Game 7 – One of Those Days

A.J. certainly looked bad, not sure he even got a single curveball over for a strike. And the bullpen didn’t really help out. Once the Jays tied it up in the 4th and then again in the 8th I’d take my chances with the depth of the bullpen but both times it failed them. Good to see Toronto’s offence continually battle back though.

As far as A.J. is concerned I think it’s going to happen to him, as it does to basically every pitcher. They have bad outings. I think this start does show why it would really help if Burnett were able to further develop that changeup and be able to trust it. It is the exact reason why most pitchers need at least 3 quality pitches to be a successful starter, if you lose one on a given day you still have 2 pitches you can rely on to get hitters out.

I’ll give Tallet a pass given how well he has been pitching, but it always has been the walks that have hurt him. Accardo didn’t exactly get knocked around as the 1st hit was just a chopper that got over his head, but you would expect him to be able to handle the bottom of the order. However, I haven’t forgotten he already has 3 saves against NY and BOS w/o giving up a run. Glad to see League in a game finally, but he looked a little rusty, I wonder why?

Another big hit from Thomas. He may not be getting a lot of hits in the early going but he is coming up with some big ones. I still believe Thomas can be a productive hitter and should put up numbers similar to last year if not better in the RBI and Run categories assuming the Jays offence shows improvement from last year.

Good game for Hill with 4 hits, but nobody is hitting well behind him right now. How long before Hill gets a shot at batting 2nd? I actually wouldn’t mind seeing Stewart bat leadoff when he starts with Hill 2nd, and Eckstein 9th. When Stairs starts, I think you leave Eckstein leading off, Hill 2nd and Stairs bats 7th behind Overbay.

A little surprised to see Stewart hitting for Zaun in the 8th w/a man at 1st and 2 outs. Stewart doesn’t have a lot of pop so I’m not sure how much you gain by having him hit there when you would probably still need another hit. If you are going to use Stewart to hit in the 8th, why not for Scutaro one batter earlier? That way if Stewart gets a hit you have 2 cracks at getting another hit. Not saying I would have PH at all, but just I’d rather see him used for Scutaro if Gibbons insists on using him in the 8th.

Stats: Eckstein is charged with a defensive error, even though he already got an error on the play b/c the error only scores the 2nd run, the defensive error is for the batter which would have completed the DP and therefore the 1st run would not have counted.

From now on I will be shorthanding Pitcher advances with P-.
Adv: Zaun (1)
P-Adv: Gaudin
Adv+: Thomas (1)
P-Adv+: Embree
NAdv: Suzuki
P-NAdv: Burnett (1)
WG: Hill (1)
DE: Eckstein (1)