Well that sure was a weekend.
Back-to-back wins. Scoring 17 in 1 game. A Caleb Durbin home run. The coaching shuffle. Alex Cora out, Chad Tracy in.
And now the Red Sox are off to Toronto to play the Blue Jays in a Battle of AL East Disappointments.
The Jays realized their rotation wasn’t quite up to snuff in the World Series and added the best starter available, Dylan Cease, as a free agent. Through five starts all he’s done is is impress. He has two 12 strikeouts games already (44 total Ks), 14 walks, 19 hits, and has given up zero home runs in 25.2 innings. The bright side is he’s walking 12.6% of batters. But he’s striking out almost 40% of batters so, good luck out there. It’s almost a waste to send Ranger Suárez out to the mound against him. The Sox free agent pitching acquisition had a rough outing against the Yankees in a series that everyone hopes is the bottoming out point of the season. Suárez was excellent against Detroit, so hopefully he bounces right back.
Trea Yesavage burst onto the scene just before the playoffs started with a September 15th MLB debut. He then turned a lot of heads on a national scale. And then, as pitchers do, he got hurt. As the Jays have slumped, his rehab outings left something to be desired. In one start at Single A and one at Triple A he allowed 12 runs (10 earned) in 12 innings for an ERA of 9.00. He allowed 3 home runs and walked 7. But also struck out 16. So maybe he’s tuned up. But hopefully he needs a little time to get used to MLB again. Payton Tolle aka Mass Pike, is back for his second start of the year. In what may have been the deciding game for Alex Cora’s stay with the Red Sox, Tolle pitched brilliantly. Over 6.0 he struck out 11 Yankees. Let’s see what he can do as a next step.
The finale is a strange matchup: Max Scherzer and Brayan Bello are both entering this game with ERAs of at least 9.00. Scherzer has tossed 18.2 innings while allowing 20 runs. Bello 22 innings and 22 runs. Max has allowed 7 homers to Bello’s 8. Is this going to be a slugfest or a pitchers’ duel? Neither has gotten to face the under-performing lineups of the teams they are on. Entering the series the Sox and Jays are 4th and 5th, respectively, in runs scored in the AL East with 117 and 110. The Jays have allowed 133 runs to Boston’s 128 (or 93, 95, sometimes 1).
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is hitting .340/.426/.460 with 2 home runs and 2 steals.
New third baseman Kazuma Okamoto has 5 homers and is slashing .229/.315/.406.
Postseason hero Ernie Clement is at .324/.330/.435 with no homers.
George Springer is on the IL as is catcher Alejandro Kirk.
Probable Pitching Matchups
Monday, April 27: Ranger Suárez (4.00 ERA / 4.08 FIP) vs. Dylan Cease (2.10 ERA / 1.47 FIP)
Tuesday, April 28: Payton Tolle (1.50 ERA / 2.15 FIP) vs. Trey Yesavage (— ERA / — FIP)
Wednesday, April 29: Brayan Bello (9.00 ERA / 8.29 FIP) vs. Max Scherzer (9.64 ERA / 8.40 FIP)
Well, looks like Mad Max won’t be pitching after all. Right now it’s listed as TBD but Bluebird Banter has a few thoughts on who might pitch.
Monday, April 27: 7:07 PM on NESN
Saturday, April 25: 7:07 PM ET on NESN
Sunday, April 26: 3:07 PM ET on NESN
