Blue Jays squander a chance to win in the eighth inning, as they fall 6-5 to the Baltimore Orioles

Well, that’s not what you like to see.

The Jays have now lost five of their last six games, as well as losing 12 of their last 19 games. Not what you want to see in the ultra competitive American League East.
With that being said, let’s look at the Blue Jays Nation’s Player of the Game, as well as things worth mentioning.
Blue Jays Nation’s Player of the Game: Santiago Espinal
As you may know, Santiago Espinal has had a rough start to the 2023 season. Coming into Saturday’s game, he was slashing .171/.237/.229 with one homer and a wRC+ of 31. He also had a -0.4 fWAR, down from a 2.3 fWAR in 2022.

Santiago Espinal’s double pic.twitter.com/lDZD31tD4f
— Brennan Delaney (@Brennan_L_D) May 20, 2023

Saturday’s game was a good start to righting his season, as he went three for three in the game, along with a stolen base. After the game, he raised his slash line to .205/.266/.274, along with a 52 wRC+.
Sadly, he was pulled from the game while stealing second due to right hamstring discomfort. It’s too be seen if Espinal will land on the injured list, but it sucks to see someone who was struggling to have a good game, just to end up injured.

UPDATE: INF Santiago Espinal left today’s game with right hamstring discomfort.
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) May 20, 2023

Things worth mentioning:
Alek Manoah had his first good start in a while. The 25-year-old had a line of 5.2 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 5 K, 1 BB. However, both earned runs were rather lucky, as a line drive was hit to George Springer, who missed the ball, giving the batter a triple with no outs. The second earned run came on a wall scraping homer, which barely went out, as the Blue Jays …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

Help the Maple Leafs, Mike Gillis, you’re our only hope

To be a bit of a broken record to what I said yesterday to my small but elite followership on Twitter, there are few phrases scarier in hockey than “looking for an experienced General Manager.” The current selection of retreads available would include Jim Benning, Peter Chiarelli, Dale Tallon, Marc Bergevin, Ron Hextall, Brian Burke, Cliff or Chuck Fletcher, Brian Lawton, and Dave Nonis. There are a few other less concerning options that still don’t excite like Brad Treliving and Jason Botterill, but generally experienced GM means a commitment to chaos.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve landed on my favourite of the experienced group, Mike Gillis.
Let me start off by saying that I absolutely despised Gillis while he was in Vancouver. A big reason for despising him though was based on his success. He re-signed the Sedins on great contracts, he maximized the term available to him with Luongo, added smart pieces all over Vancouver’s roster, and took the Canucks to the Stanley Cup Finals. It wasn’t until they took a modest step back from that high that he was chased from Vancouver and the Canucks became the comical mess they are today.
Since that poin …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

BJN Radio – Ep. 143: Blue Jays don’t do the little things right and get swept in Philly

What a rollercoaster ride this month has been.

The Blue Jays were swept in Boston, they went to Pittsburgh and swept the Pirates, and then they got swept in a two-game set in Philly.
We talked about Alek Manoah’s difficult start that resulted in just one strikeout, Bo Bichette’s game-ending error, and some puzzling management decisions from John Schneider. After that, we took a look ahead to the upcoming series with Alex Anthopoulos’ Atlanta Braves.
You can listen to the episode here…

ARTICLE PRESENTED BY BETANO

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. scratched from game with Pirates due to wrist issue but Blue Jays win 8-2

What losing streak?

After their nightmare series in Boston, the Blue Jays have rolled into Pittsburgh and have pulled off back-to-back commanding wins over the Pirates. The score on Saturday at 8-2 for the Blue Jays, as José Berríos put together a quality start and the bottom of the lineup came through with some big hits.
Things worth mentioning…
José Berríos had a tough outing against the Red Sox but he rebounded nicely in Pittsburgh on Saturday evening. He went six-and-one-third innings and scattered just two earned runs on five hits and one walk while striking out seven.
Berríos was dominant in the first few innings and carried a perfect game and no-hitter into the fifth inning. The perfecto was broken up when he walked Jack Suwinski and the no-hitter was broken up the following batter when Ke’Bryan Hayes smacked a single.

José Berríos let out a roar after his strikeout to end the 6th inning.
He’s been fantastic tonight, and he’s sure as hell enjoying it. #BlueJays pic.twitter.com/7qdS0KriLN
— Keegan Matheson (@KeeganMatheson) May 7, 2023

After Berríos came out of the game, the Blue Jays’ bullpen locked down the final few innings without any difficulty. Anthony Bass struck out both batters he faced, Tim Mayza struck out the side in the eighth, and Jay Jackson had a scoreless frame in his Blue Jays debut.

Jays win! 🥳 pic.twitter.com/fYIRu0jd01
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 7, 2023

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. was a late scratch from Saturday’s game because of a wrist issue. He was dealing with discomfort during Friday’s series opener and came into the batting cages to test it out on Saturday and wasn’t good to go.
The lineup looked pretty thing without Vladdy but the guy …

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

Why we’re still hopelessly optimistic about the Maple Leafs following Game 1

What a difference a round makes. After the 7-3 loss in Game 1 of the first round, many people were already making plans for May away from hockey and the talk was that we might have seen the last of Michael Bunting in a Leafs jersey. That ended up working out, and so help me, I don’t think the 4-2 loss to the Panthers require a forensic audit either.
The biggest difference in Game 1 was goaltending. Like against Tampa, Samsonov didn’t have his best outing to start the series. That’s fine. The guy is allowed the occasional off night, even in the playoffs. The catch was that as much as the Leafs forwards pushed late in the game, Sergei Bobrovsky was busy being the guy who earned the $10M AAV contract, not the guy who has been cashing the cheques for the past few seasons. Given that he is now on his first four game win streak of the season it can play out in one of two ways, he continues on a goaltending heater that leads to the Panthers …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Maple Leafs will face the Panthers in a second round, but don’t pop the champagne yet

In what can only be described as the best possible outcome for the Leafs, the Florida Panthers managed to knock off the Boston Bruins in overtime of Game Seven and sent Bergeron, Marchand, and Co. on an early summer vacation.
As much as you want to believe the Leafs would prove themselves against any competition and this is by no means advocating that the Leafs can take the Panthers lightly, Toronto’s history of losing to the Bruins spectacularly in the playoffs, paired with the Leafs 1-2-1 record against Boston this season, and then the fact that the Bruins had a record regular season in what some are believing will be Bergeron’s last go, yeah dodging Boston in favour of the team the Leafs went 3-0-1 against this season is fortunate. (It’s worth noting that two of those Leafs wins came in Overtime so Toronto isn’t as dominant as they look at first glance.)
Of course, you don’t need to go too far back to remember when the Leafs had a supposed easy out in the Montreal Canadiens, a team Toronto had a 7-2-1 regular season record against and Toronto stumbled against a team that put the effort into countering them perfectly.
While the Leafs were quite effective in …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Toronto Maple Leafs to face Tampa Bay Lightning in first round of 2023 playoffs

What we’ve expected for weeks, if not months, finally became a reality on Saturday night:
The Toronto Maple Leafs will square off against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Lightning clinched a playoff berth on Saturday with a 5-0 shutout win over the New York Islanders. In doing so, they also secured a spot as either the No. 2 or 3 seed in the Atlantic Division.
Toronto currently sits four points up on the Lightning (100 to 96) with two games in hand. The Leafs also narrowly hold the regulation wins tiebreaker by a count of 38 to 37.

Our first opening-round series is officially locked in. 🔒
The @TBLightning clinching a berth in the 2023 #StanleyCup Playoffs also confirmed that they’ll face the @MapleLeafs in the First Round for the second time in as many years. #NHLStats: https://t.co/6VIKjhp9UT pic.twitter.com/bjw1gSR4hK
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) April 2, 2023

Of course, the Leafs and Lightning are more than familiar with each other by now. They previously met in the first round of the 2022 playoffs, with Tampa Bay winning the series in seven games.
The two teams had never contested a playoff series against each other before last year, but they’ve  been divisional rivals ever since the NHL realigned from six divisions to four in the 2013-14 season.
As every hockey fan in Toronto knows by now, the Leafs haven’t made it past the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs since 2004. They haven’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967.
But, even with Auston Matthews in the midst of a down season, the Leafs look reasonably well-positioned to sneak past a depleted Lightning team — and, if they can overcome that barrier, who knows what they can accomplish?
We might just find out this spring. The Leafs defeated the Ottawa Senators by a 3-0 score on Saturday night. They’r …

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Author: Mike Gould / The Leafs Nation

Yusei Kikuchi finished off his excellent Spring Training by striking out six of the eight batters he faced

No matter what happens next, this year’s Grapefruit League play will always be remembered as the Spring of Yusei Kikuchi.

Kikuchi capped off an excellent performance in Spring Training on Tuesday against the Philadelphia Phillies. He came into the game in the sixth inning and tossed two-and-two-thirds of clean innings and struck out six of the eight batters he faced. The Phillies certainly didn’t put their best lineup out there for the final game before the start of the regular season, but that’s an impressive result nonetheless.
All told, Kikuchi tossed 20 2/3 innings over seven outings during Grapefruit League play and posted a 0.87 ERA. He struck out 31 batters, walked 10, and didn’t allow a home run.

Yusei’s Day: 6 Ks, 0 ER 😤
Yusei’s Spring: 0.87 ERA 😱 pic.twitter.com/fqnzVSsAds
— Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) March 28, 2023

Other things worth mentioning…

Kikuchi’s performance was the only positive note when it came to pitching on Tuesday. Jose Berrios got the start and allowed four earned runs on four hits and three walks over four-and-two-thirds innings. Tim Mayza came into the game and allowed three hits but couldn’t record an out and Adrian Hernandez recorded just one out in the ninth inning before allowing the Phillies to score the game-winning run on a walk-off double from Darick Hall.
In terms of offence, Bo Bichette was the star of the day as he launched a two-run bomb off Bailey Falter in the second inning. Brandon Belt also drove in a couple of runs with a bases-loaded single.

POINTSBET IS LIVE IN ONTARIO
…

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Author: Cam Lewis / Blue Jays Nation

The 2023 Blue Jays, Position by Position: Has the rotation improved since 2022?

Ultimately, what sunk the Blue Jays in 2022 was inconsistent starting pitching.

That begs the question, is the Blue Jays rotation better now with the addition of Chris Bassitt? Long story short, it depends on how the back end of the rotation does.
Let’s dig into the numbers.
The locks in the rotation:
In this section, we’ll look at the four locks for the 2023 Blue Jays rotation.
Alek Manoah:
The 25-year-old had his best career season in 2022, positing a 2.24 ERA and a 3.35 FIP in 196.2 innings pitched. His K% dropped from 27.7% in 2021, to 22.9% in 2022. However, his BB% dropped to 6.5%, which is above average. Manoah finished third in the Cy Young voting, the third straight year a Blue Jay starter has been nominated.

Alek Manoah, Sick 85mph Changeup. 🤒
That’s about as good a change as I’ve seen Manoah throw. pic.twitter.com/M8xJUigVnX
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 30, 2022

The name of the game for Manoah is limiting hard contact. This is a big reason why his FIP is a full run higher than his ERA. This also shows FIP’s flaws, as ignoring contact (a big part of the game) can lead to incorrect assumptions.
Manoah is a great pitcher despite his steamer predictions. Expect him to only get better.
Kevin Gausman:
It’s the total opposite for Kevin Gausman. In 2022, he posted a 3.35 ERA, but a pretty fantastic 2.38 FIP in 174.2 innings pitched. Moreover, he had a 28.3 K% and a very low 3.9 BB% for a 24.4 K-BB%.

Kevin Gausman’s 5th and 6th Ks.
Thru 4. pic.twitter.com/uGUuTfcs1Q
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 8, 2022

The big discrepancy between ERA and FIP is due to Gausman’s high line drive p …

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Author: Brennan Delaney / Blue Jays Nation

Raptors draft: Is Keyonte George worth the risk in the Top 10?

Raptors draft: Is Keyonte George worth the risk in the Top 10?

The Toronto Raptors are speeding towards what could be a very quick rebuild, as they will almost assuredly be in the lottery. Toronto is in need of some guards that can make an impact as a scorer if they want to get serious about kicking their offense back into high gear. The Raptors likely won’t […]
Raptors draft: Is Keyonte George worth the risk in the Top 10? – Raptors Rapture – Raptors Rapture – A Toronto Raptors Fan Site – News, Blogs, Opinion and More

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Author: Mike Luciano / Raptors HQ