So the last game of the Orioles vs Blue Jays game happened and the Jays won it by a long shot. Now to be honest there isn't much to say about this match, seriously Josh Johnson was fantastic for the Jays, and the defence and offence for the team was spot on, little issues from all of the hitters who were rather quiet over the last few games woke up and delivered in a big way. Then on the Orioles side the pitching was just what I expected, Freddy Garcia was pretty bad (though that was expected considering he hasn't had a consistent year of production in ages), and the bullpen was pretty bad again again which was expected, if they didn't get to Jim Johnson. On the offensive side their team had a fairly consistent run of hits, the Jays pitching just kept them off of the bases when they needed to be but despite that they still scored 5 runs in the last 4 innings, which is admirable considering what kind of lead the Jays had on them at that point. Now defensively there wasn't anything to write home about, they had some great plays and no errors so nothing to complain about at all.
Overall the series went pretty close to what I expected though I didn't see the Jays getting such a blow out win on the last game and in addition to that it seems that Jose Reyes will be rejoining the team on Thursday for their game against Boston. Now, since this is a rather short post I'll quickly go over the next match ups for the Jays especially since one more win puts them over the club record for winning streaks.
Alright so the next 3 games the Jays face off against the Rays, now I expect this to go over similarly to the Orioles series and thats because, while the Rays offence has been playing well as of late their starters are in a bit of shambles at the moment. Alex Cobb is on the DL with a concussion, David Price is still rehabbing his injury, Matt Moore and Jeremy Hellickson have both been faltering as of late and haven't been playing nearly as good as expected and finally Roberto Hernandez is not exactly a fantastic or consistent pitcher and has been pretty much a standard 5th spot in the rotation starter, which isn't enough to keep down the Jays offence in it's current state. And like the Orioles their bullpen has been rather weak and inconsistent and their closer, Fernando Rodney, has been much less than he was last year. Now I'm not sure I'd say their going to sweep the Rays but I am positive they will win at least 2 out of the 3 games.
After that series they open up 4 games in Boston and the way this one goes in my mind will depend on how well the Red Sox pitchers are able to recover as their top of the line starter, Clay Buchholz, is on the DL and Jon Lester, their supposed ace, has been sinking like a stone as of late. Then add in the fact that Ryan Dempster and Alex Webster have been inconsistent as hell and not all that great against big time offences and you've got a potential disaster of a rotation if it butts heads with a potent offence. It's a scary thought when you think that their most consistent pitcher not on the DL is John Lackey *shivers*. Now in addition to this again, like the Orioles their bullpen is in a state of flux, now it's not as bad as the Orioles but they have the 2 that they thought were potential closers either injured or have been coughing up runs left and right. Then theres the offence for the Red Sox, which in my opinion has been getting really lucky as when you look at the career stats of players like Shane Victorino, Stephen Drew, Jarrod Saltalamachia, Daniel Nava and Johnny Gomes theres nothing to be impressed with and with Napoli in a bit of a slump they will have an issue keeping up with the Jays if their pitching stays at this level. Again I believe the end of this series will be the same as the Rays series in that I expect them to win 3 out of the 4 games and if everything clicks then they could sweep the whole thing.
-Eric
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