So that was a pretty good game. The Jays win 9-0, Jesse Litsch gets the CG shutout, Travis Snider went 3-3 with a walk and a home run (and no strikeouts...well, yeah) and the Jays helped to severely cripple the playoff chances of another team.
While not busy gushing fanboy style over Travis Snider (yeah, I think the kid can hit) I noticed something interesting while doing a random perusal of stats. So rather than the aforementioned gushing, let's check it out, and play everyone's favourite game: guess that player.
Player A: 300/347/494
Player B: 302/340/492
Player A is Vernon, player B is Lind. Ok, so maybe it's not thatttt interesting, but I found it instructive. I haven't seen too many games over the last little while, but I had forgotten how much Vernon was crushing the ball - indeed, he hit home run number 16 last night, in 340 at bats. For the Jays, that qualifies as an achievement - they might even have a 20 home run hitter.
Here's his line since returning from the last DL trip: 337/398/628, 7 HR 4 2B, 10 BB, 7 SO, 98 PA. 4 of the walks were intentional, but it's still a pretty impressive line. All hail Vernon? It might be a little early to get too worked up, but there are encouraging signs. His average on balls in play is a very ordinary .303, and while his walk rate is pretty much at his career average (7.1 vs. 6.8 career), he has cut down on his strikeouts significantly, striking out in just less than 12% of his at bats, as opposed to more than 15% last year.
Again, I don't know what any of this means, but its nice to get something out of your $126 million, even if it comes a bit late.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=2008090510015730