What We’ll Need to do Better Next Year Unfortunately, I was right about the Blue Jays losing this year’s ALCS. Even more unfortunately, I was wrong in predicting they’d at least put up a good fight. We certainly went down swinging in the wrong way. Encarnacion’s awkward 9th inning hacks in Game 5 certainly won’t be as fondly remembered as Bautista’s bat flip or either of Joe Carter’s...
What the Heck, Let’s Give Sportswriting a Try As a baseball fan and statistics geek, I figure there’s no harm in writing a quick analysis of the series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Cleveland ‘Indians’. Granted, the series will probably be at its halfway point by the time this gets to print, but here’s hoping it will be interesting to see how reality challenges expectation. I will try...
A Comparison of the 2015 Team With Its 1992 Predecessor Part Three: Examining the Starting Pitching: Front of the Rotation Correction: This article was intended for publication in Volume 89, Issue 4. There is an old saying in baseball: good pitching stops good hitting. In Part One, I compared the infield of the 2015 American League Division Series-bound Blue Jays with its 1992 predecessor, the...
A look into the team’s ascension to greatness and its heydays Part 1: Establishing an identity and a winning culture As a die-hard supporter of the Toronto Blue Jays who has followed the baseball club for nearly three decades, I believe they have come a long way since playing their first ever regular season game at Exhibition Stadium on April 7, 1977 when the field was covered with snow...
The Toronto Blue Jays, in a surprise twist, have just announced that they will not be playing a second baseman, despite initially confirming Ryan Goins as the opening day starter at the position. In a press conference, General Manager Alex Anthopoulos said, “Out of desperation we named Ryan Goins the starting second baseman. The previous year we signed Macier Izturis with the expectation that...