Blue Jays Mailbag: Goins vs. Tulo, Pillar’s Start, and the 10-Day DL

The Blue Jays’ season is back on! All it took was a nice series win against Cleveland and a visit from a the beat-up Mariners and their Triple-A rotation, and the boys in blue are back in business. Or something at least resembling business!

What this means for our purposes is that we have here some questions that actually have some positivity embedded within them, and oh man, I’m going to savour that.

So let’s get on with this week’s edition of the mailbag!

And if you have a Blue Jays question you’d like me to tackle for next week, be sure to send it to stoeten@gmail.com. As always, I have not read any of Griff’s answers…

In Josh Donaldson’s absence, Kevin Pillar has basically been the Jays’ MVP so far, which is an utterly crazy thing to contemplate. It’s especially crazy to me, because I’ve always felt rather pessimistic about Pillar’s ability to magically one day decide to be a better hitter.

Of course, his improvements aren’t simply magic. They are a product of him identifying an area of his game that could be improved and taking the necessary steps to do it. One of the great things about Pillar is the fact that he did the same thing with his defence, transforming himself from a prospect that few felt could play centre field on a regular basis into one of the majors’ best defenders at that position. It makes it somewhat easier to believe in what he’s turning into as a hitter.