#Question mark guy plus#
#Question mark guy series#

It's worth having faith in any offense captained by Wander Franco and ' Playoff Randy' Arozarena. Another is the extensive list of actual injuries and lesser aches and pains they're dealing with right now.Īnd yet, selling low on the Rays nonetheless feels like a mistake. The offense has been in a rut, while supposed ace Shane McClanahan has pitched to a 5.21 ERA since returning from a shoulder injury.Īs excuses to count out the Rays go, this one isn't bad. 9, but they've won only eight of their last 24 games. They got to within 3.5 games of the Yankees when they were 78-58 on Sep. If there's a team in the American League playoff field that looks lucky to be there, it's certainly the Tampa Bay Rays. Short Answer: It's just never a good idea to count out the Rays. 500 or better records, there's reason to hope that the Jays will be able to pick on teams their own size after all. Since this run includes a 15-10 performance against teams with. Toronto is coming in hot, having won 29 of 44 dating back to Aug.

#Question mark guy series#

Notably, the Jays lost their season series to the Yankees, Guardians, Seattle Mariners and Tampa Bay Rays.ĭamning? You bet. Toronto is 51-23 against losing teams but only 39-46 against other winning teams.

It's thus kind of a letdown that the Blue Jays are only going into the playoffs as a wild card rather than as the AL East champions.Īmong their more specific letdowns is a general struggle to punch within their weight class. There's perhaps no better distillation of the hype that the Toronto Blue Jays carried into the 2022 season than the fact that they opened with the best odds of making the World Series of any American League team. Short Answer: They can if they keep playing like they have lately. Failing that, they may need somebody to unexpectedly help out 29-homer slugger José Ramírez in the power department. To be fair, the Guardians' collective talent for making contact might allow them to zig their way to the World Series while everyone else zags.

Seeing as hitting the long ball has tended to correlate with success in the last 10 postseasons, this is a potentially catastrophic weakness. They've hit only 126 home runs all season, ahead of only the Detroit Tigers. Perhaps an even bigger concern is whether the Guardians have the power for a deep run. Since 2017, representatives from the division are 4-19 in the playoffs. There's also the matter of the AL Central's recent history in October. The Astros and Yankees exist, after all, and both won their season series against the Guardians. Short Answer: Somebody might have to pull a 2015 Daniel Murphy.Įven though the Cleveland Guardians are 90-70 and the champions of the AL Central, it's doubtful that anyone sees them as the team to beat in the American League. He's generally good but also occasionally hittable, and he's been scored on in four of his last 11 appearances.

#Question mark guy plus#

That's no thanks to relative shortcomings at catcher, first base and center field, plus sweet-swinging Michael Brantley's absence with shoulder surgery.Īlthough Houston's bullpen has MLB's lowest ERA at 2.81, Ryan Pressly isn't the scariest closer out there, either. One concern is that this year's offense isn't as strong as the elite iterations of 2017, 20. The whole team has playoff experience in abundance.īut while this amounts to a short list of things for Houston to worry about, it's not altogether empty. Their offensive foursome of Yordan Álvarez, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker is downright intimidating, and the same is likewise true of co-aces Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez. They're 104-56 with a plus-208 run differential. The Houston Astros would seem to be as juggernaut-y as juggernauts get. Short Answer: Squint and you'll see them.

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