The bottom of the order did most of the damage in Monday's contest, with 2 homers and 5 RBIs from Jose Bautista, a homer and a single from Travis Snider, and 3 hits from Mike McCoy. And most importantly, Brandon Morrow was excellent, allowing only 5 base-runners in 7 innings and striking out 8. He also threw only 90 pitches and got 10 ground ball outs. There's really just nothing to complain about there. On his blog, Mike Wilner brings up the fact that Morrow was behind the other pitchers in Spring Training, so maybe his first couple starts should really be considered tune-ups. Let's hope that tonight's Morrow is the one we'll be seeing every 5 days.
More-on Morrow: on Twitter, Jordan Bastian passes along this nugget:
At suggestion of Jays pitching coach Walton, Morrow lowered arm angle slightly between starts. Said Morrow: "It opened up a lot of things."
I'm not holding my breath on Morrow becoming an ace, but tonight gave us a lot to be optimistic about.
Back to Wilner for a minute: one of the things he's been harping on on his blog this season is increased playing time for players who could have a future with the club. Specifically, Mike would rather see Lyle Overbay, Alex Gonzalez and Jose Bautista relegated to the bench in favour of Randy Ruiz, Mike McCoy and Fred Lewis. Of those three guys, Lewis has by far the most service time at just 2.129 years, so clearly Wilner is right that these guys could be part of The Future if we're just talking about service time. But service time isn't the only consideration - it would be pointless to give 500 at bats to a guy whose upside is that of a replacement-level player. So, the Question of the Day is: do you agree with Wilner? I mean, obviously it's not going to happen the way he wants, but let's play You Be The Manager for a minute. Do those 3 guys interest you enough to give them a legitimate shot? What about other considerations, like the potential to trade Overbay, Gonzalez or Bautista. Clearly you don't want to bench those guys if you want their value to increase. So: what would you do?
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