Blue Jays at Atlanta, May 11-13

Since the Jays swept the Braves in Dunedin, Atlanta swept three from Washington in DC and came home to take two of three from the Phillies. Freddie Freeman, who had plunged into a 1-28 slump after the humiliation of being fanned by Anthony Rizzo, finally busted out against Philadelphia, going 4-7 with a pair of HRs over the weekend. With both catchers on the IL, Wilmer Contreras has taken over behind the plate, although I expect we'll see the immortal Jeff Mathis at some point in the series. Probably on Thursday.

And Ronald Acuna is a mighty, mighty man. He doesn't need to hold his baby as tight as he can to make me believe it.

The Jays catch what looks like a break in that neither Huascar Ynoa nor Ian Anderson is scheduled to start in this series.It's just that in my experience, these "breaks" never work out the way you expect them to.

Danny Jansen hit .190 on his Balls in Play last season, an outcome so bizarrely and brazenly Unlucky that it would surely be impossible to duplicate. And he has not been able to duplicate it. So far this season, Jansen is hitting .083 in his Balls In Play. The mind reels at the impossibility of such a thing. Jansen has managed to hit safely in his last three game starts by hitting three home runs, thus entirely avoiding the clearly unsatisfactory path of putting the Ball in Play. It's simply not something that works for him.

Oh, and young Vlad Guerrero is 1 for his last 15, in the four games he played from May 6 through May 9. I'm not worried. Babe Ruth went 1-15 in the four games he played from May 6 through May 9 in 1920, and the Babe still managed to have a pretty decent season.

You could look it up! But if you don't want to - he hit .376/.532/.847 with 54 HRs and an OPS+ of 255. A little 1-15 in early May turned out not to mean much of anything.

Matchups? OK

TUES 11 May - Ray (1-1, 3.14) vs Wilson (1-2, 6.75)

WED 12 May - Ryu (2-2, 3.31) vs Fried (1-1, 8.44)

THU 13 May - Stripling (0-2, 6.61) vs Morton (2-2, 4.98)