The All-Star game happened. It ended on a home run contest, which is a fine way to end an exhibition game that has seen 24 pitchers. The NL won the home run contest (a swing-off?), so they won the game.
Vladimir Guerrero and Alejandro Kirk each had a hit,
The NL was up 6-0 after six innings, and, you would think, with the pitchers you have in an All-Star game, that should have stood up. But Brent Rooker hit a three-run home run (Kirk was on base) in the seventh. They got one more run in the inning and two in the ninth (Bobby Witt doubled in one and scored on a Steven Kwan singled him in).
Kyle Schwarber went 3 homers for 3 swings in the swing-off, winning it for the NL.
The game went 3 hours and 20 minutes, which is too long for an All-Star game. It’s unfortunate that the ‘big names’ couldn’t have been part of the swing-off, but since they left the game 2.5 hours earlier and had showered and changed, they weren’t going to get ready to swing the bat again.
We have until Friday before the next Jays’ game, so there will be a lot of naval gazing around here for the next few days.
The next order of business is the trade deadline. It’s that fun time of year where we try to guess what the Jays will do and be incredibly wrong.
Things that won’t happen. The Jays aren’t going to trade for an ‘ace’. They don’t have the capital to invest in that. I’m happy to be proven wrong, but I don’t see how. The prospects of value are Arjen Nimmala and Trey Yesavage, and I don’t see them bringing an ace back in return.
I think it is far more likely they’ll pick up a rental. I’ve always been a Michael Soroka fan. He’s not having the best of seasons, but I think he could be handy to have for a couple of months.
Beyond that, a bat with some power would be nice to have. Maybe a third baseman?
I did think they would be looking to trade Bo Bichette, but with the team in first place, there is little chance of that.
And, of course, this is the time of year when there are buyers and sellers. Buyers will be looking to trade prospects. You don’t get veteran-for-veteran trades this time of year. No contending team is going to make their rotation weaker to pick up a shortstop. And no selling team is looking to pick up a rental.
I think it is more likely that Jays will get help in the bullpen than in the rotation, which is something we need badly as well
I’m not sure that I wouldn’t rather call Yesavage up to help in the pen than trade him. The Jays used to bring up pitchers to pitch out of the bullpen for a season or two before putting them in the rotation. The idea was to show them they could get batters out, and then put them into the rotation later. Jimmy Key made 64 appearances out of the bullpen in 1984 before he joined the rotation in 1985.
I don’t know why that practice went out of style. Perhaps the teams didn’t like the jump in innings pitched from season to season (Key threw 62 innings in 1984 and 202 in 1985). But Key would throw well over 200 innings for the next two seasons and seven of the next nine seasons.
We have 15 more days to talk about the deadline. 0