2010 Blue Jays Season Thread

[flames_1987]

Morrow with a nice bounce back game. It's obvious control is his biggest thing.

Rays/Yankees have a series next week so if the Jays can keep up this pace they can at least gain ground on one of them.

[Caged Great]

The jays are now 23-16, last year they were 24-17 before going on their downward spiral. I'm hoping that they are at least a little bit competitive through till June/July.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

Over 25k in attendance today.........hopefully that a sign of things to come. They're winning games and hitting lots of HRs, pretty good recipe for bringing the fans back.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

The jays are now 23-16, last year they were 24-17 before going on their downward spiral. I'm hoping that they are at least a little bit competitive through till June/July.

Not quite they were actually 27-14 after the May long weekend last year when they had swept the White Sox over the weekend (the 4th game was on the Monday). They than had to play Boston and subsequently got swept.

I remember because I went to Seattle for the long weekend to watch the Red Sox play Seattle. After that weekend the Jays started playing a schedule that was heavy with the Rays, Red Sox, and Yankees and that was all she wrote.

But 23-16 to start the year is pretty decent. Will be interesting to see how they do agaisnt the Twins this coming series.

[bluejays]

I'm actually thinking they could take the Twins. There are a ton of hot teams in the league this early in the season (Jays included), and although I've only seen a few Twins games this season, their SP looks streaky. Their batting lineup has had an impressive average though, and that's what will be interesting to watch to see how they do against Jay pitching. The only two teams the Jays seem to probably not fare all that well against will be unfortunately the BoSox and Yankees. Their excellence in both hitting and pitching is a lethal combo for any team, but the Jays just can't handle a combination of both. This early in the season it's nice to see them ahead of the Sox by a pretty sizable margin though.

[Ziggy Lidstrom]

Originally Posted by fleury

I'm actually thinking they could take the Twins. There are a ton of hot teams in the league this early in the season (Jays included), and although I've only seen a few Twins games this season, their SP looks streaky. Their batting lineup has had an impressive average though, and that's what will be interesting to watch to see how they do against Jay pitching. The only two teams the Jays seem to probably not fare all that well against will be unfortunately the BoSox and Yankees. Their excellence in both hitting and pitching is a lethal combo for any team, but the Jays just can't handle a combination of both. This early in the season it's nice to see them ahead of the Sox by a pretty sizable margin though.

I see them being able to rough up the twins' staff and pen a lil'.

I agree about the yanks and bosox. It seems the only pitchers we have that fare well against them are marcum and hopefully romero. But let's not forget about the best team in baseball: the Rays. Those 8th inning blowouts are still fresh in my mind. Those three teams are serious confidence killers. We play them each 16 times a year. 48 games that we are guaranteed we will lose 65-70 percent of. They will rough up our soft throwing, nibbling lefties, IMO. I want to see Z come back. I really liked his makeup.

I think if Morrow can learn to trust his stuff, he could be a better aj. Aj has the 2 1/2 pitches. Morrow has 3. He just doesn't trust his stuff enough and falls into control issues. Notice Doc, his MO is that he aggressively attacks the strike zone, so much so that he has become a SO pitcher later in his career. IMO, Morrow could be great. He needs to trust that lower arm slot, and his stuff. He has major talent. But watch guys like Weaver locate his fastball on both sides of the plate and see how well he does against good line ups. He does have a nice change curveball repertoire to compliment his location. Morrow with location is like a curt schilling lite.

[Machiavelli]

I think he has 3.5 pitches. He will occasionally go with the slide.r

[Ziggy Lidstrom]

Originally Posted by Machiavelli

I think he has 3.5 pitches. He will occasionally go with the slide.r

I was figuring his slider in the mix. I think he has good control of his 4seam, and slider. His changeup is a WIP and his curveball is another pitch he isn't very consisted with yet. And he does throw a 2 seam fastball but it isn't consistent enough to be considered a full mark.

Thus: 2 pitches well: 4seam, Slider. 3 pitches WIP: 2seam, Curveball, change.

He could turn out to be lethal.

On another note, our very own Jose Bautista is being lauded as the MLb player of the week by Jays' beat reporter, Jordan Bastian.

http://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/14179514475

[Machiavelli]

I thought his change-up was better than his slider. Hmm.

[Ziggy Lidstrom]

Originally Posted by Machiavelli

I thought his change-up was better than his slider. Hmm.

It isn't that great but it is good enough to keep hitter's somewhat off balance. He throws it at 90 mph. But when your 4seam is 95 it's enough of a variation to grade out at average, to slightly above.

[flames_1987]

Nice bounce back today so far. Encarncion hits a bomb his first @ bat. 4-0 Jays in the 2nd with Marcum on the mound

[Machiavelli]

The Jays just have incredible HR power this season; even Overpaid getting in on the action.

11-1. now.

[dustyanddaflames]

Originally Posted by Ziggy Lidstrom

It isn't that great but it is good enough to keep hitter's somewhat off balance. He throws it at 90 mph. But when your 4seam is 95 it's enough of a variation to grade out at average, to slightly above.

I think that is what makes Marcum so good, is his changeup is around 7-8 mph difference, and when you think about the short distance that the ball is moving to and from, it ends up being quite a difference.

You look at some of the true aces in the game, and they all have an A+ change up, and in Marcum's case, he doesn't have a 94 mph fastball, that pitch becomes that much more valuable.

[Sylvanfan]

Greg Maddux never threw more than about 90, but he changed speeds on every pitch and could throw his pitches to pretty much any location he wanted, and had movement on all his pitches. Marcum in a way is similar to Maddux with the stuff he has. I'm not trying to suggest he can be the pitcher Maddux was, but I think thats the guy he can copy the style of and if he can he'll do very well.

[krazycanuck]

It's great watching the Blue Jays his year.

The past 17 years have left me waiting for a collapse to come at some point. After any loss lately, I've been thinking "ok, here's where they start to slide". But they seem to come out and win their next game, and usually more games after that. I really hope they end up doing what the Rays did a couple years back.

On a side note, it was also great to see a crowd of 28k today. There is no doubt in my mind that if they ever get a winner into Skydome the place will have 50,000 people a night. Keep in mind at one point in time it was the Jays who were the high spending team in the AL East. It would be great to see it again!

[Jiggy_12]

Okay..its still early but this is how ridiculous the Jays power numbers are.

In 1997, the Seattle Mariners set the MLB record for homeruns in a season with 264, and keep in mind...1997 was right smack in the middle of the steroid years. So far through 41 games, the Blue Jays have smacked 65 homeruns, on pace over 162 games to tally 257, just 7 short of the all time record and would be good for 2nd on the all time list. They have more homeruns than the Astros, Indians, and Mariners combined and 11 long balls clear of the next closest team, the Red Sox.

You tell me that at the start of the year, I would've slapped you.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

Okay..its still early but this is how ridiculous the Jays power numbers are.

In 1997, the Seattle Mariners set the MLB record for homeruns in a season with 264, and keep in mind...1997 was right smack in the middle of the steroid years. So far through 41 games, the Blue Jays have smacked 65 homeruns, on pace over 162 games to tally 257, just 7 short of the all time record and would be good for 2nd on the all time list. They have more homeruns than the Astros, Indians, and Mariners combined and 11 long balls clear of the next closest team, the Red Sox.

You tell me that at the start of the year, I would've slapped you.

The funny thing about is is it's coming from all over the place (save Overbay). You'd expect it from Lind, Wells and Snider, but not Gonzalez, Buck or Bautista. I doubt it'll keep up by seasons end (yes, I'm pessimistic), as Lind, Wells, Hill and possibly Snider will be 20+ HR guys, but the rest probably won't keep the pace up. I thought that was actually their biggest batting weakness coming into the season, but I'm clearly wrong. What's nice about winning this early with the longball and a relatively young lineup is that it's a great confidence booster. Nice to see them work for it too. Next step I want to see is some baserunning and unpredictable hit and runs.

[Antithesis]

Originally Posted by Jiggy_12

Okay..its still early but this is how ridiculous the Jays power numbers are.

In 1997, the Seattle Mariners set the MLB record for homeruns in a season with 264, and keep in mind...1997 was right smack in the middle of the steroid years. So far through 41 games, the Blue Jays have smacked 65 homeruns, on pace over 162 games to tally 257, just 7 short of the all time record and would be good for 2nd on the all time list. They have more homeruns than the Astros, Indians, and Mariners combined and 11 long balls clear of the next closest team, the Red Sox.

You tell me that at the start of the year, I would've slapped you.

Not just that ... but tell me that along with "and Lind and Hill will be struggling mightily" and I'd be calling for someone to come pick up the crazy person.

[Sylvanfan]

Could you imagine the crow most of us would be eating if someone had posted something like

Wells, Bautista, Gonzalez, and Buck will combine for 40 home runs in the first quarter of the season....guaranteed!

[ricoFlame]

176 extra base hits, to the second place Red Sox 146...WOW.