The Jays went into Baltimore and took another two games on the road. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much to make fun of the Orioles about, besides the fact that they almost got no-hit.
What Happened?
On Monday, the Blue Jays battled in a low scoring affair, then kicked the doors in during a five-run ninth inning capped off by a Josh Donaldson grand slam. Blue Jays win 7-1.
On Tuesday, Aaron Sanchez was magical. He held the Orioles hitless through seven innings and eventually picked up the ever-important W after a go-ahead Curtis Granderson solo home run off of son of Jose Bautista, Darren O’Day. Blue Jays win 2-1.
Wednesday was a snooze fest. Devon Travis, Russell Martin, and Josh Donaldson were out of the lineup and the Blue Jays fell 5-3. Estrada got hit kind of hard and the Blue Jays couldn’t get much going offensively.
Thoughts
- Randal Grichuk is still struggling. John Gibbons elected to not start him until the series finale, and he went 0-4 with a strikeout. His OPS sits at .319 through the first few series. Obviously it’s a small sample, but this is getting painful to watch.
- Kendrys Morales was placed on the ten-day disabled list with a strained hamstring, but at this point, I don’t mind major league depth taking those at-bats from a guy that was struggling mightily, anyway.
- Happ struck out a fuck ton of hitters. He got himself into minor trouble throughout his start Monday and then got himself out of it by sitting down a bunch of Orioles.
Up Next
The Blue Jays head to Cleveland to take on the 7-5 Cleveland Indians.
Millennial Recap
Hate reading? Watch this!
Are you ready for a fresh series recap? Of course you are! pic.twitter.com/uZqwlcMZ5w
— Fisher Cats Nation (@thejaysnation) April 12, 2018
How much longer can the Jays carry Grinchuk and Gift?
Grichuk isn’t going anywhere. He’s under contract for less than $3M, has two years of control left, and had a career OPS+ of 107 coming into the season (about the same WRC+)
He’s also an above average defensive outfielder.
Dude’s slumping. Relax.
As far as Gift goes, he’s gone as soon as either Tulo ready to come off the DL, or Gurriel (or Leblebijian) forces his way onto the roster.
Which is fine by me…he’ll be fine. Won’t he?… Just tell me this is all fine already!!!
#ItsFine
Grichuk is gonna get it going, he makes loud outs, he’ll find his stroke.
I think we will need to re-evaluate Grickuk by mid May. If still sucking then a plan needs to be done to correct his issue. Can he be sent down to the minors or does he have to go through waivers. Just thinking to take the pressure off while he works some stuff out (worse case though, I hope he comes around, he is a good looking ball player)
He’s out of options. He’ll have to go through waivers.
He was a fire sale, some times it works out some times it doesn’t. But we have to give time to see what he can really do. I seem to recall two guys who basically were cast offs from other clubs, some guy named Joey Bats and E.E.
The one factor that surprised me in the final game of the Oriole series was the Jays got a runner on and chose Travis to pinch hit rather than Donaldson. Which would leave one to possibly conjecture that Donaldson is having problems again. He of course pounded the ball earlier in the series and in Texas. So not to see him as the pinch hitter has me wondering how healthy he actually is.
I agree having Morales out of the line up doesn’t hurt and one would indeed expect Grichuk will snap out of this slump. He can’t get any worse. As another astute poster pointed out his defence is good and at this point the way he is playing he would be the late inning defensive replacement. But it is early and similar to C.J. Miles of the Raptors he will begin to hit and C.J. will actually hit the backboard on a three point attempt.