Game 117: Boston at Toronto
He’s back. After watching box score after box score show that Travis Snider was mashing at a ridiculous rate with Triple-A Las Vegas, the Blue Jays decided to bring the kid back to Toronto on Tuesday.
Snider’s production — .337 with 14 homers and 40 RBIs in 48 games for Vegas — might have netted a call-up earlier, but the Jays were keeping a close eye on his service time. Why not? The team is not in the running and holding him back could save millions.
By waiting until Tuesday to promote Snider, he will likely fall a few days short of reaching Super Two status after the 2011 season. What this means is he would not have an extra year of arbitration eligibility. It made complete sense for the organization to handle the situation this way.
When Snider was up witht he big league club earlier this season, he played against right-handed pitching. Now, manager Cito Gaston said he’ll play against “everybody.” Snider did not like seeing Alex Rios go, but he said he is looking forward to taking advantage of the chance to play in right field on a daily basis.
We also chatted with GM J.P. Ricciardi today about the Jays’ unsigned Draft picks. Check bluejays.com later tonight for more on that and for Snider’s comments on being called up. The Jays optioned Joe Inglett to Triple-A to clear room on the roster for Snider.
Today’s lineups:
BOSTON RED SOX (66-51)
Second place AL East, 7.0 GB
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
2. J.D. Drew, RF
3. Victor Martinez, C
4. Kevin Youkilis, 1B
5. Jason Bay, LF
6. Mike Lowell, 3B
7. David Ortiz, DH
8. Nick Green, 2B
9. Alex Gonzalez, SS
Starter: RHP Josh Beckett (14-4, 3.10)
TORONTO BLUE JAYS (55-61)
Fourth place AL East, 17.5 GB
1. Marco Scutaro, SS
2. Aaron Hill, 2B
3. Adam Lind, LF
4. Lyle Overbay, 1B
5. Vernon Wells, CF
6. Randy Ruiz, DH
7. Edwin Encarnacion, 3B
8. Rod Barajas, C
9. Travis Snider, RF
Starter: LHP Ricky Romero (10-5, 3.70)
Don’t forget, you can follow me on Twitter: @MLBastian
~JB
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Major League Bastian 
Overbay has to learn 4th hole hitters don’t go up there looking for a walk, they hit to drive runners in.
I agree, though he’s done well there so far. There is a simple solution to that. Switch Overbay (high OBP guy) for Hill (RBI guy). That’s what you get with Cito though. That, and Millar hitting cleanup!!!
Big Papi Ruiz!
I’d like to put Ruiz in the 4th hole, that is until Snider is ready. Ruiz has more experience hitting in that spot than anyone else on this team and if he can drill one over the center field fence on Beckett, he can hit them on anyone.
Here’s where I’d like to see the lineup.
Scutaro
Hill
Lind
Ruiz
Snider
Wells
Overbay
EE
Catcher
lol. Taking some heat by other commentors about whether the signing of Ruiz would have any relevance at all to the Jays this year, or next. Back in December I wrote.
I don’t think in any way I implied that Ruiz was the ‘answer,’ to the Jays problems. That is a strange thought. He was signed to a minor league contract, not exactly a premier free agent pickup. Depending on how others fair next season, he probably won’t see any MLB playing time (others, notably Millar, did not fair well).
In my opinion, I think the guy has drifted under the radar a bit. I think he has legitimate Major League talent, but for one reason or another (probably because he is only a 1B/DH), hasn’t been able to show it. He actually did well briefly with Minnesota late last season. He is not exactly Mark Teixeria or Manny Ramirez, but not bad for the bottom of the barrell in my opinion.
If he plays, and tanks. You can come to my blog and bash me for thinking the guy had any value whatsoever, because I will deserve it.
http://homerfoodandhistory.mlblogs.com/
By welikeroywelikeroy on December 23, 2008 2:50 AM
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3 homers for Ruiz in a very short time with the club. I left myself on the hook for that comment, I now feel validated!!! There were no guarentees Ruiz would get called up this year, or ever as a Jay? I’m glad he did. With Ruiz, the Jays will definately get a guy that can flirt with .300 all year. The man can definately hit. He is just a hard guy to find a position for, but the way our run production has been this year at DH/1B, I don’t think that would be a problem.
http://homerfoodandhistory.mlblogs.com/
Lol, Beckett didn’t want any part of Ruiz.
Why did we send down Accardo who was pitching really well and bring up Janssen? Accardo had only given up 1 run in his last 10 outings, and Janssen’s fastball just isn’t going to do it-not at 87-88 mph. Clearly, he hasn’t recovered yet, send him back down to AAA and let him finish out the year there.
Both Ruiz and Lind just missed another home run in their last at bat and Papelbon needed to change shorts, cause Ruiz, Lind, Hill and Snider scared the crap out of him-you could see it in his facial expressions.
If anyone has any doubts Ruiz can hit, just look who he’s hit his 3 home runs (in 6 games) off of-Burnett, Chamberlain and Beckett-3 of the premier pitchers in baseball.
Ruiz is a tremendous “break” for the Jays. A DH with power, can hit both lefties and righties, highly motivated, hits well with risp and makes major league minimum. There is no need to add another power bat at high cost in the off season, they’re all in house and reasonable cost with Lind, Hill, Ruiz, Snider, Dopirak-soon and EE.
Snider brings energy to this lineup, even Papelbon pitched around him. Now, if we start batting Ruiz 4th, bring up Dopirak, dump Millar and get EE healthy (likely not until next year), this lineup could really cause some damage.
welikeroy,
Back in December it was me under the name “quicksilver” who made those critical comments regarding your post. This past week watching Ruiz play and everytime i heard about him i was reminded of that december conversation. Well you were right about that one. Im glad Ruiz proved me wrong. Thanks for reminding me of this lol
It will be interesting to see what happens to Justin Jackson in Dunedin when he comes back from the injured list because it looks like others are being moved up in the chain.
2009 draftee SS Ryan Goins has his second promotion of the year to Lansing and Tyler Pastornicky has been promoted from Lansing to Dunedin to replace Jackson. The thing that’s really interesting on Pastornicky is he’s stolen 51 bases in 110 games. Not a HR hitter but a .271/.337/.348 is very good compared to Jackson, and the 51 stolen bases are exceptional.
Another kid at Lansing that would probably be moved up except for a crowded well performing outfield in Dunedin already is Johermyn Chavez, a right fielder who hit his 20th home run tonight along with his 80th rbi in 117 games and is on a tear hitting .409 over his last 10 games.
Now the interesting stuff should happen with Randy Ruiz. He should have raised a few eyebrows by now, and the pool of video and advance scouting should be sufficient for opposing teams to start looking for holes in his swing. Over the next few weeks, we should watch how they pitch to him, and see if he can make the adjustments. We know what he can do with a mistake, but now we will see how he fares when they start picking on his weak spots. (I hope they just decide to throw it down the middle and hope he hits it to somebody! LOL)
I like your lineup, gsjays, but I would really like to see Wells hitting well enough to claim the cleanup hole again, with Snider, Ruiz, and Overbay behind him. And while I am wishing for things, maybe we could sign Hanley Ramirex to play shortstop next year, and bat leadoff. As my grandfather used to say, “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride”.
Actually that pitch Ruiz hit out last night was a good pitch, striped the outside part of the plate and low. I was surprised he hit that one out. I’m sure they’ll find weaknesses in his swing, but he has also been around long enough, I suspect he’ll adjust. However, it also is becoming prudent for Cito to start putting him in the right hitting spot so he has some protection, which he doesn’t have at the moment. In Vegas, Ruiz was 3rd, Snider 4th and Dopirak 5th, and that lineup produced a lot of runs and wins.
You’re much more optimistic than I on Wells. I think what we see now is what we get, with continual deterioration over the next few years. I’m starting to think he should be in the 9th hole, instead of the 6th. I don’t think Wells has ever been or ever will be a 4th hole hitter and when we put him in that slot it was a huge mistake.
If Wells was really a team player (which he isn’t), he’d be the guy pressing Cito to bat him lower until he improved, because right now he’s costing us wins.
GS while I do agree that Wells should be batting lower in the lineup, I disagree that it should be Vernon’s responisibility to let Cito know where he should be batting. If Cito can’t see for himself that Vernon continues to struggle then maybe some criticism should be directed at him.
He doesn’t seem to get enough heat for batting Millar in the cleanup spot once in a while either in my opinion.
I’m starting to think Millar has pictures on JP or something, because he shouldn’t be in a MLB lineup at all, never mind batting in the 4th hole.
Although, I do understand Cito’s idea of leaving guys in certain positions, the fact is, this team should start getting ready for next season and beyond.
Millar isn’t part of that future, Dopirak is and he should be here, along with Arrencibia. Get all these kids settled in and ready for next year. Experiment with the batting order to see what’s going to work the best.
And I still don’t understand why Accardo was sent down and Janssen recalled. They had to know Janssen’s stuff wasn’t up to snuff so why recall him; send someone down to Vegas to watch him pitch if they didn’t trust the information they received from the Vegas coaches.
In the meantime, Accardo has pitched lights out for us, giving up 1 run in his last 10 innings, so why was he sent down? Did he piss in someone’s Wheaties or what?
Send down Carleson who’s been totally noneffective since April, if they really felt the need to have Janssen pitch here instead of Vegas.