several injury related starts and stops I'd really like to see he could accomplish if he managed to stay healthy.

Bo looked a lot better at the plate last night as he actually managed to work his way into a few 3 ball counts. Springer doesn't look right physically at all given how often he's been falling over at the plate, it's hard to see how this could be related to a wrist/forearm problem.

Hopefully Springer is fully good to swing the bat and didn't lobby his way into the lineup. If his leg doesn't fall off after whiffing at the plate that will feel like a small victory.

It's apparent that outside of 2018 that Semien was more of a good defender rather than great defender at short stop. His metrics, whether DRS, UZR or OAA all suggest that the bulk of his defensive value was derived from being steady defensively and limiting errors. He had to have benefited tremendously from playing next to Matt Chapman for so many years as this would greatly limit the impact limited range would have on his overall results. He made a great career decision agreeing to move to second base as his arm and range are much more suited to this position and allows him to be a true plus defender.

A guy like this is essentially found money. There have been plenty of instances like this where the front office has plucked unpolished gems out of other organizations for spare parts and then helped them to flourish and reach their full potential. Receiving Cimber back for the wilting corpse of Joe Panik was a masterstroke, as was the Teoscar trade. Even Tapia might turn into something useful as he's producing career best rates in barrel percentage, expected batting average, xWOBA, hard hit percentage etc. It remains to be seen whether it's just a hot streak or a sign of actual improvement but he's certainly been squaring up the baseball with far more regularity in the last week or so.

I had a crazy dream last night. I was watching a Jays pregame ceremony on tv and for some odd reason there were a few live bears on the field during the ceremony. All seemed fine and dandy at first, there was even a cute bit where Cavan Biggio appeared to be dancing with one of the bears as the bear was standing on it's back legs and they were hand in paw. Things went seriously awry as something ended up spooking the bear and it ended up mauling Cavan repeatedly. I jolted awake and couldn't manage to drift back off to sleep afterwards. This dream must be an allegory of sorts where the bear in real life is represented by Santiago Espinal. Much like the bear dancing routine in my dream there is a seeming harmony of sorts as Biggio and Espinal are teammates and would be supportive of each other and cheering each other on. But just as Cavan is ravaged in my dream he's also been destroyed on the field as Espinal has taken his job away, both at third base last season and at second base this season.

I try not to make definitive statements especially this early into the season just to cover my own ass later on, but this team's infield looks to be upgraded to a massive degree compared to last season. As amazing as Espinal was last season at third the club just brought aboard a platinum glover and arguably best third base defender in baseball. Semien was nails defensively at second but Espinal may be even better. Bo has looked very good at short stop, especially compared to his earlier season struggles of a year ago. And finally Vladdy is continuing to mature at first base and may end up as a plus defender there.

This was a very fun game overall. Both teams played great defence, I can see why Houston was willing to let Correa leave because Pena is an absolute stud. Huge props to Espinal, he made several great plays and got the team going offensively with the big homerun. He might just be in the midst of a massive offensive breakout as his expected stats are pretty crazy right now. He already has produced 3 barrels in his first 48 plate appearances, he had only produced 4 barrels in his previous 312 plate appearances. His WOBA is a staggering 99 points behind his xWOBA, once his .242 BABIP begins to stabilize his numbers are going to take off. The team's pitching staff is doing a great job keeping them in games right now, since the end of the Rangers series where the pitchers were rocked several times the staff has put up a 2.63 ERA/2.94 FIP. The bullpen in particular has been stellar during this timeframe with a 1.85 ERA/2.42 FIP. Once some injured bodies start returning to the lineup and the bats get going this team should really go on a tear.