Monday 9 April 2012

Home Cooking!

Not too much to add to what you already know, but one can hardly let the home opener arrive without throwing out a post of some sort, right?

Initial observations, with the MASSIVE caveat that it is ridiculously earlyto have an opinion about anything at all:

Kelly Johnson is getting off to a good start impressing the doubters.

Colby Rasmus isn't.

John Farrell's managing is off to an impressive (to me) start.

The bullpen has been magnifico!

The team ERA as a whole is 1.93, good for second in the AL, however on the flip side, they have an intolerably high 14 walks in 28 IP which is something that will need to get better. Of course, the Orioles are #1 (thanks to the Twins' horrible offense) so, grains of salt and stuff like that.

In other news, McGowan hasn't thrown yet and won't for another week or more and it's said he will have to essentially "start over" in terms of rebuilding his arm strength, just like it was mid-February. So when you hear that's he's thrown with no ill effects. figure at least six weeks from that point before they start figuring out how to work him into the majors.

Brett Cecil will make his first AA start on Monday.

Joel Carreno will get a start or two in Vegas while the Jays go with 4 starters. they will have to do some maneuvering in order to line his pitch schedule up with the next day they need a #5, which is April 21. The same is true of Cecil, by the way.

Meanwhile, Aaron Laffey fills the empty roster spot in Toronto and if we are all blessed he won't ever actually be called upon to throw a pitch before he's shipped back out. I'll accept it if he ends up with some garbage innings but I'd much rather have another look at Chad Beck. I suspect maybe this is a bit of a good-faith payback to Laffey since they had made some promises to him when he signed. This at least gives him a chance to see his income go way up for a couple of weeks.

Some of the Jays higher ranked SP prospects got beat up this weekend in their first start, but there's a lot of caveats this early in the year so be patient with that.

finally, Henderson Alvarez is not yet 22, and in a few hours he will officially be the youngest pitcher to ever draw the home-opener assignment for the Toronto Blue Jays.

Gotta love it!

2 comments:

Chill said...

Rasmus has hit a few balls hard. Add in the diving catch and I'd say he's off to a good, yet unlucky, start.

The Southpaw said...

oh I'm fine with him - I just know what the haters will think about the counting stats.

My comment wasn't so much "Colby sucks" as it was "he hasn't silenced those who say he sucks"