jung

Hysterical and Hernandez is one of the three Jays everyday players that I think at least deserve to be wearing an MLB uni.

Atta boy Mitch

Grandy...another guy that is all done. The Jays have more guys that are all done or out of place than any team I can remember. Maybe the best player on the team is the closer....like the Jays need a closer this year.

If mookie was going to have to spend some time out of the lineup it's just as well its while the Jays are around. Maybe Cora really just wants to make sure mookie is fine for the next series.

Don't need better offense from our Catcher. Could use Vaz/Leon coming back to their norms for defense because the Rotation is the strength of this team relative to the competition it faces and better defense at Catcher would help given that circumstance. This team wins on: Its rotation first Its batting order 1-6 next Its defense particularly if Pedey can stay in the lineup Its bullpen More offense 7-9 in the batting order is not going to mean much to this team especially if it detracts from any of its elements of relative strength to the competition.

You could tell that through this last really bad period, JBJ simply could not see the baseball to the strike zone. He was losing it way out in front of the strike zone. As a result fouling off a straight as a rail FB became a challenge. Still and all, at age 28 he is producing a .235 BA and a .715 OPS for a career and that is due to how much is going on in his swing all the time and how seldom he is capable of keeping all of that noise and busyness in his swing guided toward actually hitting the darn baseball. If he had actually resolved the base issues with his hitting he would not be working on a .235/.715 at age 28 with 1887 ML AB's under his belt and producing a .184/.516 in his 6th year in the majors on 147 AB's. And yes, you are right, not only is JBJ's lower body noisy and his upper body noisy and his head all over the place, but there are times when he can't keep his hands inside and his swing gets big! .235/.715 after this long a time is not some accident or fate.

Until JBJ has a quieter swing there is not much chance of him turning some hitting corner. He is streaky at the plate for a reason. He is streaky because his swing has too many moving parts and there are simply not that many periods during the course of a season when he can get all that stuff moving enough in unison to actually hit the baseball. This time, it appears that he was carrying his front shoulder too high into the swing causing his head to tilt. He is dipping his front shoulder now to get it out of the way. But if history is any teacher before long he will be dipping it too far and end up with another swing problem. It would be better if JBJ simply had his front shoulder in the right place instead of having to dip it into the swing. But then he would not be JBJ. The problem for JBJ at the plate is that he has both a noisy or busy swing and he does not realize that a hitter's swing is always changing if he does not pay attention to it. His lower body is noisy. His upper body is noisy. His head is all over the place. JBJ stubbornly goes 100 AB's without acknowledging to himself that he has worked his swing into yet another rut. Then again, if his swing were not so busy it might be easier for him realize the changes that are occurring. He is 28 years old folks. This is him. If he can crawl back to being a .250 hitter with a 750 OPS that would be great. That would also be better than his lifetime .235 with 715 OPS. But there is a ton that the Sox can get away with this year because the quality of ball being passed off as MLB this year is a disgrace. So even his lifetime slash would be fine combined with his defense. So, I would not trade him and I would give him playing time as long as he can at least get back to his lifetime numbers. This is still a team that depends on its rotation to be its strength relative to the teams it plays. So a ++ defensive CFer is a big deal for this team as is a + Shortstop and a + Catcher would be nice.

Doubt that will happen with the way starters run into health issues. Wright will find his way to the rotation one way or the other. We don't really have anybody else other than Valasquez and Wright is going to be just that much better than Valaaquez.

Still has something of the same face but I actually think Devers lost some of the baby fat this off season.

I will say one thing for the Jays. Gibby finally has a team he absolutely rates, without question.

The Jays have Martin in LF today. They are basically playing him everywhere because they just don't have any legit players at any positions except CF, RF and 1st base. Team is a disgraceful example of 2018 MLB.

This Jays team is hysterical

Donaldson is so done. A shame at 32. Just can't stay on the field and really hasn't been able to for a couple of years now.

Actually I am beginning to wonder if Vaz can still tie his own shoelaces.

Hell of a throw from 2nd base on the attempted DP. Wonder if Devon can tie his own shoelaces.

1. Andrew Benintendi (L) LF 2. Xander Bogaerts ® SS 3. Mitch Moreland (L) 1B 4. J.D. Martinez ® DH 5. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 6. Eduardo Nunez ® 2B 7. Brock Holt (L) RF 8. Christian Vazquez ® C 9. Jackie Bradley Jr. (L) CF

Its not a matter of what the hitters can or can't do. It is a matter of what the league wants them to do, what the agents want them to do, what the league rewards them financially to do and more importantly what it is doing to the game, the way it is turning a game of diversity and balance into a one dimensional game. In fact it is doing it in a way that is not panning out as they had hoped. There is more disparity between the best teams and the worst teams in the league than there has been and worse, they are headed for a 10% reduction in overall attendance. this in a franchise business that counts its attendance gains year over year by numbers like 3-4% overall. 10% is a big big number. Its ratings are not doing much better. That is the part that actually makes sense because the game is not more interesting played this way. It is less interesting played this way and the league big shots are just about to find out that it doesn't work. It is not me that is trying to change the game. It is them because they believe that this one dimensional game is more attractive and/or more appealing and its not. Actually there is no current rule regarding the shift. However the way to mitigate its effect on the game is simply to disallow overloads. Two infielders across the infield on either side of second base. Put them wherever you want to with that one restriction. Put the outfielders wherever they want. So if they want to move an OFer into what is now one of the overloaded infield positions in short OF, so we can be treated to watching OFers run after balls hit over their heads while the batter rounds the bases, they can knock their minds out. The field positioning we have now makes them look like a semi-pro softball league as it is. So it can't hardly get more embarrassing aesthetically than it is already.

That is not a bad idea. Here are the shfit numbers by year since Joe Maddon reinvented the thing just to explore this shift thing a bit more. 2011, 2350 shifts 2012, 4577 2013, 6882 2014, 13,297 2015, 17,826 2016, 28,130 2017 (through sept 10) 27,187 That is just ridiculous and it robs away from exciting play unless you always think hitting the ball over the shift or around it is exciting. If the hitter hits the ball through a big hole away from the shifted infield then a fielder does not even make an attempt at fielding the ball. He is too far away from it. If the ball is hit into the shifted infield it is practically hit right at somebody. So you rob away all those plays that reward an infielder's speed and quickness both left and right, his glove dexterity, his ability to throw from awkward positions and replace that either with no play made on the ball at all or a play that I could make! All to encourage hitters to hit the ball in the air in effect an effort to mitigate the effect of the shift. It would be so stupid easy to rule change the shift back to something more normal and less pervasive that it is clear the only reason MLB won't do it is because it does not want to do it.

Not dealing with the advanced shift is another one. It would be easy to curtail the shift as Joe Maddon reinvented it and they just won't do it. They want to encourage hitting over it which feeds the whole power game mentality. Accepting the idea of the Quality Start as a stat worth something is another one that feeds the power game mentality from the pitcher's end of the equation. The idea that you are going to recognize a starter's performance for going 6 innings means that going 5 is not that bad and even 4 is not terrible. So what is a bad start now.....3 innings. Heck 3 innings could be once and a couple batters through the lineup.

You have absolutely got a point. But I just don't know what to do about it because IMO its a bigger issue than just a starting pitcher in a particular game. Sale had 8 K's in 4 innings and was pitching a lousy game. That tells you something about the downside to this emphasis on power pitching. Nobody gets to hit into an out or at least not with the frequency they used to. They either K their way to an out or hit the ball out of the park. Often as not, if they hit into an out they hit the ball into the teeth of the shift. Regular plain old outs the way we used to see them are getting rare. Excessive K's mean excessive numbers of pitches and these power pitchers always have the hammer down. So how does that jive with trying to get Sale through a season? It was easy to see that Sale would accept being pulled out of this game today. What did he have to complain about? But, how about games where he has gotten to the 6th inning, is pitching reasonably well and does not want to come put just because Cora is trying to preserve him. How is that going to work? You are not going to get Sale to accept skipping whole rotation slots to preserve him. He might do that once or maybe MAYBE twice in a season. I just think there are things about the direction MLB has determined to push this game that have not been thought through. Its not even clear that they are having the desired impact on attendance or popularity. It is clear that it is intentional. This is not some happenstance or baseball phenomenon.

One thing we should keep in mind, though I don't know if true, Cora is very likely a Manager that tells his player the night before when he is going to be rested in the next game in an effort to get the full benefit of resting the player. You can argue whether that makes sense or not and different managers do it different ways. But with Mookie's late scratch it likely made little sense to then insert JD if Cora had informed him the night before that he was not playing today. So once Mookie was scratched late, there was just so much Cora could do under the circumstances. Sale could have pitched better. The LH hitting lineup could have hit better. The team could have played better. But not much of that happened today.

You had to catch Rodney live to really catch Rodney. But my favorite clean, Bang Bang, Rodney Dangerfield joke is appropriate for this time of year: "My wife's cooking is so bad that the fleas took up a collection, chipped in and paid to have the screen door repaired."

Tough crowd as Rodney Dangerfield used to say.

Good job Mitch.

Thank God...a hit