Cleveland at Toronto, August 2-5

Monday, August 02 2021 @ 01:00 PM EDT

Contributed by: Magpie

The Cleveland Baseball Team is coming to town to play four against those fun loving Blue Jays.

Things are not going well for the Guardians of the Future. Their two best pitchers, Shane Bieber and Aaron Civale, are on the 60 day IL. So is centre fielder Josh Naylor, who won't be back this year. Even their manager, Terry Francona, is out for the season. Former Jays coach Demarlo Hale will be the acting manager the rest of the way.

They have two good hitters - DH Franmil Reyes and 3B Jose Ramirez - and one good starter. They're still in second place, still holding even at .500, but they've been falling faster and faster - just over a month ago, they were 42-33 and only two games behind the White Sox. They've gone 9-18 since then, and slipped to nine games back. They threw in the towel at the deadline, and got what they could get for second baseman Cesar Hernandez (traded to the first place White Sox) and dumping the salary of left fielder Eddie Rosario (traded for Pablo Sandoval, whom they immediately released.) The only new face we'll see in their lineup this week will be speedster Myles Straw, late of the Astros.

Matchups:

Mon Aug 2 - Morgan (1-3, 7.47) vs Ray (9-5, 3.04)
Tue Aug 3 - Plesac (6-3, 4.26) vs Ryu (10-5, 3.26)
Wed Aug 4 - Mejia (1-6, 7.60) vs Matz (8-6, 4.58)
Thu Aug 5 - McKenzie (1-4, 6.11) vs Stripling (4-6, 4.75)

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