You’ve probably heard about the Troy Tulowitzki trade. The one that turned the Toronto Blue Jays’ already mighty offense into a juggernaut incapable of losing. The trade for David Price made some news, too. A team with a few mid-rotation starters but lacking an ace at the top and depth at the bottom was reinvigorated with the acquisition of one of the best pitchers in Major League Baseball, simultaneously providing that much-needed ace and allowing the rest of the rotation to fill out the remaining spots nicely. Those were the major moves — the earth-shattering, capture-the-attention-of-two-nations moves. The Blue Jays made other moves, too, though, and getting LaTroy Hawkins in the Tulowitzki trade, adding Mark Lowe, moving Aaron Sanchez to the bullpen, and officially naming Roberto Osuna as closer has strengthened what was once a weakness. For months, the Blue Jays struggled to close out games, but the bullpen has been lights out in the second half and looks ready to compete in October.

The last time I looked at the Blue Jays’ pitching issues, it was late June, the team was fourth in the division but had a solid 50/50 shot at making the playoffs. In the six intervening weeks, the Blue Jays have moved from wild-card hopeful to near playoff lock with more than a 90% chance of making the playoffs and 57% chance of winning the division. In late June, the rotation had at least one hole, and the bullpen was still struggling. Brett Cecil was experiencing difficulties as a closer, and the team had recorded just one more Shutdown (40) than Meltdown (39) on the year. As the first half drew to a close, the team had as many saves (14) as blown saves (14). Beginning with the change in closer six weeks ago, however, the Blue Jays have transformed their bullpen.

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There are a lot of rookies getting attention this season. And with good reason — it’s been a pretty good year for rookie position players. But while Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber, Joc Pederson, Jung-Ho Kang, Randal Grichuk are Carlos Correa getting lots of pub, it seems as though Miguel Sano has not generated the same volume of coverage nationally as have his peers. And that’s a shame, because he’s just as deserving of praise.

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Last year’s Royals caused us to fall in love with stolen bases all over again. The AL Wild Card Game put their utility on display, and it was around that game the whole nation turned its attention to Jon Lester’s refusal to attempt any pickoffs. I probably don’t need to review this for you, so I’ll skip ahead. When Lester began this year with the Cubs, plenty of people were wondering whether he’d attempt more pickoffs than the zero he tried in 2014. He seemed like a pitcher who could be taken advantage of.

Flash back to the first month of the season. Lester threw over, all right. Twice. Sort of.

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Before anybody snarks about the quality of Trevor Bauer’s pitching, and whether or not he’s good enough for us to value his thoughts on pitching, know that he’s fully aware of his limits, and was even before conceding six runs to the Yankees last night.

“I don’t throw hard enough. My pitches aren’t strikes often enough. My pitches aren’t consistent enough. I’d almost rather not be a pitcher than be a mediocre pitcher,” he admitted to me. (I had to tell him he was decidedly above-average when it came to whiffs and strikeouts, at least.)

But this is exactly what makes him well qualified to study the art of pitching. He isn’t blessed with a Felix Hernandez changeup, or Clayton Kershaw‘s command, or even teammate Corey Kluber’s breaking ball. He knows that.

And so what brings him satisfaction? Studying pitching. Working hard to figure things out. Getting better, with the help of our best tools.

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Devised originally in response to a challenge issued by viscount of the internet Rob Neyer, and expanded at the request of nobody, NERD scores represent an attempt to summarize in one number (and on a scale of 0-10) the likely aesthetic appeal or watchability, for the learned fan, of a player or team or game. Read more about the components of and formulae for NERD scores here.

Most Highly Rated Game
New York AL at Toronto | 19:07 ET
Nova (46.0 IP, 109 xFIP-) vs. Price (161.0 IP, 84 xFIP-)
There’s a barbershop on Rue Beaubien in Montreal, very close to where the author is currently staying in that city, that’s full perpetually of young Latin American men and which features — somehow also perpetually — a live broadcast either of a Blue Jays or Yankees game on the shop’s large flat-screen television. How the proprietors of this business have influenced the space-time continuum in such a way so as to facilitate constant live feeds of the two aforementioned clubs — this is an unsolved mystery. Of less mystery is whether, when walking past the shop tonight, the author will find the aforementioned flat-screen tuned to the Yankees-Blue Jays game. Indications are that he will.

Readers’ Preferred Broadcast: Toronto Radio.

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Episode 586
Jonah Keri is a contributor to Grantland, author of real books (including, most recently, Up, Up, and Away regarding the Montreal Expos), and also apparently a sometime guest on ESPN’s Baseball Tonight. What else he is, is both (a) a native of Montreal and also (b) a guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 38 min play time.)

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Nelson Cruz leads both leagues in home runs, and he ranks second behind Bryce Harper in SLG. Neither is a surprise. The Seattle slugger left the yard 40 times with Baltimore last season, and moving to Safeco Field wasn’t going to squelch his production. Per ESPN Home Run Tracker, 22 of the 34 bombs he’s hit this year have traveled more than 400 feet. Nine of them have gone at least 440 feet.

One thing has come as a surprise: Going into last night, the career .274 hitter had a .324 batting average, and he was tied with Prince Fielder for the most base hits (140) in either league. Once one-dimensional, the former Texas Ranger has morphed into more than just a basher.

It’s been a long process. In many respects, Cruz has been a late bloomer. Read the rest of this entry »

I watched Hisashi Iwakuma’s no-hitter, and I wrote about it, and in writing about it, I included the following screenshot:

That’s Jesus Sucre, setting up for a high fastball to Manny Machado. The pitch was executed well, and Iwakuma got his out. Now, writing about the no-hitter didn’t leave me much space to analyze individual matchups, but something I noticed was that Sucre set up high against Machado pretty often. Really, he just set up high pretty often, more often than in the average Iwakuma start, but it was the pitches to Machado that caught my eye, and it made me curious. Does Machado have a vulnerability upstairs, like last year’s version of Mike Trout? After finishing the no-hitter post, I turned my attention to Machado’s breakout year. Allow me to spoil the rest of this post: no. There is no high-pitch vulnerability. In fact, quite the opposite!

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