They lost a close series, but who even looks at the standings anymore?

What happened?

On Friday, Sammy G only managed to pitch four and a third innings, but the Blue Jays bullpen managed to take over and cruise. They only allowed one hit, shutting out the Yankees bats the rest of the way. The Blue Jays scored five in the second, including a 3-run home run from Justin Smoak and won easily 6-2.

Saturday’s start was much anticipated due to JA Happ pitching against a team that could be a potential landing spot for him and it was pretty disastrous. Brett Gardner and Aaron Judge led off the game with back-to-back homers and what followed was a steady stream of Yankee baserunners against the lefty. Happ ended up finishing the day giving up six earned runs over four hits and six walks in just 2.2 innings.

Sunday was all about Ryan Borucki. Remember when he made his MLB debut against the World Champion Astros and we all had our collective hearts in our throats? Well, Sunday it was smooth sailing for the 24-year-old southpaw. He spun seven innings of one-run ball, giving up seven hits and walking two. He got better as the afternoon went on, with four of his five strikeouts on the day coming in his final two innings. There was also this slider he threw to Greg Bird, which was pretty pretty nice:

Thoughts?

• Did Happ getting hammered by the Yankees really hurt his trade value? Well, as much as it hurt to watch, probably not. Happ 2.0 in Toronto has been sneaky good these past few seasons. We often forget that he pitched 195 innings and won 20 games in 2016 with a 3.15 ERA. Yeah, the pitcher win is one of the worst stats in sports, but to win 20 games means you pitched well over the course of a full season, which is no easy feat. Happ has gotten rocked his last two games, ballooning his 2018 ERA from 3.62 to 4.44. If Happ can settle down and pitch like he has, well, pretty much the past three seasons, Saturday’s start shouldn’t affect him at all.
• Three starts in and Ryan Borucki looks like he belongs. We often talk about selling off anything valuable on this Blue Jays team and gearing up for 2019 and 2020 with Vlad and friends, but we often forget about the rotation. Happ and Marco Estrada are both free agents after this year, Joe Biagini is back in the bullpen and probably won’t make another regular start again, and the Jaime Garcia experiment has gone so horribly, I don’t even consider him a Blue Jay RIGHT NOW. Two spots will obviously be taken by Marcus Stroman, and Aaron Sanchez, and after a few more starts of this, we can begin to pencil Borucki’s name in that rotation. He hasn’t gotten his first Major League win yet, but two of his starts came against the Astros and Yankees and he didn’t get slaughtered, and that’s most important. Besides, does anybody really care about wins and losses at this point? We’re in the galaxy brain mode of trade value and hoping the kids look good at all levels.
• Seung-hwan Oh could fetch something decent at the deadline. He threw two thirds of an inning on Friday night and then two scoreless Sunday afternoon. Oh has had a few nightmare outings this season, but his ERA is still respectable at 3 with a 10.2 K/9 to boot. He initially signed a one-year deal with a $2.5M vesting option for 2019 based on appearances.

Up Next

The Blue Jays go to Atlanta for a two-game set to face the team that couldn’t beat them in the 1992 World Series.