Friday, May 22, 2009

Boston Gives Jays The Blues

Jon Lester overcame a shaky start by getting out of a couple of jams, then settled down to beat the Blue Jays and complete a three game sweep by the Red Sox. He pitched 6 1/3 and gave up only one earned run. All the innings he pitched last season may be a factor this season, but Lester is a big, strong guy and should be able to work his way through some trouble spots.

So much for first place Toronto. Granted, the Sox avoided facing Roy Halladay, but if all the Jays have to throw out there other than him are these milquetoast rookies, it doesn't matter. The Sox feasted on the youngsters all series. On the other side, the only one I fear in the Toronto line up is Vernon Wells, who seems to smack Boston around every time they face each other. Sorry my Canadian friends. It will probably come down to Yanks/Sox/Rays again this season.

Jason Bay is emerging as an early MVP candidate. He hit yet another dinger last night. Sorry to be all on his jock again, but his last 11 home runs have been with ducks on the pond. That's the way to man-up, folks.

4 comments:

Joe said...

They did play in Fenway which always helps. And I heard people in Toronto are calling the rotation Doc and the interns. Now that is clever. The Jays will still win 85 games. Rays 91 Yankees93 Sox 95.

Peter said...

Yea you had to view the Jays as pretenders until they actually faced some in-division competition. So far they clearly are playing over their heads. They are 1-5 against the Yanks and Sox (0-5 when Halladay doesn't pitch).

They kinda remind of the O's in '05 when they jumped out to an early division lead in April and May before their lack of pitching finally caught up and they faded fast.

Dennis said...

It should also be pointed out that in between the Yankees and Red Sox series they swept the A's. Tho e games count too.

Overall, this sounds very similar to what was being written about Tampa last May. I don't think the Jays will win 97 games, but I won't be surprised if they are in the race all season.

Peter said...

Yea I might take them sweeping the A's more seriously if it was the A's circa 2002. Not the 2009 version that so far is the fourth worst team in baseball.

I think Toronto is solid. They do have some pitching and some hitting but I don't think they have enough of either to compete with the top three in the east. They may hang around by winning games they are suppose to, like those against the A's, and that's not a knock. Good teams win the games they're suppose to.

But eventually they are gonna fade as their schedule gets tougher.