Jays fans should hope that Brett Lawrie is not out for very long. His departure from the lineup means the loss of a 3.2 WAR and his steady .265 batting average against active Red Sox pitching, including hitting .400 against Felix Doubront. A shame because the Jays must beat the Sox if they are going to have any chance whatsoever of hanging in the hunt for a Wild Card spot.
The other thing we need to look at is how many pitches Ricky Romero is leaving up in the zone. Frankly, to many. When I was doing the color commentating for the Jays on Friday (VS Indians) I watched a Ricky Romero that threw 20 or more belt or higher pitches, that, luckily, got fouled off or let go of. The Yankees are not the Indians. They are a veteran, role playing, mistake hammering offense… like most of the AL East. I like Ricky, and I think he’s had a rough season. I’m pulling for him, but looking at his Fangraphs data shows that in 2011 he was hammering the down and away location with constancy. Now, in 2012, he’s moving back towards the middle, or up. Not a lot, but enough to get himself hurt.
Couple that with his rather awful 6.34 FRA (Fair Runs Average) which tracks his pitch sequences, you can see that most of these untimely elevated pitches are coming in situations when they can really hurt him. Last year’s Ricky had his fair share of elevated pitches, but he put together better sequences and a much lower FRA, possibly because his confidence and command were with him and he didn’t feel like he had to go into the middle of the zone as often.
Assuming that Gose plays beyond his projections at the majors (which look something like a .227 avg, 4 homers, and some stolen bases based on his age, experience, and minor league progress), Travis Snider comes up and stays hot, Bautista returns to the scene and keeps pace with first half numbers, Morrow returns in and is dominant…. Woa. woa. I have to stop myself. This is a lot of assumptions and what-ifs.
Lets just say that everyone is going to have to play exquisite baseball, and the reinforcements from the minors will have to be clutch for the Jays to even have a shot…