Drew Hutchison two years later

Drew Hutchison on Friday June 15, 2012 after Brandon Morrow (injured again) and Kyle Drabek (not made it back YET!!!!!) both got injured earlier in that week stepped on the mound and shortly had to have the trainer visit him on the mound and was taken out of the game with a shoulder injury. It was not any shoulder injury but it sent he to the dl and the Tommy John surgery and then spent almost two years battling back to the majors. Drew has not only how tough and mental strong he is by battling back from injury but also when he is on mound as he has 25 career starts and a 10-7 record. It is a very good sign when he has bettered Justin Verlander and Yu Darvish on the road and has bettered both of them and beat them both. He has not been as good at home with a 1 and 3 record with a nightmare 8.72 ERA is 5 starts and it maybe the idea that it was the Rogers Centre mound that he was injured on and it maybe in his head a little. On the road he is 4-1 with a 1.79 ERA which is awesome as he has pitched almost twice as much on the road (9-5) as at home. He also has that bulldog mentality that Jays pitchers like Mark Buehrle and former jays like Roy Halladay and Dave Steib that just takes the ball and if u want to get them out of the game u would need to subdue them first and will hopefully be the next great Jays starter. Drew Hutchison is only 23 years old Tom Mehegan

Blue Jays need to resign Casey Janssen

The Jays were living a nightmare before Casey Janssen was given the opportunity to be the man in the pen and shut the door on every opponent in the ninth inning. He took that opportunity and have not looked back since May 2012 and putting the horror of Frank Francisco, Jon Rauch, and Frank Cordero in the rear view mirror. Casey Janssen has 67 saves in just over two years and has been rock solid in the closer position and now his very delicious 4 million dollar salary for 2014 is at the end of his deal and will get a long term deal for big bucks and his local Dodgers may not need him but the nearby Angels of Anaheim diffidently do as they have had 25 save opportunity and have blown 9 of them (64%). So the Jays need to open up the vault and pay that big ticket that Janssen will be looking for and deserves (10-15 mil a season) and look him long term (4 or 5 seasons) because not the closer to finish the job but Casey Janssen has shown he can handle the pressure and relish in being the last line of defense. Casey Janssen is the man Tom Mehegan

Edwin Encarnacion is on fire

Edwin Encarnacion this past week in 28 at bats had 6 homers and 10 RBIs and had 9 hits (.325.) When he was not doing it with the bat he did it with his gloves and legs like he did Friday when he made a spike dive at first base for a putout and later went down the first baseline to make a remarkable catch. Edwin who showed up in 2010 and could not do anything right as he could not hit and could not field either and it looked like his stay in Toronto was going to be very short and now he is dominate baseball player. Edwin has helped the likes of Bautista who had a homer and 4 RBIs and that helps protect the leader in hits Milky Cabrera who has 66 hits in 50 games which matches his 2012 start and hopefully not test positive this time, The Jays are leading the AL with homers (70), slugging (.442), OPS (.771), and POFF (percentage of finishing first) (62.8%) while being the only AL east with scoring more than they gave up (+23). The Jays has taken advantage of the offense they have gotten and gone 29-22 and has a 6 game win streak and has a game and a half lead on the rest of the division and longer it lasts the more important games become and the fans will not need prizes to buy tickets to get inside the Rogers centre. It could be a great season for the Jays Tom Mehegan

Anthony Gose making an impact with the Jays

Anthony Gose has shown the Jays that he came replace Colby Rasmus while Colby hits the 15-day DL with a sore hamstring. Anthony Gose with 6 hits and 6 walks in 7 games with the Jays this season and he has been learning small ball with bunting and walking while covering the grounds in the outfield and getting to every ball hit his way. He is much more focused in the majors than in the minors as he has walked 13 and 32 ks in 28 games in the minors while 6 walks and 5 ks in the majors and has on-base of .500. It of course is not a great thing that he is only focused at the major league level but the reality as long as he can handle he will be a great fourth outfielder when Colby gets back to the lineup. It good timing for Gose as it is time for the Jays have an extra outfielder to replace one of the relievers as it looks like Buehrle is having a solid season going deep into games and if Hutchison can continue his next 20 games of his career like his first 20 the starting two set. If the Jays can get a kindergarten teacher that can help R.A. keep his composer under control so that he does not have a fit every time someone gets a hit the Jays will be a contender in the AL east after being a pretender for over 20 seasons. Timing is everything Tom Mehegan

Casey Janssen is back just in time

Casey Janssen is finally ready to start his season as the Jays closer after missing almost a quarter of the season with arm soreness. All I hope is that Jays done the right and Janssen is really ready and healthy to pitch just over 3 quarters of a season after 34 saves in 36 opportunities last season and 56 saves in 61 opportunities over the last two seasons. He has been coming out of the bullpen with the mind set to throw strikes and get the job done and the Indians and the Rangers this week coming up I think it is possible that the bats will get hot again and will put the Jays in a position late in games with the lead. Which would put the ball in the hands late in the game and they will have the confidence that if they can keep the lead going to the ninth inning and the Foo fighters music starts pounding out of the speakers and Janssen storms the mound with fire in his eyes. So with Janssen back in the fold the Jays could get on a huge roll that could separate themselves from the rest of the crowded American League East. The Jays have a closer that they have confidence in Tom Mehegan

R.A. Dickey is a spoiled brat

So it took 20,000 bobble head of himself to get R.A. to actually have him pitch into the seventh and did not even have a Temper tantrum (at least until Jonny boy came to get him) and only gave up a single run on 5-hits and k'd 6. He has given up 5 runs in 3 of 6 starts this season and had two major temper tantrums as he against Minnesota in a very cold twin cities he throw 4 scoreless innings and then did not want to come out for the fifth as he gave up a 5 spot in the inning and only got one out. Then this past Tuesday @ the Rogers Centre he had shutout the O's on two hits throwing 70-plus % and the first batter Steve Lombardozzi hit a lollypop into shallow outfield grass and the meeting (Brett Lawrie, Jose Reyes, Melky Cabrera, and Coby Rasmus) did not work as it dropped in-between all of them for a double and after that to finish the inning he gave up a hit (three-run homer to Nelson Cruz) along with three walks and a hit batter. Then he was asked to come out for the seventh and with his best I don't want to do this face and gave up two hits and left without getting an out. Through 5 games he has two wins (beating the Yanks on 5 hits and the Soxs on 5 hits) and three losses (Tampa walking 6 and the two others) with an ERA of 5.09 and has walked 18 so far this season. When gets in trouble his personal catcher (Josh Thole) and the pitching coach can not help him u will see neither of them go to the mound because they can not talk to him so they don't try to. I have no problem with Gibby going and getting him with one out in the seventh as he has done nothing to be rewarded with the right to call his own shots to if he stays or hits the showers. Going back to national league will see if he pitches better against the Pirates Tom Mehegan

Toronto Blue Jays bullpen takes a step back

The Blue Jays who are 10-9 and just completed a 5-4 road trip are having a few problems with an overworked bullpen that is not as strong as last season and it has cost them a couple of games this season so far. If you look at the models of great bullpens in the majors of Tampa Bay and Oakland usually have changes from season to season bring in fresh arms and letting the worn down arms find their pay raises elsewhere. The Jays really did not go out and find those fresh arms to replace the couple old arms and the Jays bullpen having given up 81 walks which is the second highest in the majors just behind the Chicago White Soxs (91 walks). It is not the bullpen fault because if R.A. Dickey and Brandon Morrow going to implode within the first 5 innings and leaving at least 4 innings of bullpen twice through the rotation. So I would not blame the bullpen when pitcher comes out at least to start the sixth and think we need to actually same this guys bacon once again for four innings. Dustin McGowan is not a guy that u would expect to go deep into the ballgame as he not able to get anywhere near 100 pitches as he has not pitched this much since the end of the '08 season. Mark Buehrle is the close down pitcher who the Jays have been lacking since Roy Halladay left the city of Toronto after the '09 season and his 4-0 record given up 2 earned runs over 28 innings and only 21 hits and 5 walks in the 28 innings for a whip .93 which is simply incredible. Drew Hutchison is somewhere in between what R.A. is downing and Buehrle is doing as he has pitched into the sixth inning 3 of 4 starts with his shortest outing (3.2 inning) was against the pitch eating Yankees. He has also finished the sixth once and it does not help him always having a guy on base with 21 hits and 8 walks in only 20 innings. The guys not able to throw strikes are Arron Loup (7 bbs in 8.2 innings), Brett Cecil (4 bb in 8 innings), and Steve Delabar (5 bb in 6.2 innings) and these are the dudes that were the shutdown guys and that along with closer Casey Janssen not close to rejoining the team does not help. So the Jays may want to find fresher arms to boost the bullpen Tom Mehegan

Blue Jays heating up in Baltimore

The Blue Jays finished 4-2 this past week and went into Sunday's game 6-6 and only having scored only 41 runs in their first 12 games of the season with a batting average with runners in scoring position an AL worst .157. It has been about the pitching especially the starting pitching with two good starts from Drew Hutchison while getting a quality start from Dustin MacGowen given up a run over 6 innings in a no decision 12 inning loss to the O's 2-1 Saturday. While R.A. Dickey after the season opener in Tampa Bay where he set a record with 6 walks and followed that up with a quality start against the Yankees in a 4-0 victory and then a couple of bad pitches leading to a 2 run homer and 3 run homer in a blow out loss to the Houston Astros. After that the pitching staff has been lead by Mark Buehrle who won his third victory of the season in his third start and has only given up 2 runs over 20.2 innings including a very good 7 inning outing against the O's given up one run in a 11-3 victory to win a series in Baltimore that was common thing between 2006-12. In the 11-3 victory the bats that needed wake up did in Edwin Encarnacion who drove in his first two RBIs of the season and had three hits to drive up his batting to a very low .220 while Colby Rasmus also had three hits and now hitting .217. While Brett Lawrie hit his second homer of the week as he had two hits and now hitting .122 after hitting less than a loonie going into the Baltimore. The guys that have been hot all season are Adam Lind now hitting .313 after a three hit day as he swapped spots with Encarnacion as he was the clean up hitter while Melky Cabrera has gotten a hit in every game so far as the lead-off hitter just like Jose Reyes did most of last season. Jose Bautista who hit his 5 homer and now himself Encarnacion are heading to Target Field in Minnesota where they have combined for 16 homers Tom Mehegan

Jays early season looks very bright

The Jays went into St. Petes and split a four game series with the Tampa Bay Rays to open the season and are now 0-19-2 in the last 21 series in St. Petes since 2007. The Jays had extremely good D which is opposite from what it looked like last season especially Adam Lind who swallowed up throws on the fly and on the bounce in his first baseman's glove and won a game with his bat to help Drew Hutchison won his first start in 21 and a half month. Then Mark Buehrle throw a 8 and two thirds innings gem and stuck out 11 and only gave up 4 hits and is a great leader on the field. Then they came home and battled the New York Yankees and even through it was a series loss (2-1) they had a lot more fight than last season when the Yankees steam rolled the Jays all season long. The home opener with Dustin McGowan held strong and had a lead 3-2 when Mark Teixeira pulled himself out of the game in the second inning and it helped Masahiro Tanaka to settled down and found his stuff and McGowan was eaten up by the ball eaten Yankees and last 2 and two-third and it ended with a 9-2 loss. Then R.A. Dickey shutout the Yankees 4-0 with help from homers from Melky Cabrera and Jose Bautista and Drew Hutchison in his second start got beaten up by the Yankees and gave up 6 runs over 5 and a third but battled back to have Melky Cabrera at the plate as the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. So the Jays have a good defense and has had timely hitting to keep the game close and got three solid starts from their starters and finish a week with the Rays and Yankees and were 3-4 which is a strong start in an extremely tough division. Melky Cabrera started the season with a .323 batting average and three homers and Batista also had 3 homers and both look like they could have bounce back seasons. I hope Colby Rasmus and Adam Lind are in the lineup more Tom Mehegan

Jays already have lingering injuries after season opener

Jays have lost their closer Casey Janssen as he has been put on the 15 day DL after having arm soreness on and off all spring training. With the Jays and lingering injuries are tough to deal with as what is now 15 days could be two or three month and end up needing surgery and be out for the season. This is because the Jays do not do their Due diligence and get to the root of the problem before it is to late so hopefully they are doing everything right now so that it is simply soreness and not something much bigger latter, Then in the home opener the Jays lost their lead-off hitter one batter into the 2014 MLB season with soreness that started a week ago when he needed to sit out a week of spring training but he was ready and put into both games in Montreal and that is a head scratcher. If Reyes out for a while and he played meaningless games in Montreal it will look horrible on the organization as it will cost the Jays a chance to be a contender. The Jays will need to take a good look at how they train their players in the weight room because part of the reasons why Jays arms are falling off is because their tighter and easier to break. It will be interesting to see how everything works out and the Jays are contenders Tom Mehegan