Bronx Bound: Yankees/Jays Friday Preview



So, it's August 7th and the Blue Jays are playing meaningful baseball. They just completed a four game sweep of the Minnesota Twins and are headed to New York 4.5 games back of the Yankees.

The Yankees just finished a series versus the barely sentient corpse known as the 2015 Boston Red Sox, taking two of three. One was a 13-3 blowout win started by Masahiro Tanaka, one was a promising start by their star prospect Luis Severino who got no run support in a 2-1 loss, and the rubber match was a 2-1 win for CC Sabbathia, who is barely holding on by a thread but managed to get it done.

The scariest members of the Yankees are a reinvigorated Alex Rodriguez and Mark Texeira, followed by Brett Gardner. Gardner is quietly having a pretty great year and also has a tendency to stick it to the Blue Jays at every opportunity, Ben Zobrist style.

The scariest members of the Blue Jays are a blistering hot Josh Donaldson, who punished the Twins at every opportunity over the previous series, and Edwin Encarnacion, who hit two doubles and a homer in Thursday's win. He's really starting to look comfortable. And by comfortable, I mean able to go large with great frequency. Also, the rest of the offense might be illegal, they are so dangerous.
Or as Torii Hunter put it, "When they hit the ball, it sounds like car crashes."

The Jays also have the advantage of not having to start either Drew Hutchison, who is scary on the road, or Mark Buehrle, who is historical scary against the Yankees.

How do you feel, Mark Buehrle?

 “It’s fun. City’s buzzing, the clubhouse in here, you’ve got that feel every day coming to the field, ‘Who’s next?’ No matter if it’s a rookie pitching or a guy that’s been around for a while, we’ve got that feel of, ‘whose butt we gotta kick today?’ That’s a good feeling. We haven’t had that in the couple years that I’ve been here.”


Friday's probable pitchers are R.A. Dickey vs Nathan Eovaldi.

Last three starts, Dickey is 3-0 with a 0.77 ERA.

"When I started striking out guys is when I went to those much harder velocities consistently," Dickey said. "But the key is throwing strikes with it. Whatever firm speed I can consistently throw strikes with it, that's what I need to do."

Eovaldi is 2-0 with a 3.26 ERA.

"I would imagine it's just the split; I've been able to control it a lot better against both lefties and righties," Eovaldi said. "Throwing it for strikes too, not just swing and misses -- I feel like that's one of the big reasons I'm having success."