Litsch and Romero lead the world-beating Jays into a two-game home series against the first-place Rays.
After Kyle Drabek ran over our neighbors Monday and last night's game got rained out, John Farrell is keeping his rotation in order and moving everyone back a day. Jesse Litsch faces Jeremy Hellickson tonight, Ricky Romero draws Wade Davis tomorrow, and everyone else gets the Astros. That sounds sensible. I might have considered bumping Litsch back to Friday and letting the Rays deal with the originally scheduled starters, Romero and Jo-Jo Reyes. In the early going Tampa has fared better against RH than LH pitchers, and it can't hurt to have lefties on the hill to shut down the Rays' prolific running game*. On the other hand, the splits are dubious because Evan Longoria missed a month; it will be nice to at least make Michael Bourn deal with one lefty on the weekend; and Litsch, with his snappy delivery, is pretty good at locking down the running game himself. In his 384 career innings, basestealers are 13-for-24. And the Astros have been dreadful so far. Facing them will give Reyes a very good chance at the elusive Pitcher Win that will wash away the aura of bornloseritis that haunts him in high-leverage situations. I'm fine with this.
*The Rays are actually the second most prolific basestealing team in this series: they're 40/54, but Toronto is 43/58. That sounds so wrong. And so right.
Joe Maddon is impressed by Jose Bautista: "... tremendous plate discipline with this full-force hack going on. It's really unusual to see that. He's different right now." When asked whether he'd be intentionally walking Bautista this series, he rattled off the predictable non-answers. Bautista was injured for the Jays' trip to St. Pete two weeks ago, but you have to figure Maddon remembers the last time Bautista faced Tampa – he homered twice off David Price, the second time on a clear unintentional intentional walk. This week, I expect Maddon to learn from his mistake and call for the wide ones when it matters. For one thing, with Adam Lind out, Bautista has very little protection. I'd almost like to see Corey Patterson hit fourth. At the moment he's no worse than Rivera or Encarnacion or Hill against righty pitching, and unlike them at least Patterson isn't a double play threat. For another thing, Maddon has a flair for showy managerial moves – he surrendered the DH in the middle innings of a comeback win here last year, and in 2008 he famously walked Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth when he represented the tying run. The Rays won that one, too.
Jeremy Hellickson is riding high after a four-hit CGSO against the Orioles. His season by the numbers: 7 starts, 6.5 IP/GS, 3.7 P/PA, 15.9% K, 9.5% BB, 2.1% HR, 37.4% GB, .243 BABIP, 2.98 ERA. He throws changeups more than 30% of the time, and there's an 11-mph velocity difference off the fastball. Strange that he doesn't have more strikeouts if his change is really that good, but the season is still young.
Hellickson, Litsch, and (most likely) Eric Thames' big-league debut. Big game. Jays -130 at 7:07.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=2011051806185716