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There was a lot of news surrounding the Toronto Blue Jays in the final weekend of August.

They were playing the Detroit Tigers on Sunday, and despite having one of his best strikeout totals, Marc Rzepczynski struggled to keep the ball in the zone and suffered as a result.

Three of the five baserunners he walked later came in to score, a costly result when he only allowed five hits. 

Rzepczynski looked better at times than he has in his other starts with the Jays, as his breaking ball pitches were causing some wild swings by the Tigers. But his inability to hold the runners ended up costing him, and the Jays weren’t able to recover.

In the midst of the game it was announced that the team has decided to shut down Brandon Morrow for the season after his final start on Friday. He is nearing the 150 innings that they set as his max this year to prevent overworking his arm. 

Since this a large increase on the number of innings he pitched last year with the Seattle Mariners, they want to avoid the chance of an injury from arm exhaustion.  It happens a lot in the Major Leagues now where a pitcher is on a strict innings limit from year to year, as many statistics show that significant inning increases are likely to cause serious injury and thus often require surgery. 

Many of the Blue Jays’ starters are likely being watched for the number of innings they reach, as Shaun Marcum is coming off an injury and Ricky Romero and Brett Cecil have not yet accumulated a lot of experience.

Kyle Drabek was announced as the Double-A Eastern League pitcher of the year at Rogers Centre on Sunday as well and received his first standing ovation long before he has pitched a game there.

Drabek racked up some pretty impressive stats this year, going 14-9 with a 2.98 ERA heading into this past Saturday’s start. He led the league in wins and was second both in innings pitched (154) and batting average against (.216). His 123 strikeouts were good enough for third in the league before he recorded nine more in seven scoreless innings on that Saturday game.

Still only 22, there is a chance that Drabek could be called up for some spot starts in September, especially with Morrow out of the lineup. Though having spent the year in Double-A, there are some who feel that Drabek could be ready to make the jump to the Jays next year, but for now fans might be happy to see him make a spot start or two.

Finally, Jeremy Accardo spoke to a reporter in Las Vegas about being upset with his role in the organization this year. Having pitched most of the last two years with the Blue Jays’ Triple-A affiliate in Las Vegas, Accardo feels that he has been lied to by the GMs and not given a fair shake.

Having been shuttled back and forth by former Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi, Accardo felt that after a talk with the new boss, Alex Anthopoulos, his role with the team would be different this year. Having saved 30 games for the Jays in 2007, Accardo likely felt that he deserved a spot in the bullpen and some more playing time.

Whether he is traded now or brought up when the rosters expand in September, there seems to be a rift that will not be easily mended.

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If you were a general manager and you had on your roster a player in his sixth year in the majors putting up these numbers (336 AB, 54 R, 13 HR, 40 RBI, .235 AVG, .349 OBP, and .408 SLG), what would you project for his next year?

What if you were to make him a starter on your roster and give him somewhere between 500 and 600 at-bats? 

What if that player, given more playing time, would gain more confidence in his skills, develop a better eye at the plate, and improve the consistency with his power stroke?

Would you ever guess that player would lead the major leagues in home runs with 37, be third in the league with 87 RBI, 12th in runs scored, improve his OBP by 25 points, and up his SLG by 191 points?

It would seem safe to say that most people would not have predicted Jose Bautista’s breakout year, except perhaps himself. It would also seem to be in safe territory to suggest that the Blue Jays organization is rather happy about the emergence of Bautista as one of the premier power hitters in the league.

What this means for the Jays team is that they have one more threat in their lineup that opposing pitchers would prefer not to face. 

Bautista fits right into a lineup that has developed this year into an offensive powerhouse, and one that has slowly adapted throughout the year.

If you watched the Blue Jays at the beginning of the season, it was impressive how badly they could dismantle a pitcher with their power when the bats were hot. The problem was when they faced a pitcher who was on his game, the long ball became hard to come by, and the offence fizzled.

With the acquisition of Fred Lewis and Yunel Escobar, and the recent improvement shown by Adam Lind and Aaron Hill, the Jays have begun to adapt and figure out other ways to win ball games. They have started to steal, advance runners with bunts and sacrifice flies, and improve their discipline at the plate to get on base.

Of course, they haven’t abandoned the long ball, as they still lead the league in home runs with 183.

In the last 30 days, Lind has hit .313 with five HRs and 13 RBI, an impressive improvement on his first half production. Hill has hit .270 with five HRs and 14 RBI in that same time span. Escobar, the Blue Jays’ new shortstop, has gone .305 with three HR and 10 RBI over the past month.

With the way the Blue Jays are hitting right now, is it any wonder that the leading teams in the American League East are watching their backs? It is still rather premature to suggest that the Jays have any chance to creep up the rankings in time to slip into the wild card spot, but what about next year?

What if you combine the resurgence of Lind, Hill, and Escobar with a consistent Vernon Wells and a new slugging leader in Bautista? Then you add in Travis Snider and J.P. Arencibia, two highly touted youths who have put up impressive numbers in the minors. Snider has hit eight HRs and knocked in 21 RBI in just 161 AB, and Arencibia showed the high end of his potential when he went 4-for-5 in his debut with two HR.

This roster, complemented by players like Fred Lewis, Lyle Overbay, and Edwin Encarnacion, could challenge this year if everything goes right. More importantly, though, the Blue Jays’ batting next year could finally once again have the pieces to vault them into the playoffs and be contenders for the foreseeable future.

This is a complementary piece to “Why the Blue Jays’ Pitching Could Push Team into Playoff Contention” that I wrote on August 15th.

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With the Blue Jays signing pitcher Ricky Romero yesterday to a five-year, $30.1 million contract, they locked up a very important part of their rotation.

Romero, who is still only 25, has been very strong for the Jays this season, only his second in the major leagues.

His inexperience at the big league level does create a bit of risk in this deal. But considering his willingness to compete and his improving emotional and physical control, he could well be the Jays’ future ace locked up in a reasonable contract.

With his win today against the Angels, Romero joins Shaun Marcum with 10 wins, followed closely by Brandon Morrow and Brett Cecil, who each have nine wins. These four pitchers are all in their twenties, with Marcum actually being the oldest at 28 and Cecil being the youngest at 24. 

With Jays pitchers currently sitting sixth in the league in strikeouts, 12th in WHIP, and 19th in ERA, it is apparent that they are doing quite well, but with some obvious room for improvement. With the rapid improvement that these young pitchers are showing, and the considerable support and friendly competitiveness that they show to each other, the Jays could have the makings of solid rotation that could carry this team into the playoffs. 

Adding to these solid four starters is a wealth of young arms vying for the fifth spot in the rotation and keeping those previous four honest.

Jesse Litsch is a strong back of the rotation arm that unfortunately keeps getting hampered by injury troubles. Brad Mills (96.1 IP, 8-4, 85 K, 4.20 ERA, 1.36 WHIP) has had a good year in Triple-A so far but struggled in his three call-ups to the big club. Marc Rzepczynski (67.0 IP, 5-5, 61 K, 6.04 ERA, 1.61 WHIP), on the other hand, has struggled a bit this year in Las Vegas but fared a bit better with the Blue Jays.

Of course, even with a steadily improving young rotation, if you don’t have the relief pitching to support your team, it is unlikely that you are going to make it to the playoffs.

The Jays have done quite well this year with their veterans pitching most of the innings in relief. With Shawn Camp, Jason Frasor, Scott Downs, and Kevin Gregg, the Blue Jays have been able to hold on to most leads fairly successfully, with Gregg actually 11th in the league in saves.

The problem is, with the Jays currently nine games back in the wild card race, the chances of them making it to the playoffs this year are rather unlikely. Then if you are looking at next year or the year after for their chance to overtake the AL East giants, then you have to address the fact that three of those veteran relief pitchers are free agents at the end of the year.

Alex Anthopoulos could re-sign them but might see the potential draft picks should they sign elsewhere as more attractive options, which might be part of the reason he didn’t trade any of them at the deadline.

The Blue Jays could potentially fill these spots with the likes of Josh Roenicke, David Purcey, and Rommie Lewis, but Anthopoulos has said in past interviews that he likes the presence of veterans in relief. 

The Blue Jays have been a surprise in many ways this year, perhaps none more so than the pitching. If these young arms can continue their development and avoid injury, then they have a chance to be a very formidable rotation. If the relief pitching can be solidified heading into next year, then the starters can relax in trust that their games are in capable hands. 

There is an aura of enthusiasm surrounding the Blue Jays lately, and it would be quite a feat for them to make the wild card spot, but there is a great reason to hope even if they don’t. There is a bright future here, make no mistake, and with a little bit of luck the Jays could have the pitching to make the jump back into the playoffs.

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On Wednesday afternoon against the New York Yankees, starting catcher John Buck injured his thumb and was placed on the disabled list after the game. There’s no definite timetable for his return, but he won’t be back until Aug. 19 at the earliest. Injuries are never anything to get excited about, but sometimes the player movement that stems from one can cause some excitement.

That looks to be the case here, as the Blue Jays promoted one of their top prospects, catcher J.P. Arencibia, to take Buck’s roster spot. Arencibia figured to make his debut at some point this season, at the least with a September call-up. That has been moved up to now, and it’s possible J.P. will stay with the club for the remainder of the season.

The Jays could opt to keep him on the roster even if Buck returns before rosters expand on the first of September. Until then, Arencibia should get the bulk of the playing time behind the plate for the Jays. Back down in Triple-A Las Vegas, Brian Jeroloman will be taking over the starting duties behind the plate. Jeroloman was enjoying a productive season in Double-A and will get his second shot at the higher level.

According to StatCorner’s site, Arencibia has been Las Vegas’ best offensive performer this season. He’s been a team-best 21.5 batting runs above average in 420 plate appearances. That represents a complete turnaround from his 2009 season, also at Triple-A, when he was 14.7 batting runs below average in 500 trips to the plate.

The improvement offensively is easily noticeable in several different areas, the most reassuring being his improved walk rate. While he might never be able to draw any more than a league-average number of walks, he should at least be able to avoid being labeled as a free swinger. His 7.9 percent walk rate is the best of his career and has come a long way since walking just 2.5 percent of the time in 2008 with Double-A New Hampshire.

J.P. has also seen more pitches this season than last, improving to 3.73 pitches per plate appearance. He’s been able to both walk more and see more pitches while at the same time striking out less. After swinging at 54.5 percent of the pitches he saw in ’09, Arencibia has cut back to 50.1 percent this season.

Hitting the long ball has never been a problem for Arencibia since being drafted in the first round of the 2007 draft. He went deep 27 times in 2008 between High-A and Double-A and hit another 21 homers last year. This season he’s gone yard 31 times in just 420 plate appearances.

His overall power has also been impressive. His ISO was over .200 in both ’08 and ’09 before this season’s outstanding .336. Arencibia has collected over 30 doubles each of the past three seasons. Like many catchers, the doubles come more from the solid contact than any ability to move quickly on the bases.

His batted ball profile, in terms of balls in play going for either a line drive, fly ball, or grounder, is largely unchanged from last season despite his BABIP jumping from .267 to .304. The .304 in 2010 is in line with his BABIP from ’08 and ’09, both of which were over .300. The rise in BABIP and the home run barrage have pushed his average to .303, a huge improvement from ’09.

Defense matters more for catchers than any other position, and it will be crucial that Arencibia can hold his own behind the plate. In his preseason prospect rankings on FanGraphs, Marc Hulet noted that scouts felt his defense had made strides during the 2009 season. He speculated that J.P.’s defensive abilities could be average to slightly above average.

Total Zone for catchers, which judges a catcher only on his ability to control the running game, rates Arencibia as slightly above average in throwing out and picking off runners. Advanced fielding stats have their uses, but not for evaluating catcher defense. All the intangibles of working with a pitching staff, calling a game, and so on are hard, if not impossible, to quantify.

We know what to expect, or at least hope for, when Arencibia steps to the plate, but time will need to pass to see how the other aspects of his game measure up. However many games J.P. gets into for the Jays this season will mean more to him than to anyone trying to analyze the results. At best he’d get 160 or so trips to the plate, far too small a sample size to draw conclusions from.

It will be said this is an audition for a starting role in 2011, but the Jays front office is not foolish enough to base that decision on 30 to 40 games when they have years of information from their player development personnel and coaches. That he has been called up is a sign they believe he is ready and that they are ready to commit a season’s worth of playing time to see what he can do.

The time up with Toronto will be invaluable to Arencibia. It will give him a chance to face the best pitchers and fastest baserunners for the first time, and the lessons he learns will pay dividends in 2011. Playing through the month of September for the first time will be a valuable experience. Catching 120 games a year is taxing on the body and something Jays fans hope Arencibia will have to get used to in the years ahead.

Enjoy watching one of the Jays’ prized prospects begin his big league career, but don’t get overly concerned with the results, good, bad, or ugly.

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Besides the season-long—until recently anyway—home run barrage showering off the bats of Blue Jays hitters, the outstanding starting pitching has been the highlight of the season.

Along with Ricky Romero and Brett Cecil, Shaun Marcum has been outstanding just about every time he’s taken the mound.

Unfortunately, Marcum’s season is going to be taking an unexpected breather for at least the next couple of weeks. The elbow inflammation isn’t expected to be a major problem though, and Marcum should only miss one turn in the rotation thanks to the upcoming All-Star break.

That, coupled with the Blue Jays’ off day on Monday, means they won’t need another starter until July 10 if they send Cecil out on regular rest next Wednesday to take Marcum’s next turn.

In the meantime, that leaves the Jays with an interesting opportunity to play around with an extra roster spot for the next six games. With seven men already in the bullpen and Monday’s aforementioned off day, they don’t have to add another pitcher.

If the Jays are intent, however, on adding a pitcher, one pitcher worth taking another look at is left-hander Jesse Carlson. Just looking at his 4.91 ERA—never a good idea, by the way—you’d be inclined to think he’s the last or close to last option for a call-up. The rest of his numbers look much better though.

He’s struck out 30 batters against just eight walks in 33 innings. His 4.04 tRA is a good deal better than the PCL’s league average 4.84, and his FIP is a healthy 3.65.

He was also useful in 127 big league innings in 2008 and 2009 with a combined 3.52 ERA and 3.90 FIP. Carlson also showed effectiveness versus righties (4.03 FIP, 2.52 K/BB) as well as left-handers (3.78 FIP, 2.53 K/BB). If he came up and was effective, he would make lefties Scott Downs and Brian Tallet that much more expendable at the trade deadline.

The more interesting option would be to call up another position player, under the understanding that Cito Gaston would be implored to use him. This would be the perfect time to get a short five- or six-game look at either Brett Wallace or J.P. Arencibia before the All-Star break.

Five or six games is too short for serious evaluation, of course, but it could be a way for one of them to come up without the added pressure of replacing a veteran like John Buck or Lyle Overbay.

If either were brought up, they’d need to get out there and play every day to make it worth the trip. Wallace could be slotted in pretty easily either by splitting the six games between first and DH or perhaps two games apiece at third, first, and DH.

The Blue Jays have a four-day break for the All-Star Game, as they don’t get back to work until Friday the 16th. That gives the Jays two more weeks to possibly move Lyle Overbay, at which point Wallace would never have to head back down to Las Vegas.

Likewise, calling up Arencibia to make a four- or five-game debut would give him his first taste of the majors in a slightly lower pressure environment. If he comes up thinking he’s headed back down no matter how good or bad he does, he just might be all that more relaxed—if being relaxed making your big league debut were an option, but you get the point.

Just in the same way things could work out for Wallace, either catcher, be it John Buck or Jose Molina, could be dealt in the next two weeks, leaving room for Arencibia to stick around. The Jays would be able to work around the extra position player if they chose to pitch Brian Tallet on Saturday the 10th and go with a six man ‘pen for three or four days headed into the break.

Watching one of your team’s top pitchers go down is never enjoyable, but with the way the schedule breaks over the next two weeks, the Jays could give their fans something to keep them interested while he’s on the shelf.

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Tonight, the Toronto Blue Jays will begin a three-game series at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia against the Phillies. However, this is no ordinary home series for the Phillies.

Instead, this series was supposed to be played in Toronto but had to be moved to Philly due to security reasons that arose from the G20 Summit being held in Toronto this weekend.

As a result, the game will be played as if the Blue Jays are the home team; they will take batting practice first, they will pitch in the top of the inning and hit in the bottom half, and they will wear their home uniforms. Obviously though, the fans, which are big huge part of having “home field advantage,” are going to be overwhelmingly Phillies fans.

The Blue Jays considered moving to a more neutral field but decided playing in Philly would be the easiest solution. According to Blue Jays President and CEO Paul Beeston, the series was expected to draw around 90,000 fans for the three-game set before it was moved. The Blue Jays usually draw an average of 15,208 fans, so this series was supposed to be a big draw.

We at SeatGeek are always interested in if, and how, these abnormalities affect ticket prices. Apparently, the Phillies and Blue Jays will be sharing revenue for this game, with the goal for both teams to come out revenue neutral.

We were curious to see if ticket prices for the series would be higher than the season average at home for the Phillies due to its uniqueness and how ticket prices for the series would compare to the season average in Toronto since this is technically a home game for Toronto.

• There is a slight, but insignificant, increase in average transaction price for this series over the Phillies’ season average, $61.73 to $59.62.
• The one game that is significantly higher than the Phillies’ season average is tonight’s game, selling at an average of $73.39. This is most likely due to the fact that Roy Halladay is pitching and facing his old team.
• The average transaction price for this series is significantly less than the Blue Jays’ average price at home.

The rarity of this kind of series seems to have had little effect on ticket prices, as the prices are right in line with the season average at home for the Phillies. This is definitely an unusual series, and it will be interesting to watch how it goes. I wonder how many Blue Jays fans are coming down from Toronto to see their team play “at home.”

Be sure to follow us on Twitter @SeatGeekMLB and email max@seatgeek.com with any questions or comments.

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Alex Gonzalez‘s recent temporary departure from the team has highlighted the Blue Jays lack of a useful backup middle infielder. Gonzalez and second baseman Aaron Hill have been healthy as of late and there hasn’t been much playing time for the backup infielders. But Hill continues to struggle and third baseman Edwin Encarnacion has been scuffing since returning from injury.

Unfortunately for the Blue Jays, the options off the bench, John McDonald and Mike McCoy, have struggled to produce in limited playing time. McCoy is hitting .184 with an isolated power of .061. His walk rate, 7.5 percent of plate appearances, has been his only useful offensive contribution. His defense has been good, his UZR is 5.3, albeit in too small a sample size to come to any meaningful conclusions.

McDonald has also been above average defensively, as would be expected. But he’s also been more useful at the plate than McCoy hitting .250 with a .159 ISO. Despite his inability to draw walks his .267 OBP beats McCoy’s .245. 

In all the two players are essentially filling the same role of a no-hit, defensive specialist. Which is all fine and good, except for the fact that the Blue Jays don’t need two of them to fill the same role. The fact that McCoy has 53 plate appearances and McDonald just 47 also indicates the redundancy of having the two of them on the roster. McDonald has shown to be the better hitter in limited playing time and is at least just as good defensively as McCoy. That leaves McCoy as the odd man out.

The man to take his place is twenty-seven year old Jarrett Hoffpauir. He whom currently leads the Triple-A Las Vegas 51s in batting runs above average at 12.5. A look to his more traditional stats shows him hitting .332 with a .385 OBP while drawing 19 walks to just 11 strikeouts in 219 trips to the plate. He’s also popped eight homers and collected a dozen doubles.

According to minorleaguesplits.com his numbers would translate to a .262/.307/.396 batting line in the majors. Not incredible numbers but clearly more useful to the Jays than what McCoy and McDonald have done to date. His career line across 332 Triple-A games is .293/.366/.446 across four seasons. Hoffpauir has never been given a real chance to prove himself in the majors.

Defensively, he’s not great and probably below average but he does have the versatility to play second, third and a little shortstop as well. It would be a waste to call him up and use him as little as McCoy has been. But Cito Gaston could certainly work him in two or three times a week across the three positions and find out if Hoffpauir can be a useful player in a utility role. And with basically no MLB service time, a cheap utility option at that.

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Since Michael Lewis’ Moneyball came out in 2003 detailing Billy Beane and his strategy as GM of the Oakland A’s, we’ve all heard a lot about the philosophy that changed baseball.

We’ve heard about college scouting, OPS, patient hitting and Sabermetrics. We’ve heard about Jeremy Brown, Nick Swisher, Paul DePodesta and Theo Epstein. Above all, we’ve heard how the way to compete as a small-market team is to focus on players fitting a certain description: high on-base, lots of home runs and low strikeouts with heavy focus on statistics and none whatsoever on aesthetic appeal.

I’ve got some potentially upsetting news: we’ve all been missing the point.

Amidst all our excitement over the statistical baseball revolution, we’ve forgotten what Moneyball was all about: economics. Michael Lewis isn’t a sportswriter or a statistician. He holds a Masters in Economics from the London School of Economics. And at the end of the day, Moneyball (unitalicized intentionally when I’m talking about the strategy, not the book) isn’t actually about OPS or Kevin Youkilis. It’s about exploiting market inefficiencies.

The thing about the scouting strategies featured in Moneyball is that they only work when nobody else is using them. The idea underlying the A’s thinking is that while the Yankees and Red Sox have unlimited resources, you’re doomed to fail by doing the same things as them.

So Billy Beane did something different. While the rest of the league was focusing on average, RBIs and aesthetics, he focused on statistics, particularly OPS. This is exactly what’s meant by exploiting market inefficiencies – figure out what everybody else is missing and take advantage of it. As a result Beane made a living catching quality players who were falling through the cracks.

The trouble is that the rest of the league has caught on. Boston’s Theo Epstein is one of the top supposed Moneyball minds in the game. Noticed lately how Nick Swisher and Kevin Youkilis – the two players most highly touted in the book – are starting respectively for New York and Boston?

Remember the fundamental premise: you can’t succeed as a small-market team by doing the same things as the big-market teams. To compete, you have to do something different. So in today’s culture, where the big-market teams are focusing on traditional Moneyball stats, playing Moneyball doesn’t dictate going after OPS and patience at the plate – it dictates doing the opposite.

That’s what the Toronto Blue Jays have finally figured out this season. They’ve spent the past six years under JP Ricciardi rigidly refusing to scout high school prospects, looking exclusively at traditional Moneyball stats and essentially acting like Billy Beane acted up until 2002. Like the rest of us, they missed the point.

Under Alex Anthopoulos’ new regime, they’ve done the opposite. They’ve doubled their scouting staff, malcontent to rely on a DePodestean computer. Their draft strategy centres largely around high-risk high-school kids with heavy upside. They began the season by trading away the club’s biggest star in exchange for prospects.

And in case you haven’t noticed, they swing at everything. Moneyball told us never to swing at the first pitch. This year’s Jays tell us to swing at the first pitch as hard as you can, and quite often it’s ended up as a souvenir.

I began this article by saying that when it comes to Moneyball, we’ve been missing the point. Well, that Jays caught on. This is the new Moneyball. In 2002, Kevin Youkilis was slipping through the cracks as the baseball universe ignored plate discipline. Today, while the powers that be are preoccupied with plate discipline, players like Jose Bautista and Alex Gonzales slip through the cracks. The Jays are exploiting that inefficiency by focusing on performance indicators largely ignored by the teams with a financial advantage.

The only difference is that the indicators have changed. Looking back on Moneyball, Lewis absolutely argues OPS and plate discipline are better performance indicators. But the claim that they’re better is beside the point – what’s really fundamental about those stats is that given their dismissal by high-budget teams, they’re more economic. That’s no longer the case. In 2002 plate discipline was undervalued, and Billy Beane took advantage of it. Today discipline is perhaps overvalued – the undervalued assets are mechanics, aggression at the plate and high-school upside. Moneyball accordingly dictates focusing on those indicators instead.

Most people will tell you that swinging at everything, scouting primarily in person rather than through statistics and focusing on high-school players in the draft is a sign the Jays are no-longer playing Moneyball. I say it’s a sign they finally are playing Moneyball – or at least that they’re finally playing it properly. Call it the new Moneyball. And it’s working.

Courtesy Lion’s Den University Sports Writer Malcolm 

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The Yankees were happy to leave Toronto after their first visit with the Blue Jays over the weekend.

This series provided a lot to think about in regards to what the Yankees are dealing with regarding strengths and issues.

Losing the first two games was making the Yankees look like has-beens. Thanks to Javier Vazquez’s impressive performance the Yankees avoided getting swept on Sunday.

Watching Saturday’s 14 innings proved that the Yankee pitching is pretty sturdy and continued to add more worries about the Yankee bats.

Here is what was learned up in Canada.

Pitching

Andy Pettitte and Javier Vazquez both pitched gems. Pettitte just continues to dominate, while Vazquez is proving his arm worthy again.

On Saturday, the bullpen looked better than I expected in through 14 innings. Chan Ho Park, Dave Robertson, Damaso Marte and Joba Chamberlain were outstanding in doing their jobs. It made it difficult to believe Pettitte not getting a win because the pitching could not have done more.

Chad Gaudin gave up the winning runs on Saturday in the 14th inning, but this is no surprise. What else would happen against the uncompromising Blue Jays?

Sunday’s hero was Javier Vazquez. Vazquez had a no hitter through six innings when he gave up a two-run homer to Vernon Wells. He came back in the seventh and struck out the side before the bullpen came in to finish off the Blue Jays.

His change-up was sick, and the Yankees could not have asked for a better day on the mound from Vazquez, once again. Now with four of five solid starts, Javy’s been the saving grace for the Yankees.

Hitting

Derek Jeter came through all weekend. Jeter was responsible for a two-run homer on Saturday which gave the Yankees five more innings to win.

Cano and Garner provided Sunday’s hits in the eighth inning. Garner is an on-base machine this season with the bat. Garner also stole his 20th base in Toronto.

Nick Swisher had some BS calls on Sunday, eventually leading to Girardi getting tossed. When does the home plate umpire make the check swing calls that are that close? The view from behind the plate does not provide the same angel as from first and third bases, which is a fact. Just add it to the list of idiotic judgment calls from umpires in 2010.

Problem

How embarrassing for Mark Teixeira, who struck out five times. Tex is becoming unreliable, and something has to be done now.

This is no slump, because Tex has majorly struggled since the 2009 post season.

I hate to say it, but it is time to move Tex down in the batting order. Then he can prove his worth by earning his way back up.

The Yankees power has been the biggest drop since 2009 season. Cano has been a saving grace, but Arod and Tex can not hit home runs. Tex can not his at all, but Arod is getting on base and providing a lot more than Tex.

Arod left on Sunday’s game in the eighth inning with the same groin injury, but has said to be fine to play on Tuesday against the Orioles. Girardi knows that if there is a time to relax Arod, Baltimore is the place.

The Yankees have the two worst teams up next, Orioles then Astros, which is the time to fix the hitting problems.

Oh wait, they should win these pretty easily as well because they are close to taking the Rays and first place.

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Aaron Hill has been back playing every day for the Blue Jays for slightly over a month now. He landed on the disabled list from April 8 to 23 when he injured his right hamstring. Since returning the results have not been encouraging, especially coming off a career year in 2009. When a player has a career year in his thirties, that’s one thing, but when a player has one at age 27 like Hill did, you’d hope he could replicate it for a few more seasons. Hill is struggling to match his production from any season right now.

Going into the Jays’ series against the Baltimore Orioles, set to start tomorrow night, Hill is hitting just .154. The incredibly low batting average is dragging down his on-base percentage (.268) and slugging percentage (.324) to equally ugly levels of production, leaving it to look like Hill is completely lost at the plate.

But the further away we go from Hill’s batting average, the more optimistic things start to look, starting with his 12.7 percent walk rate, which sits well above both the league average, 9.1, and his own career mark of 7.0 percent. Likewise, his isolated power stands at .169—well below last year’s outstanding .213, to be sure, but still better than his career average of .151. In short, he’s walking more than usual and still collecting some extra base hits.

There are two parts to explaining his .154 batting average. With the extra walks have also come more strikeouts, as he’s gone down on strikes in 19.1 percent of his at-bats. That’s just about league average, slightly better actually, but well above his career mark of 14.3 percent. That’s a combined 10.5 percent less balls in play than his career norms, which isn’t always a problem.

Unless, that is, if your batting average on balls in play happens to be .144. That is Hill’s current BABIP, an almost unfathomable number given his career mark of .299 and this season’s league-wide average of .297. If Hill had a .299 BABIP on his 104 balls in play this season, he’d be hitting .272, and this article wouldn’t exist.

The main culprit for that lowly BABIP is Hill’s career low 8.2 percent line-drive rate. He’s never had less than 17.3 percent of balls in play hit for liners in his five-year career before this one. Line drives have substantially higher BABIPs than any other batted ball. When Hill starts hitting more line drives, it will fuel a rise in his BABIP and batting average.

Throw in career-low BABIPs on his groundballs and fly balls, and you have the perfect storm for a depleted batting average.

His batted ball profile does have a silver lining though. 11.1 percent of his fly balls have left the park, better than any season except ’09. You’d still like to see more line drives and more balls fall in for hits, but he looks like he can pop 20-plus homers this season.

Some of Hill’s struggles can be attributed to bad luck, which can happen in small sample sizes. The lack of line drives could also be partially due to the hamstring problems he’s experienced so far this year. He might be out there almost every day, but that doesn’t mean his legs aren’t still sapping some of his power. The further away he gets from his hammy problems, assuming they’re gone, the better.

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