Monday Bantering: Jays Bits

I wonder if a team has ever scored 22 runs on both days of a weekend before.

What a difference a month makes. The Jays were 16-14 in August. So far in September, they are 11-1.

The difference hasn’t been pitching. Our pitchers had a 3.49 ERA in August, 4.37 ERA in September. The batters have been hitting like Babe Ruth this month. August they hit .251/.320/.420. September .322/.407/.637 (well, Ruth was a little better, career .342/.474/.690. Maybe the Jays hit more like Joe DiMaggio, .325/.398/.579 career).

That 1.044 OPS likely isn’t sustainable, but maybe for a month, they can keep somewhere close to that. Going into the playoffs like that would scare a lot of teams. On the pitching side, I’d expect improvement over the second half of the moment.

This is a nice way to go into a series with the Rays.

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This morning’s Wild Card race:

The Jays’ playoff odds are at 75.4%. In the last 7 days, they have jumped by 49.5%. Last 30 days 28.7%.

The Yankees’ odds are 37.4%, dropping 36.9% in the last 7 days. Red Sox 71.4% dropping 7.5% in the past week.

I’m not a big fan of playoff odds, mostly because they can change so much in a week. But it is a sign of how well the Jays have done lately and how poor the Yankees have been. At 12:30 I can cheer for the Twins to knock the Yankees’ odds even more.

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Baseball Prospectus has a post ‘The Remaking of Robbie Ray’. Subscription required.

Basically, they talk about three points:

1. Reworked Mechanics, that added a bit over 2 MPH to his four-seam fastball.
2. Simplified approach. He’s pretty much become a 2-pitch pitcher.
3. Better command. He’s throwing strikes. 61.9 of his first pitches are strikes, last year it was 46.1%.

It is a good read.

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30 teams played on NFL Sunday, the Blue Jays outscored 14 of them.