Chatwood is back, Kay is optioned.

Teoscar passed his Covid test and is with the team but not activated yet.

Romano threw a bullpen today and could be activated tomorrow or Sunday.

Pearson and Springer are playing a minor league game tonight.

Glasnow's 97mph 4-seamer is the best pitch in baseball this year-tied with Corbin's cutter.
To make things more interesting, he's gone back to mixing his slider along with his curve, to mess up with those who can't catch up to the heater and sit soft.

Matz's sinker has also been one of the best pitch so far. It's more-or-less tied for 3rd with 4 or 5 other guy's offerings. 


This year the Rays have been hitting quite well, but they have more arms on the IL than the Jays.
They just added their closer this afternoon.
The Jays will go at them with 3 lefties which will bring out their tough bench hitters.
Today's lineup has Meadows, Wendle and Kiermaier batting left.
Arozarena is the new guy who was raking in last year's playoffs.

Balls are strikes and strikes are balls. Over the air we'll hear umps filthy calls.

Yeah, it's bad. Does explain why no one performs my plays.

Roark is on family leave.
Bergen is up in his place.

Baseball...you never know.

Now that’s the Jays we were waiting for. Turning on 100mph fastballs. If Rowdy and Semien get going, watch out.

Who is the guy on the bench with the ZZ Top beard under his mask?

Kinda looks like Kirby Snead. Is he on the taxi squad?

Every fifth day I thank the Metz for Matz.

Snead is a good call. Thanks.

Yikes and yips on this defense

Is there a jinx on the left side of the Jays infield?

Apparently 'hit the ball hard' is a bad strategy for the rays...

Good shout on Snead. I've been wondering who that was for a while.

Do the Jays post/update their taxi squad on an ongoing basis? I don't see it on the official webiste.

Is there a jinx on the left side of the Jays infield?

Apparently you're thinking too small.

A one run lead in this nightmarish stadium, with our infielders throwing the ball around everywhere? I’ve seen this movie before and it never ends well.

I mean, unless you're cheering for Freddy Krueger.

A typical series in Tampa is for the Jays to almost win two (or three) of three, but instead end up losing the series as TB ekes out an improbable win or two (or three).

As the Jays get healthy, I’d say that Gurriel is the player most in danger of losing ABs. He’s hit very few balls with any authority this year.

The centred camera angle gives you a great perspective on the amount of movement that Mayza gets on his FB.

Vote Espinal for 3B!

A typical series in Tampa is for the Jays to almost win two (or three) of three, but instead end up losing the series as TB ekes out an improbable win or two (or three).

True. Another thing I've noticed is that the Jays often win the first game of the series, just to tease that they might actually win the series. And then they lose all the games after that.

With 2 lefties coming up, Espinal should start at least one of those games.

That 3-run bomb from Semien was the whole game.
Semien is still sitting fastball and struggling with everything else.
Lucky for him, Glasnow kept missing with the slider and had to throw one.

It looks like the slider is easier to pick up than the curve.

Matz threw 6 innings but only got credited with 5.
Going 4-0, he can't complain too much.
Bullpen looked really sharp though.

Now, about the series, for a moment it looked like they were going to get into the Tampa pen early but that never happened. Quite the opposite.

"Lucky for him, Glasnow kept missing with the slider and had to throw one."

I felt the opposite, that Semien laid off those pitches.

Yeah, but had those sliders been in the strike zone, the outcome would have been different.

They'll need better defense the next 2 games.
Although, Gurriel had 2 of those plays that made him a gold glove candidate last year, saved a run, maybe more.

Glasnow is a 5th round 2011 draft pick. He took a long time to develop. Could develop into a #1.

Could develop into a #1.

In 39 starts with Tampa, he has a 3.13 ERA, 12.2 strikeouts per 9 innings, 6.1 hits per 9 innings and a 4.33 K/BB ratio.

What more does he need to do?

Glasnow, Bieber, Degrom, Kershaw, Scherzer, Cole, Burns... these are the best pitchers in baseball and Glasnow has been entrenched as not only a #1 but a bonfide ace.

Ryu should be on that list. His numbers since 2016 are quite a bit better than Glasnow's.

I don't think he gets the same recognition because he is a softer thrower. But hard to argue with the results.

Nice and interesting question about Glasnow being an ace/#1.

I am not being difficult or disagreeable. I think our definitions are different.
1) Due to covid and injury in 2019 Glasnow has pitched 111 innings the most per season in 2018. He needs at least 1 150+ inning good season for my standards.
2) R Romero's 2010 was pretty good and 2011 was fantastic. But not lengthy enough for my standards.
3) S Marcum 4 pretty good seasons 2008-2012. Fairly long and developed fast. Had 150+ IP a few times. So #2 and just a maybe #1.
4) B Morrow 124 IP in 2012 so too short to qualify for anything. A Sanchez 192 IP in 2016.

At the moment I cannot give Glasnow the ace/#1 ranking because his career is too short for now. Yu Darvish is in his 9th year in the ML. I don't mind giving him a #1. Blake Snell 2018 181 IP and Cy Young. I need to see more from him.

For me you have to be close to 180 IP/season with an era of 3.50 or lower a few times. So for me Aces and #1s announce themselves quite clearly. These are just my standards. For the last 4 or so seasons getting to 200 IP/season does not happen much so I will adjust downwards.

I am very interested in other Bauxites standards for Ace/#1.

Checking out defences the old fashioned way.

Jays now with 13 errors. Only 7 teams have more. White Sox 19 leads MLB. Angels and Padres with 18.

However 11 different White Sox players have committed at least 1 error, the Angels have 12 players. The Jays errors are clumped into 4 guys. Bo with 6, Cavan 4, Panik 2, Rowdy 1.

Only 9 players have at least 4 errors, 6 SS's, 3 3B's. Cavan and 6 others with 4, Bo 6 and Tatis has 7.

Our 13 errors have translated to 10 unearned runs, along with 3 other teams. Seattle with 11 unearned, Twins and White Sox with 12 and the Mets have 15 unearned despite a middle-of-the pack 11 errors.

Braves best with only 4 errors, but 7 unearned. Cubs have 5 errors, but MLB best 1 unearned run. Nats next with 3 unearned despite 8 errors.

Ryu should definitely be on the list, agreed.

Bpoz,your definition relating to length of dominance, for me that's the difference between a superstar, potential hall of fame and just an ace or #1. This is the difference between Roy Halladay and Brandon Webb, Kershaw and Glasnow, etc etc.

Bieber and Cole are likely the best overall pitchers going forward to take the superstar/potential hall of fame paths, provided they can do what Scherzer, Lander, Kershaw etc all did which is adjust their strategies and or maintain their sickness. Oh yeah, add no hitters, perfect games or World Series to the list if you want the HOF title.

Brent Honeywell Jr will open for the Rays.
Due to multiples surgeries, he hadn't thrown a professional pitch since 2017.
So, I guess they'll keep him in the pen like Merryweather.

Seems like he only threw 1 inning in spring training facing Boston.

He opened against the Yankees and got 2 perfect innings.
He faced KC as a reliever and wasn't as good, 4 outs, 2 hits, 2 walks, 1 homerun.
They optioned him down and brought him back up due to other injuries.
His fastball is in the low 90s.

Biggio making errors is excusable because he is playing so many positions as super utility. It's not ideal but I understand it.

Bo, on the other hand, it's inexcusable to play in the minors for a few years at SS, then the majors for 100+games and to still be making so many basic errors. If they were just throwing errors then maybe it would be easier to digest, but he struggles to field the ball cleanly every single game at least once or twice. If Vlad wasn't so impressive so far at receiving off line throws and bounced throws then Bo might have twice as many errors.

His bat is phenomenal and game changing but that glove is utterly atrocious and he should be somewhere else.

Gurriel's catches last night were not impressive to me, just awful routes to the baseball resulting in Max effort catches.

For Bo do you leave him at SS to figure it out or move him to 2B or 3B next year? I would move him next year to a new position and sign an infielder like Seager or Story. Bo is not as good as these players, but I am in the minority for sure as most pundits see him as a player who can handle SS, pop 20-30 bombs if not more and swipe 20+ bags. Actually, his upside sounds a lot like Semien's upside. Do we have a Ron Washington who can teach Bo how to field?

The ball against the wall required a jump and the perfect throw from LF to home plate is not something you can teach.

Statcast OAA

2020
Tatis +9 (Best in MLB)
Bo +1
Seager 0

2021
Tatis -2
Seager -2
Bo -7 (Worst in MLB)

Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical

Bo is only 23 and only played 31 games last year, including playoffs.

Pearson is supposed to play against the Marlins developmental team today.
However, the Marlins have closed their minor league complex due to multiple Covid-19 positives.
At least 5 players/staffers have tested positive.

The point, scottt was that he was OK in those 31 games last year. Tatis was great last year. Tatis is substandard this year. Bo has been terrible this year. To me it seems some randomness, some concentration issues for both, but there definitely seems some yips going on with Bo, nothing to do with his arm or range.

Also, Seager is a barely average/below average defender who's a great hitter.

Question -- did anyone truly think that this Blue Jays team would be an above-average defense in 2021? A .500 record at this point, given they're without Springer, is good and about what one would expect. If memory serves, it's kind of a Blue Jays thing to be not great at run prevention (save for 2007-2008 era Jays). A crooked number in the E column is always irksome, but this team has a ceiling of about an average defense. The errors will come, but we'll see if the team can hit enough to get to the positive side of the ledger.

did anyone truly think that this Blue Jays team would be an above-average defense in 2021 ?

The anemic offense has made the defensive miscues on the left side of the infield stand out a lot more.

People were predicting the Jays were going to bludgeon opponents 8-7 every game a la 2000s Texas Rangers given the lack of offseason SP additions.

If Biggio and Tellez and Gurriel Jr and Semien were hitting anywhere close to their career norms so far, this team would be over. 500 and it would be a lot easier to forgive the miscues.

The defence has looked bad, but I don't think there are any brilliant solutions out there.

Bo's problems haven't been range-related. He's not getting the ball out of his glove, or making bad throws. Some of that might be improved by switching with Semien, but hardly the whole of it - and moving him strikes me as a very reactive, impatient move that might well be resented. He was right around average across 2019-2020, so we should probably attribute some of his early-season struggles to SSS variation.

Biggio looks like a fish out of water at third and Panik has been even worse. Biggio's probably not this bad, but he's probably solidly below-average. The only real potential solution would be to move Vladdy across the diamond and turn Biggio into a true super-sub. Vladdy was better than Biggio/Panik at 3B even in his rookie season. This year he looks a lot better in the field, and his foot speed is much improved. I'd be curious how he'd do given another chance at 3B. Tellez would take over at 1B, and DH would rotate. That would leave Biggio to get some reps at 2B, 1B, 3B, and OF. It's not ideal - Biggio might not be any better an outfielder than a 3B, and he'd still be getting playing time at both positions.

Actually, I think he made 2 errors in one of the playoffs game.
Might just be putting too much pressure on himself.

Half a game behind the Rays, a game in front of the Yankees.

The Rays have put Mazza on the IL due to "shoulder inflammation"'.
He was up just one day.
Diego Castillo is reactivated--he was recovering from his vaccine shot.
Patino has been added to the taxi squad and is expected to be activated for tomorrow's game.
He'll probably replace someone who pitches an inning or two today.

but there definitely seems some yips going on with Bo

That’s what I’ve been thinking as well. Hopefully it’s temporary as the issues would follow a move to second or third base. He’s getting to the ball and bobbling it. Rushing throws, not watching the ball into his glove, I don’t know. As I recall,it was a similar issue in the last playoff game.

You would think that’s fixable given his arm and acceptable range, but it can eat at you as Gurriel found out a couple of years ago.

Jordan Romano is back, as is Ty Tice.

Josh Palacios and Travis Bergen ( we hardly knew ya) are dispatched.

They don't need Palacios if they're putting Biggio in the outfield.

Tice for Bergen at this point is a bit questionable.
Could be a non-baseball reason.
They have a bunch of guys they can rotate, include the new guy Beasley.

Biggio at 3B, Davis in CF. Tellez DH, Kirk catching Ray.

Many have mentioned the 9-10 win-loss record. The Jay's have outscored the opposition 79-67. One of the games was the 15-1 blowout, but the team has been playing better than the W/L record suggests despite a rash of injuries.

Odorizzi just went down with an injury. Apparently forearm stuff and his fastball is down 5mph. TJ might be coming. Will be curious if Walker stays healthy because so far all of the SP targets people wanted to take are getting injured left and right.

Many have mentioned the 9-10 win-loss record. The Jay's have outscored the opposition 79-67. One of the games was the 15-1 blowout, but the team has been playing better than the W/L record suggests despite a rash of injuries.

Those are not change ups. Honeywell is known for his screwball.

Grichuk stepped up to the plate and my first thought was "Holy crap, dude. You hit a home run yesterday. Why would you shave your face today? Don't you know anything?"

You weren't alone in that thought, Magpie.
Is this that veteran leadership people keep talking about?

11 pitches, 9 strikes? Robbie?

Why would you shave your face today? Don't you know anything?

Apparently he also decided to stop breathing through his eyelids. Kids today.

Like I said, the left side is jinxed.

Maybe Grichuk should have sprinkled his beard over there.

“I ain’t superstitious, black cat just crossed my trail.”

Ray is bringing it tonight.

"Billy will be sub-100 by the end of next game."

Ooh...so close. His 0/5 today brings mckinney down right smack on a 100wrc+.

This umpire is drunk

Ray was squeezed throughout the whole game yet the Rays got a bunch of calls that were just plain awful.

I really didn’t understand why Castro was picked up, but he has a really athletic delivery. His stuff is pretty electric.

This game has the feel of a classic game 2 of a Jays series in Tampa. Close game, low scoring, tilting toward the Rays late in the game.

Leadoff walks: they’ll always kill ya.

man. Biggio pulling an Alan Bester right there. Great relay though.. that’s young players for you. I’m not betting against these kids figuring it out.

Really enjoying Castro. I like those ‘one elite pitch’ guys.

Just wondering. Is it possible that this whole idea that Romano is a quality late inning reliever is based on 14.2 innings?

The thing I find odd about the whole idea of using Biggio as a super utility guy/ 3B is that he’s demonstrated pretty definitively that’s he’s terrible defensively everywhere but 2B. Some ideas are waaaaay better on paper than in actuality.

This year has a first half of ‘15 vibe.

Tampa is a loathsome place to visit.

Classic Jays in Tampa series so far.

Ray was squeezed throughout the whole game

Really? Didn't see that. I thought Ortiz had a rather wide strike zone. Downright Hirshbeckian. Ray threw 94 pitches, 67 strikes, 27 balls.

That's pretty good. It's Robbie Ray. The last time went six without walking someone was July 2019. Before that it was in 2017.

Wilner is suggesting that everyone might cut Biggio some slack because he was playing in and the ball was hit 109 mph. Fair enough, but in that case why was he playing in? Did they think Cash was going to put the bunt on? First and second, no one out, tie game... sure, lots of other managers would bunt. I don't know about Cash, though, it's not really part of his modus operandi.

The idea that the Jays went to Semien and said, "We want to sign you, although you'll have to play a defensive position you last played in 2014. But you can pick whether it's second or third!" when they had a second baseman on their roster, who had an extremely minimal amount of experience at 3B and who did not possess great arm strength is.....puzzling.

If they were so convinced on Biggio at 2b why did last year he play nearly half his games out of position? They weren’t satisfied with Biggio there before Semien came in. It’s not like Biggio was sticking there before. Also Semien I think was brought in a lot as insurance policy for Bo who hasn’t had stellar health. If allowing him to play the position of his choice to maximize his FA value was part of the negotiation I am not faulting them there. It’s part of the cost to sign him.

Yes, they moved Biggio around in 2020. But, why? I’d argue they were wrong to do so last year and so again.....

Guessing they just don’t think him sticking there is that important. Not sure if that’s being driven by their opinion on his offence or defence or they just like the flexibility. If players are going to switch around right now I think it will be have to be driven by the players. I think they know Bo really wants to play SS and are loathe to move him. Biggio is just stuck in this super sub role which is fine when someone in the IF is injured but that’s not the case now.

I think it's been fairly easy to detect through the past few years that this front office is not very high on Biggio. I don't think they ever planned on him being a key piece to the core ala Vlad, Bo, Pearson, SWR, Ryu (while he's here), Springer etc.

They have always treated him as a serviceable player, nothing more and nothing less. I happen to like him a lot and see him as a "glue" guy as Buck would say. He's Joe Panic 2.0 basically for this front office.

Once Martin and Groshans arrive I don't think Biggio will still be here.

Martin and Groshans are both right handed bats. I think Biggio will linger around for some times.
Ideally, Biggio would play second and Martin would be the super utility guy.
Estiven Machado is a switch hitting shortstop who could reach in 2025.
Will Robertson is a left power hitting corner outfielder who could reach in 2023.

I felt like a dozen of those 27 balls were fastballs right on the corners who didn't get called.

Guccione was decent for the Matz game.

Yesterday, I wouldn't be able to say what the established strike zone was, the small zone in all direction that Ray got or the zone with the extended outside corner and generous low balls everyone else got?

Buck rightly called it a joke when Zunnino brought balls from the batter's box to the corner and got the calls. Over and over.
Did the ump close his eyes and opened them after he heard the ball in the glove?
Those were all slow breaking balls.

Guerrero was playing in as well.
They said before the game that the Jays were ranked second in MLB for placing players in the best possible spots to make the plays and the ball was hit right at Biggio, so you can't really fault the placement.

Most of the fault here goes to  Romano for walking the first 2 hitters.
I'm sure he looked better than that when he threw on the sides, but as soon as AAA gets going, I think they'll send guys for a quick rehab assignment. Not only could he not locate his fastball, but the velo looked off.

This is refreshing from Trevor Bauer. After Tatis homered off him twice, and both times celebrated with a bit of mockery:

“I like it,” said Bauer “I think that pitchers that have that done to them and react by throwing at people -- I think it’s pretty soft. If you give up a homer, a guy should celebrate it. It’s hard to hit in the big leagues. So I’m all for it, and I think that it’s important that the game moves in that direction and that we stop throwing at people because they celebrated having some success on the field.”

“ The idea that the Jays went to Semien and said, "We want to sign you, although you'll have to play a defensive position you last played in 2014. But you can pick whether it's second or third!" when they had a second baseman on their roster, who had an extremely minimal amount of experience at 3B and who did not possess great arm strength is.....puzzling.”

Yeah I have never understood this move either, especially also spending 18mm on a player that’s had a little over 1 year of above average production. But third has become a black hole and I wonder if Bichette is getting distracted as well thinking he has to do more to cover weaknesses there. Who knows?

But leaving a glaring weakness at third when your SS is also struggling to be average, is to my mind very odd as well.

I agree, hyperbole, that Bauer's take was refreshing. It was only two years ago that Tatis flipped his bat or did something to celebrate hitting a home run which the other team objected to, and his own team mate, Eric Hosmer, tried to placate things by saying he'd talk to him about it. Yeah, the old " you're not supposed to show any emotion, run around the bases with your head down and a stoic look on your face because any sign of joy at doing a really difficult thing might hurt the other team's feeling's " speech.

Thank heaven's for Tatis bringing a little emotion to the game. Every other sport celebrates scoring -Hockey player's raise their arms in the air and hug one another, football players dance in the end zone, basketball players, especially those on the bench, hoot and holler at thunderous dunks. As long as baseball players don't go overboard in their celebrations, just stop stuff like retaliatory hit batters and the like.

We have the Umpire Scorecard from yesterday! I'm getting addicted to them, I'm more likely to check them out than the box score....

That sixth inning cutter that Yarbrough threw Kirk on the 2-0 count and was a good six inches off the plate? Egregious indeed, and it gets honoured as one of the three worst calls of the day. (The other two were fastballs from Ray that were definitely above the strike zone, but were called strikes anyway.)

There were 286 pitches thrown, and Ortiz had to make a call on 142 of them. And overall - the judges say - he turned 4 strikes into balls and 8 balls into strikes.

If allowing him to play the position of his choice to maximize his FA value was part of the negotiation I am not faulting them there. It’s part of the cost to sign him.

We have no idea if that was part of the cost to sign him though. It may have been something he appreciated, but I would have thought the bigger challenge was convincing him to move off shortstop. And, he hadn't played either position since 2014, so it's not as if he had played more often or more recently.

Maybe it was part of the cost to sign him and he feels much more comfortable at 2B, but I don't think we can know either way. Every time Atkins has spoken about the signing, he's framed it as the Jays approaching Semien with the choice of positions, not Semien demanding 2B if he was going to move.

We have practically a whole new infield today

Biggio, rf
Bichette, dh
Guerrero, 1b
Grichuk, cf
Semien, ss
Panik, 2b
Espinal, 3b
Jansen, c
Ryu, p

Yo, Danny Jansen. Clayton Kershaw has more hits and more RBIs than you do.

"Yeah I have never understood this move either, especially also spending 18mm on a player that’s had a little over 1 year of above average production."

You do realize Semien is on pace for 25 stolen bases and 25 or more home runs, right? He's been our best infielder by far after Espinal.

I’m confident that the Semien contract will prove to be a good one (he’s already posted 0.5 WAR in three weeks of baseball, which is very good, and he can do better than this.) It’s too early in the season to get worked up about it, in my opinion.

Semien was Plan C (at least), after Brantley and an additional starter. The FO correctly identified an additional LH, big scary bat as a need (but couldn’t quite pull it off). I don’t love the roster construction impacts of adding Semien but I think he’ll be just fine.

Kinda depressing that the jays are this poor despite the pitching being so far above expectations.

Seems almost inevitable that as soon as the bats heat up as expected, the pitching will crash back down to earth.

Hmmm. The Not-so-Handsome-one fortifies himself against inevitable disappointment.

Not a Leafs fan by any chance?

"Fatalism is the penultimate -ism, just as penultimate is the penultimate -ultimate" - Shakespeare

This ship is sinking!

These Rays games are just agony, man.

Is Ryu injured?

Possible left hamstring, Buck guesses.

I think the Jays are going to regret the missed opportunity in the fifth to cash in more runs. The phrase that comes to mind about the Rays is, “They bend but they don’t break.”

I wonder if any other broadcast team has the colour man doing three quarters of the talking.

Ryu has a pain in the butt, the gluteus to be precise.

Daniel Kim of ESPN KBO on the Twitter thought it was Ryu's right glute an hour ago! It's happened before, he spent 15 days on the DL in 2014.

That was a grind, but they pull off that rarest of feats, winning a series at the Trop.
The offence has got to get going..

Not the prettiest series win but any win in that cavernous nightmare box feels like twenty. Now let’s get the heck outta there.

Fantastic job my the bullpen.

Well, 2 of 3 from the Rays is not an outcome to sneeze at, especially with the bats and the defense still not clicking. The pitching was outstanding, though.

Escaped the dungeon with another day off tomorrow. Maybe Teoscar will rejoin the club this week.

There are lots of good third basemen and lots of good shortstops.
Semien--or his agent--has decided that the best move was to hit the market as a second baseman.
He played some shortstop while standing between first and second in Oakland, that's how they shifted.

If you've spent the last seven years in the middle of the diamond, it's going to be a whole lot easier just staying in the middle of the diamond rather than switching to a corner. You do have the double play pivot to deal with, which can be a concern, but at least the throws are easier.

It's obvious that the baseball gods wanted Espinal to play third in this series.

They threw a lot of sliders outside. That's always frustrating when the lineup is mostly right handed and the ump is generous with the outside corner. Today's ump was pretty bad, but maybe the Jays got most of the calls going their way.

It's hard for hitters to get going when they get lots of days off.
They'll face Scherzer next game, which will probably no help.

I'd expect Ryu to miss at least one start.

Well obviously any negotiation with Semien would say that no you're not playing your preferred position other than backing up Bo. They had already decided to move Vlad to 1b so in their mind both 2b and 3b were open. They then said well we want you, which of these positions do you want? Clearly Semien said 2b. Regardless its pretty clear they didn't sign with some deal that they could move Semien around the IF as they wanted to, so Biggio gets that treatment instead.

I do see Vlad has been taking a lot of reps in IF practice along with Panik at 3b, so I do wonder if that might come back on the table at some point, at least as a parttime thing. Regardless I don't see how the IF alignment changes in the short term unless a player goes to management and asks to change positions, whether that is Bo to 2b or Vlad/Semien to 3b. Until that happens they're going to show some faith in their players and let them develop.

Ryu met with the media after the game. Says it's not as bad what he had in 2014, doesn't think he'll go on the IL. Seems to think he won't miss a start.

Right now after the nightmares we've been seeing it was so nice to watch Espinal at 3B. Never feared that we'd see balls thrown in the dirt or through the legs. Anytime the Jays have a ground ball guy on the mound to start he should be at 3B. Semien at SS and Bo at DH now and then is a really, really good idea too. But very, very soon things get messy with Springer and Hernandez returning. Right now Tellez must be feeling some pressure, as much Gurriel. Grichuk has played well. So maybe a mix and match platoon sorta where Gurriel is in LF vs LHP, Grichuk in RF, Hernandez at DH. Vs RHP Hernandez in LF with Tellez at DH or 1B (Vlad getting a semi-day off at DH).

So how to juggle it once those 2 are back? Davis down (obvious) and Espinal probably (I'd rather see Panik released honestly). Thus leaving...
CA: Jansen/Kirk - messed up situation with them both scuffling, when Kirk's 69 OPS+ is light years ahead of Jansen (-32 before today) it isn't good.
1B: Vlad everyday, Tellez backup
2B: Semien everyday, Panik backup when Semien at SS
SS: Bo everyday, Semien now and then
3B: Ugh. Biggio stands there everyday, Panik backs him up. Ugly situation except with Espinal there.
LF: Gurriel everyday, I'd like Hernandez hidden here now and then or at DH
CF: Springer everyday, Grichuk obvious backup
RF: Hernandez scheduled for everyday status but I'd much rather see Grichuk with Hernandez limited to DH/LF
Bench: Kirk, Panik, Grichuk

Davis and Palacios both had moments but neither is ready for prime time. Espinal I think is ready and wouldn't be shocked if Tellez (42 OPS+) finds himself at the training complex for a bit so Espinal (98 OPS+) can provide defense on a team that desperately needs it. Tellez does have 1 final option left.

I find it amusing that the Jays have had 6 series and have won every one against the East (or tied with Boston) and lost all the others. I mean I'd rather have us win against our division, I just find it odd because KC, Texas and LAA are just worse teams than the Yankees, Rays and Sox.

7 series I meant. And yeah this lineup is going to be interesting since there is so many good reasons to have people in DH. Right now I think DH should be mostly used for Bo, Springer and Teoscar (default). Maybe an occasional game for Vlad but I don't think 1b is as hard as CF/SS.

John Northey's idea of keeping Spinal at 3B, Semien at SS and Bo to DH when you have a lot of grounders makes a ton of sense.

Having too many guys is not an issue. The Dodgers have reinvented the wheel with 14 regulars working I rotations in multiple positions. "You just won the MVP manning CF? Well now you're our 1B, Bellinger"

Etc etc

I think Tellez is on the verge of losing his roster spot to Espinal. Once Springer & Teo are back, there's going to be too much competition for the DH slot to keep a DH/1B on a 3-man bench (which seems inevitable). Biggio is playing more RF than 3B at this point and I think Espinal becomes a regular at the hot corner, while Biggio and Panik become regulars on the bench with the backup catcher.

They really need Tellez's left bat eventually.
Bo is young. Biggio isn't so young.
Bo needs lots of extra infield practices.

Espinal probably goes back to AAA whenever they need an extra pitcher.

The nice thing about these early struggles is that I hear less whining about extending the young guys.

Yesterday's ump got a 93% accuracy/90% consistency with run expectancy effect of +0.59 in favor of the Jays.

Pretty big in a 1-0 win.

If you incorporate machine learning into the algorithms for the digital umps, you would probably see 98.5 to 99% accuracy.