Record: 27-27 (15-14 for the month)
3rd place AL East, 5 games behind; 2 1/2 out of 3rd wild card
Last month I wrote "Otherwise nobody's running away with anything in the AL so if the Rays can hold serve until Wander returns, they'll be OK". Well they held serve in the sense that they stayed around .500 but the Jays got red-hot late in the month and closed it on a 9-game win streak to open up a 5-game lead on the Rays in the AL East. Wander actually returned a week early from his injury and perhaps not coincidentally they won 5 of the 7 games after he returned.
It was a dull month transaction-wise although there was a lot of lineup shuffling.
Austin Wells started the month hot but lost his job, J
ace Jung never got untracked and saw his PT diminished, and
Kyle Manzardo, who was close to being optioned back to Durham, got hot around mid-month and became a lineup fixture. The offense remains the big problem though as in addition to the strugglers named above, franchise stalwarts
Brandon Lowe and
Randy Arozarena haven't hit much. I considered trading B.Lowe on more than one occasion and turning 2B over to
Luisangel Acuna but I didn't get too many offers I liked and also felt that Lowe owed us some positive regression. He had a double and triple in the final game of the month and maybe that's the start of a corner being turned. Maybe.
Mediocrity is thy name, although the pitching has been very good and would have even better numbers if the defense wasn't so lousy. We lead the league in strikeouts and pretty much have to in order to keep runs off the board.
As mentioned Manzardo had a good month and worked his way back into the lineup,
Cade Doughty hit well in limited action and may play some against righties, and
Elly De La Cruz is everything we hoped he'd be (except maybe he could hit a few more homers). Even Arozarena showed some signs of life after a dismal start but we need more than one homer/month. Beyond that it's ugly with the catchers a black hole of offense and Jung may be the biggest disappointment with his 70 contact and 55 power not translating. Like I mentioned with respect to B.Lowe, these bats are due for some positive regression since they all rate well but it's getting frustrating waiting for it.
These are the much more pleasant numbers to look at and the move to drop
Zach Eflin from the rotation in favor of
Ryan Pepiot has paid off handsomely as you can see from the stats above with Pepiot having the best month of all the rotation.
Jeffrey Springs has also turned it around from a brutal April.
Junior Caminero continues to be the bright light in the system this year, having a whale of a year at Durham. Defensively he's better suited to 2B and could also be a potential B.Lowe replacement before long.
Brock Jones down at #18 is also having a fine year and he looks like
Josh Lowe 2.0 with his combo of good power/eye/OF play and mediocre contact.
So as June approaches it's time to start making our move and have a winning month - with Wander back and the pitching in form there is some room for optimism.