So the Sunday games have come and gone and, while I expected the Blue Jays to win, I wasn't expecting a blowout like what happened and I can say I sure wasn't expecting the Rockies to return the favour and nearly silence the Cardinals either.
So what can I gather from the Toronto vs. Boston game? Well first of all seems the Blue Jays offence is firing on all cylinders again. First off is that Dempster isn't a terrible pitcher who'd allow the number of runs he did on a regular basis, then as well he's on the Red Sox who have a pretty nice defensive outfield and a solid manager and catcher calling the pitches. The Jay's offence just seemed to get the better of them, they worked the count, crushed the ball where they could and the fast players were smart about snagging the extra base, with exception to Edwin getting caught at 3rd. What I was surprised most about was that Bonifacio hit a home run, so let's break down Bonifacio's experience in the majors. First off he was drafted Diamondbacks who brought him up for 11 games but didn't do much of anything, which was also the case in the following year with the Nationals. After this he was sent to Florida and joined the Marlins in 2009, however just like his previous seasons 2009 and 2010 with the Marlins were lacklustre at best.
Then in 2011 he surprised plenty of people by significantly increasing his AVG, OBP, OPS and managed to steal 40 bases, an impressive feat for someone who's highest stolen base total until then had been half of that not to mention he had a 26 game hitting streak in July and hit in 30 out of 31 games in the month. Now many people would down play his 2012 season with the Marlins because his AVG, OBP and OPS increased but keep in mind he was out for about a month of the season and stole 20 bases by May 21st, when he went down with an injury and was on pace for 80 steals. Now again people would argue that he didn't get anywhere near that and while that may be true I think it was more because the injury was to his thumb, which if you've watched Bonifacio is the way he slides (head first) and obviously any player requires time to work back from an injury. Then on top of that was the fact that he was taken out for the rest of the season due to injury in early September meaning he missed a whole month where he could have likely stolen atleast another 10+ bases oh and did I mention the NL leader in stolen bases for the year was only at 44 and Bonifacio was at 30 despite missing 2 months of the season?
Now I'm not going to say that Bonifacio is going to explode sometime this season but I do think once he gets his hitting completely under control, after all a hitters adjustment to the AL can be a bit of a pain, he'll steal a good number of bases and help the Jays push for the AL Was title.
Ok so then the Cardinals game. Now I'm not actually going to focus on the performance of the Cardinals here, they played pretty average with exception to Jaime who got clobbered on the mound. No what I'm going to talk about is the Rockies, now I really have no idea why the Rockies bolted out of the gate this but it seems to be working, usually they are trailing in the NL-West by this time any other year but right now they are only 2.5 games out of first and their pitching is performing well at home and on the road. Though I gotta ask, why do we think the Rockies suck? I mean they have 2 premier hitters/fielders in Carlos Gonzalez and Troy Tulowitzki, not to mention the rising star Dexter Fowler and their young players Josh Rutledge and Willin Rosario. So from that I guess the target for criticism would be their pitching, which is true for the most part, in past years their starting rotation has been unstable and unable to hold games and I imagine it doesn't help having Coors Field being your home field, since it is the most home run prone field there is. Now over the off season the Rockies got a new GM, Walt Weiss who seems to be making a difference in their clubhouse. I mean they traded their best pitched in mid 2011, Ubaldo Jimenez, to the Indians (and BOY WAS HE SUCCESSFUL!). But to be honest none of the players they got in return have come up and delivered at what is expected of them as prospects, but they've managed to persevere.
Now lets take a look at their rotation, when you look at their stats their one two combo has been doing a stellar job as both Chacin and De La Rosa have only had one bad outing and it seems that despite the both of them not having great K/9 or K/BB rates the fielders seem to be making up for that with solid defensive play. Now the other 3 in the starting rotation are another story, their pretty much your standard run of the mill pitchers, they are on a fairly regular basis giving up 2-4 runs per game, and from their record it seems that the Rockies offence is doing a good job of putting up enough runs to keep up or better with the runs that the back end of their rotation gives up as most of them still have a winning record at this point. Then outside of their rotation is the bullpen, now again their bullpen isn't something to write home about but Rafael Betancourt is a solid veteran closer who is perfectly capable of holding down the 9th inning and in the off season they traded for the Astro's closer Wilton Lopez, which shows me that Betancourt could become trade bait to improve the starting rotation even more by the trade deadline. Either way the Rockies this year are sure to be an interesting team to watch.
-Eric
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