So the past week hasn't shown a hell of a lot of development on the part of the Orioles or Cardinals as per usual as they both seem to keep up their usual methods of winning. Though the Orioles have had their starting pitcher Wei Yin Chen return to the rotation and in a big way as he pitched 7 innings of 1 run ball, which makes for a fantastic return from the disabled list. In addition to this both Kevin Gausman and Zach Britton got demoted to AAA to make room for him which, is not unexpected as Zach Britton was pretty ineffective in his last start on Tuesday when he gave up 5 runs including a 4 run 5th inning. Then when we look towards the Cardinals they have been a bit up and down, they had a close game against the Marlins with Lance Lynn pitching against Jose Fernandez which, turned out to be a fairly well pitched game, ending in a 3-2 score. Next they had a blow out game against the Astros in a 9-5 win though we must keep in mind that 4 out of the 5 runs were allowed in the 9th inning by a relatively new pitcher to the Cardinals bullpen, Michael Blazek. They next won another game against the Astros with Shelby Miller on the mound however, this game was won by only 1 run so their pitching was a little less effective in this instance, though again isolated incident. The last 2 games have been against the Cubs, the first of which they lost 3-0, which is a bit disturbing considering Edwin Jackson was the starting pitcher for the Cubs, who hasn't been too effective as of the last few seasons. Then in the latest game on Friday, the Cardinals just barely squeaked by in a 3-2 win against the Cubs. Now this was again very surprising as the pitcher for the Cubs, Carlos Villanueva, is not that great of a pitcher again.
Overall however the Jays have had the most roller coaster like week or so, they've been turning in outings both good and bad, Johnson was good against Cleveland as he only allowed 2 runs, however the offence has been completely turned off as they didn't score any runs at all, despite all of their hitters they had on base, and it was against Jimenez at that! Then the next game, they barely won 5-4 where Esmil Rogers pitched a great game, and in a surprising turn of events the bullpen coughed up 3 of the total runs that Cleveland scored overall. Thankfully the offence wasn't completely asleep during this game, now I say 'completely' asleep because they still were only hitting 2-8 with runners in scoring position which, is still not great considering what we have in the line up. Then R.A. Dickey turned in a great outing on Thursday but again the offence was only able to scrap together 2 runs despite being against a relatively unexperienced starter and Dickey only giving up 2 earned runs and another of them being scored due to a fuck up by Rajai Davis, who over threw. Now the we have the last game on Friday they lost against the Orioles 8-5, again the offence was asleep as they only hit 2-10 with runners in scoring position and in a complete turn around Mark Buerhle gave up all 8 runs of the game flipping the series of good pitching outings by the Jays starters. I feel like the Jays are being like a dyslexic team as they do something positive but then turn it around and all of a sudden have a negative outing in the same aspect. All in all they have to win the remaining games before the All Star Break or they are going to have no hope of redemption and a shot at the playoffs.
-Eric
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