Toronto Blue Jays Thoughts, April 30th Edition: Kyle Drabek Sets A Career High
We knew going into this week’s home series against the red-hot Texas Rangers, the Toronto Blue Jays probably wouldn’t have very many opportunities to look for positives. Sure enough, after a 4-1 loss that saw the team’s bats stymied by Yu Darvish, I wouldn’t say positivity is exactly in the air. Still, even in disheartening losses to good teams like this, there are things that a Blue Jays fan could feel pretty good about…
- …like the starting pitching we got today from sophmore Kyle Drabek, who continued his transformation into the guy that we thought we’d have at the beginning of last season, this time holding strong against the best offense in the AL (even though Josh Hamilton was out with back problems) for 6 innings, giving up just 2 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks, and striking out a career-high 8 batters. That’s just one inning and a K short of what Darvish did against the Blue Jays, and it kept Drabek’s ERA at a clean 2.40 after 4 starts. I know, I know, he’s serving up a pretty sizable FIP-ERA differential – almost 3 full points – and his perhiperals suggest that he’s only been a slightly better pitcher than he was last season, with a unsustainably high 94.5% strand rate…but maybe we should just enjoy his little run while it lasts?
- Speaking of unsustainable, but highly entertaining runs: Yu Darvish shut down a lot of Blue Jays bats tonight, but he couldn’t stop Edwin Encarnacion. No sir, not even after plunking him on the arm in his first at bat. Encarnacion got his revenge in the next at bat, taking a Darvish slider to left to cut the then 2-0 Rangers lead by half. Encarnacion has now homered in 4 straight games. Last season, he didn’t hit his 8th home run until July 28th. The DH is doing him wonders.
- Weren’t the Japanese baseball contingent in Toronto supposed to come out for Darvish? At least, that was part of the thought when everyone (including myself) was speculating about the feasibility of Alex Anthopoulos putting out a monster bid for the Japanese righty. The 21,945 attendance numbers seem to suggest that just maybe, the Asian market that some talked about was a bit overblown.
- The bullpen management tonight by John Farrell was…curious, to say the least. Down 2-1 in the 7th, the skipper decided to have rookie Evan Crawford come out and try to hold the fort. It was against the Rangers’ 8-9 hitters, but the move still backfired, with Crawford giving up solo shots to Mitch Moreland and Craig-freaking-Gentry, who doubled his career home run total. After Jason Frasor came out to limit the damage (despite loading the bases), Farrell then decided to go to Luis Perez for a pair of innings to what, hold the increased Ranger lead? It probably should have worked the other way around in my mind, but I suppose it’s kind of a minor gripe…
- …because really, the reason the Blue Jays lost wasn’t Evan Crawford’s appearance. It was because outside of Encarnacion, the team just couldn’t hit Rangers pitching at all. No one in particular to point out here, as there were 0′s all over the board, with everyone besides Adam Lind and Eric Thames striking out at least once against Darvish. 1 run on 4 hits just isn’t going to win you too many ball games.
Drew Hutchinson will get his work in tomorrow against Neftali Feliz. I think if he could replicate what Drabek did tonight, the Blue Jays should be in pretty good shape.
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