Coming off back-to-back wins over the Rockies during Troy Tulowitzki’s return to Colorado, the Blue Jays look to keep the momentum going against Ross Atkins and Mark Shapiro’s old team, the Cleveland Indians.
Lost in the shadows of the Cavaliers delivering a title to northeast Ohio is how good the Tribe have been. The surprising Indians are the hottest team in baseball coming into Toronto, having won 12 straight after Danny Salazar was lights out on Wednesday. The “Windians” are looking for their club record–tying 13th straight win versus the Jays Thursday.
Having won just four of their last 10 and fallen 5.5 games behind the AL East–leading Baltimore Orioles, Toronto will look to get back on track against a familiar foe.
Projected Starters
Thursday, June 30 — 7:07 pm EST
Carlos Carrasco vs. R.A. Dickey
Friday, July 1 — 1:07 pm EST
Josh Tomlin vs. Marcus Stroman
Saturday, July 2 — 1:07 pm EST
Trevor Bauer vs. Marco Estrada
Sunday, July 3 — 1:07 pm EST
Corey Kluber vs. J.A. Happ
Tough start
The first pitching matchup of the series features two starters trending in opposite directions as of their most recent outings. Carrasco comes to Toronto having thrown three consecutive quality starts thanks to a 1.61 ERA in those outings. In his complete-game shutout of the Tigers on Saturday, only 35 of his 117 pitches were balls.
Meanwhile, Dickey surrendered a season-high four home runs in his last start against the Chicago White Sox.
Dickey has fared well historically against Cleveland, however, with a 4-2 record and 3.13 ERA. Rajai Davis is the only Indians player batting over .300 against the knuckleballer over the last five years with three hits in nine at-bats. On the flip side, Josh Donaldson (.667), Kevin Pillar (.500), Justin Smoak (.500) and Josh Thole (.667) are all batting over .500 against Carrasco in the last five seasons.
Ducking Danny
Luckily the Blue Jays miss out on facing Toronto killer Danny Salazar, who has won six straight starts and ten total already this season. With an ERA of just 2.22. Danny “Salary” has put himself in the American League all-star game debate.
In fact, the Indians’ pitching staff as a whole has pitched extremely well this year. Their seven shutouts are the most in the American League, and the team has a 2.47 ERA this month.
A month to remember
Indians rookie centre fielder Tyler Naquin has not only been carrying the team offensively of late—he’s put his name in the Rookie of the Year conversation. In 22 games this month, Naquin’s put up a 1.231 OPS with a .344 batting average and six home runs.
Relievers need relief
Aaron Sanchez gave an overworked and under-performing bullpen a breather on Wednesday as he went over the century mark in innings pitched by throwing eight frames of one-run baseball. Now that they’ve had a night off for the most part, this series will be the first indication of how John Gibbons plans to deploy his struggling bullpen moving forward.
Two vital relievers are on opposite ends of the same injury. Brett Cecil will likely come off the DL during this series after suffering a torn lat; meanwhile, after being one of Toronto’s best relievers in his 28 appearances, Gavin Floyd is now on the DL for a couple months with a torn lat of his own.
When and how often Gibbons calls on Jesse Chavez, Drew Storen and Joe Biagini in this series will be telling as far as who assumes Floyd’s role for the foreseeable future. It’s also worth watching if Ryan Tepera or Bo Shultz can carve out a larger role for themselves. How the newly configured bullpen fares could seriously impact the future plans with Sanchez and the team’s level of aggressiveness to get relief help at the deadline.
Got Bautista’s back
Jose Bautista remains out of the lineup with turf toe, but the men before him and after him in the batting order have picked up the slack. Edwin Encarnacion is the fourth player in MLB history to record 30 RBI in the month of June and still has a day left in the month to do more damage. Over his last 19 games, Donaldson is batting .423 with 22 RBI, six doubles, five home runs and four triples. Toronto’s .851 OPS in June is second only to Baltimore’s .891.
Depending on dingers
Even with Jose Bautista out of the line-up, the recipe for success in Toronto has been the same. The Blue Jays are fifth in the league in percentage of runs that come via the long ball.
| Team | % of runs via HR |
|---|---|
| New York Mets | 51.8% |
| Tampa Bay Rays | 51.0% |
| Seattle Mariners | 49.9% |
| Baltimore Orioles | 49.5% |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 48.3% |
That number should climb up even higher when Bautista returns.
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