DAVID MALINSKY
4* TORONTO over MINNESOTA
We could repeat a lot of this one verbatim from yesterday – as was the case for much of LY, the Blue Jays are an under-rated item in the marketplace, a case of their true bottom line not showing because one-third of all games had to be against the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox. A genuine case could be made that they would have won the A.L. Central had the alignments been changed, and for evidence we can submit the 8-3 head-to-head against these Twins the last two seasons, games in which the Blue Jays have won the scoreboard by a combined 40 runs. And the pitching matchups bring similar edges to what we saw on Saturday.
Like Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn is the kind of major Home/Away bias performer that the markets do not adjust properly for. In this instance the career splits are 22-11/3.62 at home vs. 10-25/5.36 on the road, a significant sample size. Blackburn does not miss bats (3.8 K’s per 9 LY), and against a team with the punch that the Toronto offense brings having the ball put into play on a fast surface does not get those numbers turned around. And with Carl Pavano and Liriano only burning 8.1 IP the first two games in this series, the element of surprise that relievers usually have in non-division games is not there – except for Joe Nathan, the Blue Jays have see what they have, and Kevin Slowey will be a scratch today.
Meanwhile Brett Cecil showed major improvements from 2009 to 2010, with his ERA falling by more than a full run, his WHIP showing a similar upgrade, and W’s per 9 going from 3.7 to 2.8. He found confidence in his stuff, which led to 15 wins, and he was doing it against big-time competition – of pitchers that worked more than 170 IP, he checked in at #7 on difficulty of batters faced. His ability to retire left-handers works particularly well into this lineup, one that will be without Joe Mauer today, and off of a pair of easy wins to open this series the bullpen is well-set for the latter stages.
4* TORONTO over MINNESOTA
We could repeat a lot of this one verbatim from yesterday – as was the case for much of LY, the Blue Jays are an under-rated item in the marketplace, a case of their true bottom line not showing because one-third of all games had to be against the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox. A genuine case could be made that they would have won the A.L. Central had the alignments been changed, and for evidence we can submit the 8-3 head-to-head against these Twins the last two seasons, games in which the Blue Jays have won the scoreboard by a combined 40 runs. And the pitching matchups bring similar edges to what we saw on Saturday.
Like Francisco Liriano, Nick Blackburn is the kind of major Home/Away bias performer that the markets do not adjust properly for. In this instance the career splits are 22-11/3.62 at home vs. 10-25/5.36 on the road, a significant sample size. Blackburn does not miss bats (3.8 K’s per 9 LY), and against a team with the punch that the Toronto offense brings having the ball put into play on a fast surface does not get those numbers turned around. And with Carl Pavano and Liriano only burning 8.1 IP the first two games in this series, the element of surprise that relievers usually have in non-division games is not there – except for Joe Nathan, the Blue Jays have see what they have, and Kevin Slowey will be a scratch today.
Meanwhile Brett Cecil showed major improvements from 2009 to 2010, with his ERA falling by more than a full run, his WHIP showing a similar upgrade, and W’s per 9 going from 3.7 to 2.8. He found confidence in his stuff, which led to 15 wins, and he was doing it against big-time competition – of pitchers that worked more than 170 IP, he checked in at #7 on difficulty of batters faced. His ability to retire left-handers works particularly well into this lineup, one that will be without Joe Mauer today, and off of a pair of easy wins to open this series the bullpen is well-set for the latter stages.
