Like Cam said on the podcast last Thursday, the Blue Jays have been getting extremely consistent starts from Jose Berrios. The Jays got another one from Berrios on Sunday afternoon, heavily contributing to a 4-1 win over Detroit. With that win, Toronto took the series, and are now 7-2 since the All-Star break.
Berrios went 7 innings, giving up only 3 hits, one run, one walk, and striking out six. His only blemish was a 4th inning home run by Javier Baez, which honestly turned out to be predictable; in his 1st inning at-bat, Baez hit three consecutive pitches to deep left field. All three were literally just foul, inches from being homers. Berrios eventually walked Baez in that at-bat, but he got Berrios back with a solo shot later on. It also just so happens to be that Berrios is Baez’ brother-in-law. Baseball is incredible sometimes.
Berrios fought through an inconsistent strike zone, and only needed 80 pitches to get through his outing. With this start, Berrios dipped his ERA down to 4.96. It’s the first time his ERA has been below 5.00 since June 15th.
Today‘s scoring was started by Matt Chapman, who has been on an absolute heater the last several weeks. Chapman hit a 2-run homer in the 2nd inning off of Tigers starter Garrett Hill. With Chapman, Teoscar Hernandez, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. all having hits today, it continued the 5-6-7 part of this lineup being effective for the Jays, something we weren’t seeing in the early part of the season.
The Blue Jays added some insurance in the 5th inning with RBI doubles from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette. It was good to see the top of the order provide some good at-bats for the Jays, considering George Springer missed today’s game with elbow soreness.
Toronto has an off day tomorrow, and will enter a mini two-game series against Tampa Bay on Tuesday. Unfortunately, this series is at the Trop, and literally nothing will kill a nice stretch of good baseball like games down in Tampa. Kevin Gausman will look to rebound from his last start against St. Louis, with Drew Rasmussen going for the Rays.
