The Blue Jays are once again confusing the crap out of me. Now they got Jose Reyes back from the DL for Wednesdays game against Tampa, despite loosing to them the 2 previous days, and I'll go over the latest loss in a bit. The first notable change however is not Reyes returning but having Munenori Kawasaki sent down to AAA Buffalo. Now I realize this was the best move strategically since all the other players are out of minor league options and would most likely get snagged by another team if they went through waivers but it is bittersweet because Kawasaki has been a driving force support wise in the club house and with fans. He managed to become the fan favourite in just a couple weeks in the majors and even veterans really appreciated what he did for the team, so much so that Mark Buerhle said that he was "The best teammate I've played with". Now by no means does this mark the end of Kawasaki's major league career, I know for certain he'll be back come September at the latest if no one in the infield gets injured and I'm sure he'll work wonders for the morale of the Jay's AAA affiliate. The best thing I think he can do is play multiple positions because that is truly what set him out from the rest of the potential hitters that could have been sent down since he has only ever played short stop and wouldn't have worked as a utility man.
Now quickly I'm going to go over the waiver system since I know a good chunk of fans may not understand how it all works or need some kind of reasoning as to why the Jays would send down Kawasaki. Ok so heres how it goes, every player at the minor league level, when first called up to the majors, has a specific number of times they can be sent back down to the minors before they have to clear waivers before they can be sent to the minor league destination intended. Once a player is based through waivers, every team gets a shot to pick up said player if they wish, though there is a specific order to this. It goes from last to first in the league the original team is in, then again in the opposing league (ie. if the Jays have a player pass through waivers he must pass by the Astros all the way up to the Red Sox, and then from the Marlins all the way up to the Cardinals). If no team tries to claim the player then and only then will they be able to go down to the AAA affiliate of their original team. So in case of Kawasaki, the reason they chose him was because firstly he didn't have enough usefulness to keep around in terms of ability on the field (he wasn't a great pinch hitter like DeRosa, he didn't play enough positions to be a utility infielder like Bonifacio or Izturis, he wasn't exceptionally east as a pinch runner like Davis and wasn't better defensively than the starting player at his position, in which he could have shared time with Reyes). Secondly with the exception of Kawasaki there was only 1 other player than had minor league options available, and that was Neil Wagner (the Buffalo Bison's closer), however he has proven to be very useful in the bullpen so it would be hard to send him down in favour of a player that would be warming the bench for the majority of the time. All in all I suggest you read this article as it explains the major options the Jays had in some good detail.
Now onto the games, so what's confused me about the Jays was their game on Tuesday in which the opposing pitcher, Matt Moore, had one of the strangest pitching stat lines I've seen striking out 11 over 6 innings, throwing 120 pitches, allowing 1 earned run on 4 hits and 6 walks. Basically what this says is that the Moore's control was all over the fucking place and yet the Jays were swinging at anything that moved. On our hand Buerhle pitched an alright as nearly all of the runs he allowed were from one inning, and the home plate umpire was really strict with the strike zone and because Buerhle doesn't as precise control as he used to he allowed a few walks. Then unfortunately the Jays offence fell into their old habits striking out constantly and they were terrible hitting with runners in scoring position going 1 for 8 (.125). That of course was their downfall as they had 3 innings where they had 2 or 3 runners on with 1 or less outs and they were unable to capitalize on the situation.
Now heres where the confusion really sets in because the previous game the team basically did the opposite of what they did in during their 11 game winning streak but then Wednesdays game came around Dickey took the mound and threw a complete game 2 hit shut out, his first complete game of the season. Now he was AMAZING, not only did he allow just 2 hits and 1 walk while striking out 6, but he only threw 93 pitches and only 25 of which were balls, which just goes to show when his knuckleball is floating right, he's a force to be reckoned with. On the offensive side they did a bit better going 1-6 (.167) but not by a lot. Though I expect that to improve once Reyes gets back on top of things being back from the DL.
The next series starting Thursday is agains the Boston Red Sox, now again I've said I expect at least 2/3 games to go to the Jays because of their struggles in pitching, especially with the loss of Clay Buchholz and the cooling off of their offence. But then again I was proved wrong about the Tampa series so we'll just have to wait and see.
-Eric
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