At last, an opponent who's below .500.

The Twins might be saying the same after getting swept by NY.

Travis Snider update: Jose Tabata is back, has gone 5-12 in three games since returning from his six week absence, and "will be given every opportunity to claim the everyday RF job" according to Clint Hurdle.

Well, that was a fun one.  Nice to see everything go right even if the ump appeared to have a variable strike zone, at least on the outside edge for left handed hitters.  0 walks from 3 pitchers is always nice.

Sad thing is just 25k there tonight on a nice Friday with the roof open.  This season has been averaging over 31k so a Friday night with 25 hurts a bit.  Of course, the team being sub-500 might be part of the cause.

Sad thing is just 25k there tonight on a nice Friday with the roof open.

It was actually pretty crummy out until nearly game time, and it was raining for most of the day. The dome was closed at the start - I thought they weren't supposed to *open* it mid-game, but I guess they changed the rules.

Ah, didn't know it was bad weather in Toronto - up in Thunder Bay where it was beautiful all day.  Just listening to the Blues Festival going on near the lake - playing so loud I can hear it clearly at our house which is about a mile away.

And it's Minnesota. From an attendance perspective, Jays got a little screwed by their weekend opponents. Boston-New York first 2 weekends, then SEA-BAL-TEX-BAL-MIN, with TB-HOU-OAK-KC-BAL-TB left.

Dickey going tomorrow sets them up to go on another run. A solid start by him will give Gibby the opportunity on Sunday to pull Redmond early.

A solid start by him will give Gibby the opportunity on Sunday to pull Redmond early.

Before the first pitch, ideally.  Hard to believe that they would actually start Redmond in what is a regular season game, after all, but this is the same team that keeps running Emilio Bonifacio out there game after game.

"....Hard to believe that they would actually start Redmond in what is a regular season game...."

Your sarcasm implies that the Jays had some completely obvious alternative who would be clearly superior. Who might that be? Please enlighten us.

We all might have our preferences (I like Thad Weber myself) but there are really no good choices in this situation. You've apparently forgotten that Morrow and Happ are still recovering from injury, Jenkins is injured, Nolin and Stroman are not ready yet, Romero is still struggling, Drabek and Hutchison are far from ready, Cecil and McGowan are better-suited to relief work, etc, etc.

Some people have suggested a "Charlie Wholestaff" approach to this start, with Perez or McGowan taking the opening innings. It's an interesting idea, but it does tend to burn up the bullpen fast, so it's more for emergency situations. It can certainly be defended as a reasonable suggestion, but it's equally defensible to say that it's not obviously superior to what the Jays have done, which is promote an AAA starter.

As for Redmond himself: the Jays scouts have clearly liked him for a while, since he's been on the 40-man roster all season. His 7.2 innings this season have been decent (WHIP of 0.913). His numbers at AAA this season haven't been impressive, but his AAA career numbers look better: 109 starts, ERA of 3.83. Probably a safer option than promoting Stroman and having to put him on the 40-man roster. (Stroman is still averaging less than 5 innings per start at AA.) Keep in mind that Redmond was injured for much of this season, so he's only become an option for the Jays for the past few weeks, and has been promoted twice in that period. Trivia nugget: he pitched a no-hitter for the AAA Gwinnett Braves in 2010.

For an injury-plagued team that has been forced to give starts in 2013 to pitchers like Laffey, Jenkins, Ortiz and Wang, the concept of a Todd Redmond getting an occasional start doesn't seem either surprising or inherently wrong.

A couple of interesting articles on McGowan yesterday by Davidi and Griffin. They confirm that the Jays were being a little cautious with him in his early games, but now the leash is off and he will get high-leverage innings.

McGowan's last three games have been extremely impressive: two shutout innings against the Red Sox; then he strikes out the side against the Tigers (striking out Fielder, Cabrera and Hunter) and then another clean inning last night. His fastball topped out at 98 against Cabrera.

McGowan and the Jays are in agreement that it would be too risky to have him starting games this season. Here's what he told Davidi yesterday:

“I have given thought to it, but for me it’s more next year. I’d love to get a year under my belt of a full season where I feel good and build off that. Plus I think I need a full off-season to change my routine and my strengthening schedule and stuff like that to start. Relieving is what I’ve been geared up to do this year, and for me I think it could be a mistake to jump out into (starting) again because I don’t really know how my shoulder is going to react to that.”

"From an attendance perspective, Jays got a little screwed by their weekend opponents."

I'm guessing Beeston views this as a blessing. During the week is when you want to get B0S & NYY so that the 15k crowds of the last few years become 30k crowds. When the Jays are winning they have no problem drawing 30k on the weekend no matter the opponent. The TEX series averaged 41k.

"Your sarcasm implies that the Jays had some completely obvious alternative who would be clearly superior. Who might that be? Please enlighten us."

Any of the other pitchers on the 40, IMO. From what I saw Wednesday Todd Redmond is a disaster waiting to happen, though giving him a few innings vs. the Twins isn't the end of the world. Ideally Dickey goes deep into today's game so you can have a quick trigger on Redmond tomorrow, perhaps continuing to stretch out Juan Perez and getting a couple out of Neil Wagner in the process. However, I would've much rather seen another body on the roster instead of Redmond for the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday games, with a call-up Sunday morning for the start or bullpen backup.

I don't have strong feelings about Todd Redmond.  His numbers in Buffalo this year are actually pretty good despite the above-5 ERA and he has pitched better in more recent starts. 

The key thing for me is that Monday is a day off.  It's the perfect day for a Charlie Wholestaff game, especially if Dickey goes deep into today's game.  I would actually put a good reliever in to start the game because of leverage issues, and I wouldn't ask anyone to go more than 3 innings and would be happy with 2.  I'd start with a left-hander (Loup probably) through Morneau, and then run out a right-hander for a while depending on the game situation.  Redmond would be an option at some point if one team or the other had a 5 run lead.  Ideally, McGowan would not have pitched last night so that he could go 3 innings after Loup.  As it is, I'd send him out for no more than 20 pitches.

"Your sarcasm implies that the Jays had some completely obvious alternative who would be clearly superior.  Who might that be? Please enlighten us."

I'm with you, in that I think Weber would have been the better choice if dipping down into Buffalo's starting ranks for tomorrow's game, and that would have allowed the Jays to shuffle a few bodies around over the weekend, to make better use of the roster. 

Gibbons has just announced that Delabar has some "soreness" and they're trying to avoid using him today. It's an example of the many pieces of information that the Jays might have (much of it unannounced publicly) that might make them reluctant to use Charlie Wholestaff tomorrow.

"...From what I saw Wednesday Todd Redmond is a disaster waiting to happen..."

I tend to prefer the point that you made (on another thread) about minor-leaguers: "you can't possibly pretend to have a clue as to how those players would perform if given MLB playing time...."

But of course there is a possibility that Redmond's start tomorrow will be a disaster. In fairness, however, most of the top Jays starters this year have had disastrous games too -- look at Johnson, Dickey, Buehrle, they've all had a few disastrous games. It can happen to anyone, so of course it could happen to Redmond.

The other point is that the Jays actually have a history of squeezing some decent innings out of some marginal pitchers. They went into this season with a "top 6" in the rotation depth chart (if you include Romero) and they've been forced to resort to other pitchers for 22 starts this season. And a bunch of those marginal pitchers, forced into unexpected starts, did better than we predicted. There have also been disasters, of course. Let's review the spot starters this year:

Romero -- two starts; both were a disaster
Jenkins -- three starts; none of them were a disaster
Laffey -- one start; disaster
Rogers -- five good starts, one bad start, couple of mixed starts
Wang -- three good starts, two disastrous starts
Ortiz -- two good starts, two disastrous starts
Nolin -- one start, disaster

So that's 24 starts given to spot starters this year, and only 8 of those 24 starts were a disaster. At least half of those 24 spot-starts were actually pretty good. In most of those cases, we were expecting worse.

The other possibility is to bring back Johnson tomorrow on 3 days rest (for this one occasion only because of the off-day).  He goes a maximum of 5 innings, 80 pitches against a weak hitting club.  I would certainly ask him how he felt about it.

How do you ask Johnson that with a straight face? Setting aside that he's never started on 3 days rest before, he has a long history of arm trouble, a recent injury and has been ineffective in his last two starts. Also, while he didn't give innings, he threw 105 pitches in his last start, and 90 in the 3 1/3 previous so it's not like he's particularly fresh going into Sunday.

You're probably right that he wouldn't agree.  Nonetheless, if Johnson agreed, I'd send him out there on the limited basis I have suggested. 

I'd be more concerned about him agreeing when he shouldn't than not at all. Athletes are notoriously competitive and often try to play through fatigue or injury. This isn't a choice I'd leave in his hands, regardless of parameters.

Richmond, of course, did throw 42 pitches on Wednesday, and is also used to starting on 4 days or more rest.

42 over 3 is a lot different than 105 over 5.

That is true.  I'd be happy if Johnson gave 42 good pitches over 3 innings this time...Plus it would have the added benefit of moving him behind Dickey in the rotation.

"I tend to prefer the point that you made (on another thread) about minor-leaguers: "you can't possibly pretend to have a clue as to how those players would perform if given MLB playing time....""

The difference is I watched Redmond pitch live, and that's what I'm basing my opinion on. I'm pretty concerned that management watched his results and thought they were worthy of another start. I hope to be pleasantly surprised tomorrow as I'll be in attendance, but my expectations are low.

Also, it's really important to value that 25th roster spot properly. Redmond can't just be the best option, he needs to have been the best option by enough that it made sense to not carry another player for the last 3 games so they'd have Redmond for Sunday. I don't believe that was the case.

I guess I'll have to eat a little crow, after that decent spot start from Redmond.  I'm still not convinced it was the percentage play, but there's no arguing with the results.