Toronto Blue Jays vs. Philadelphia Phillies

June 13th to 16th

Written by Kyle Matte and Chris Sherwin

Starting Monday, the Philadelphia Phillies are making a rare trip north of the border to take on the Blue Jays in a good old fashioned home-and-home four game series. The clubs face off tonight at the Rogers Centre before wrapping up the first half of the series with a matinee affair in Toronto tomorrow afternoon. After the game, the two squads will fly to the city of brotherly love for another quick two-gamer, kicking off a five day road trip for the Blue Jays.

These aren’t your father’s Phillies who dominated the late 1970s, nor are they the Phillies from yesteryear who won five consecutive NL East pennants behind a who’s who of late 2000s All Stars in Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Shane Victorino, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, and the great Roy Halladay. Hell, they aren’t even the upstart Phillies who went a surprising 14-10 in April to start the season, leading some to suggest the rebuild was ahead of schedule and they were already capable of hanging with the Nationals and Mets. With few bright spots still shining just six weeks later, the 2016 Phillies are back to within a comfortable margin of where they’ve been for the last few years, which is to say, nine games out of first. Even in the lowly National League, the club simply doesn’t have the necessary stable of high-end players to make noise.

Centerfielder Odubel Herrera is one of the young stars the Phillies do have, and not only has the former Rule 5 draft pick proven his 2.8 WARP rookie season wasn’t a fluke, the 24 year old has made tangible improvements and is rapidly becoming one of the league’s premier leadoff men. Herrera has nearly tripled his walk rate from 2015, and is currently sporting an on base percentage well over .400. Aaron Nola, the Phillies first round pick (7th overall) in 2014, is the torch bearer on the pitching side. Nola only turned 23 years old last week, but is already producing like one of the National League’s best starters as his 2.2 WARP currently ranks 10th among pitchers. Nola features a curveball that moves an awful lot like our own Aaron Sanchez’s, which has driven him to strike out 26.5 percent of batters faced despite a fastball that measures below average velocity readings.

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays enter tonight winners of four of their last five games, and six of their last seven series, having quickly erased the nauseating memories of Detroit. Despite their many offensive flaws and their revolving door in the seventh and eighth innings, the starting pitching has cowboy’d up all season, carrying the Jays to a 35-30 start, with the club now sitting just 2.5 games back of the first place Red Sox. The Phillies are the Phillies. Let’s keep it going.

Pitching Matchups:

June 13th – 7:07 PM ET

R.A. Dickey vs. Jerad Eickhoff

RA Dickey is doing what he does every season. Make Jays fans panic in the first month, and then turn his season around after May. In his last three starts, Dickey posted a very impressive 2.60 ERA and shut down a powerful Red Sox lineup twice. While he hasn’t been striking batters out, he has stayed away from homeruns, which has been an issue in the past.

Eickhoff came to Philadelphia in the deal for Cole Hamels. Despite being known in the prospect community, he was rather unknown to most fans. However Philly fans got to him quickly after an impressive eight starts in 2015. He has continued his success so far in 2016. He doesn’t provide elite level strike out numbers, but he keeps hitters off the bases and has an impressive curveball which has improved since joining the Phillies. Eickhoff has an impressive slash line against right handed hitters of .215/.264/.409 which could be trouble for a heavy right handed Jays lineup. However he has had difficulty keeping the ball in the yard this season which fits nicely in the Blue Jays favour.

June 14th – 12:37 PM ET

Marcus Stroman vs. Zach Eflin

The last month has not been kind to young Marcus Stroman. In his last five starts he’s posted a dreadful 7.58 ERA. An argument could be made that he is just going through a string of bad luck do to pitching to contact. His Fielding independent numbers would agree as he currently holds a FIP of 3.86. Stroman could certainly use a team like Philadelphia to help stop his current funk and give him a mental boost. The Phillies are one of the worst hitting teams in MLB. With that being said, they have one of the best contact rates and avoid grounding into double plays.

Zach Efflin will be making his big league debut at the young age of 22 on Tuesday. He has worked on velocity through the minors and is now hitting high 90’s to go along with a plus changeup. He’s still working on developing his slider. In the minors he had impressive innings pitched numbers, but ran into to fly ball issues. He looks to be a mid-rotation starter and could be in for a rough debut against a hot hitting Jays lineup.

June 15th – 7:07 PM ET

Marco Estrada @ Jeremy Hellickson

Marco Estrada was the off seasons leader in regression narrative. So far in 2016, he’s made a lot of his doubters look silly. In 12 starts he has a staff best 2.57 ERA and is averaging close to 7 innings per start. In the age of high pitch velocity, it’s a treat to watch a low velocity pitcher make major league lineups look so bad every 5th day.

Hellickson is no stranger to the Blue Jays. He spent 2010-2014 with the Tampa Rays. Historically he’s pitched well in Toronto, however he hasn’t been the same pitcher since leaving Tampa. With the Rays he was able to out perform his FIP and post impressive ERA’s. In the last two seasons things have evened out and he has looked very much like a back end starter with home run issues. Helickson will look to bounce back from his worst start of the season, which saw him give up seven runs in six innings to the Nationals.

June 16th – 7:07 PM ET

J.A. Happ @ Aaron Nola

Up until his last two starts, J.A. Happ had proven the doubters wrong and looked like the second best pitcher in the Jays rotation. However his last two starts have seen him surrender six runs in five innings against the Tigers and 4 runs in 7 innings against the Oriole’s. The most alarming stat that stood out in his last two starts was the homeruns. In his previous 11 starts, he gave up seven homeruns. In his last two starts he gave up five. Happ is striking out a career low and not giving up much soft contact.

When he’s not pitching against the Nationals, Nova has been the Phillies best starting pitcher. At just 23 years old, Nova has put up an ERA of2.98. He has an impressive three plus pitches in his fastball, Curveball and changeup. Despite only sitting at 91-91 mph with his fastball, he’s shown excellent command and has posted an impressive 9.70 K%

Keep an Eye On

The Parrot Finding Its Stride

Despite a glorious RBI total, Edwin Encarnacion had otherwise been off to a consistently poor start to the season, looking nothing like the impact player who hit a demonstrative .277/.372/.557 last season, including an insane .336/.433/.700 in the second half. After a *ahem* certain writer suggested over Twitter that he’d be hesitant to even make Encarnacion a qualifying offer (if this kept up), he hit a walk off blast on Friday, went 3-for-3 with a double, two dingers, and two walks on Saturday, and 2-for-4 with a double and a walk on Sunday and all of a sudden is slashing a respectable .247/.327/.490. If this is the beginning of one of those stretches, you best keep your head up in the left field bleachers.

Home Cookin’

Dating back to May 27th, the Blue Jays are 8-2 over their last 10 home games and have rung up the following run totals: 7, 10, 3, 4, 4, 7, 5, 4, 11, 10. Two things can be garnered from that string of numbers; one, that they’re hitting extremely very well at the Dome (an average of 6.5 runs per game over that span), and two, just as importantly, even when the opposition has a good pitcher out there, the offense has been able to scratch together something to give their starter a chance. As a team, the Phillies pitching staff has given up the sixth-most home runs in baseball per-nine innings, and they have a kid making his Major League debut on Tuesday. Expect the scoring to continue.

Additions and Subtractions

BLUE JAYS

▪ Jose Bautista (quad) missed the last three games against Baltimore after departing in the sixth inning on Thursday, but the right fielder is expected to return to the lineup this evening. With a pair of games under National League rules on the horizon, don’t be surprised if manager John Gibbons eases his slugger back into the lineup at designated hitter, with Edwin shifting to first and the red-hot Ezequiel Carrera getting another start or two in the outfield with a pair of lefties due up.

▪ Troy Tulowitzki (quad) was on track to return to the Blue Jays when his 15-day disabled list concluded tonight, but the shortstop experienced further discomfort on his rehab assignment and was forced to leave the Friday’s extended spring training. No further updates have been provided.

▪ Edwin Encarnacion jammed his thumb sliding into third base during his steal attempt on Sunday, and will sit out at least the first game of this series. The team is hopeful that’s all it is.

▪ With the bullpen overworked in recent games and a lack of off days, the Jays have optioned SHP Pat Venditte and called up Canadian lefty, Scott Diamond. He will serve as the team’s long reliever for now.

PHILLIES

▪ Vincent Velasquez (bicep) left his start on Wednesday after throwing two fastballs, both of which registered under 90 miles per hour — highly irregular for the flame throwing right hander. He was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Friday, and obviously will not be available this series.

▪ Ryan Howard (bad) was formally removed from the starting lineup on Friday, officially signalling the beginning of the end. Howard crushed 45 or more home runs in four consecutive years from 2006 to 2009, and then 31 and 33 in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The one-dimensional slugger’s career was already on a downward trend, but a difficult-to-watch torn Achilles to end the 2011 NLDS almost certainly accelerated his decline. At the end of this season he’ll have made 125 million since the injury — including 35 million (salary + buyout) this year alone — so it’s hard to feel too sad for the guy.

Probable Lineup

Blue Jays Phillies Jose Bautista – RF Odubel Herrera – CF Josh Donaldson – 3B Freddy Galvis – SS Edwin Encarnacion – DH Maikel Franco – 3B Michael Saunders – LF Ryan Howard – DH Justin Smoak – 1B Tommy Joseph – 1B Russell Martin – C Cameron Rupp – C Kevin Pillar – CF Cody Asche – LF Devon Travis – 2B Cesar Hernandez – 2B Darwin Barney – SS Tyler Goeddel – RF

via Roster Resource

Final Thoughts

Five of the last six series played have come against division rivals, with another against the Orioles on the immediate horizon. While the Blue Jays have handled this difficult stretch admirably, I’m sure the non-stop white knuckle affairs have been at least as taxing on the players and coaching staff as they have been on the fans. The boys won’t be marching into Atlanta, Cincinnati, or San Diego anytime soon, but some new faces in the opposing dugout should do wonders as we get set to officially kick off summer.

Lead Photo: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports