Battery Mates- Buehrle and Navarro

With all the talk these days about sabermetrics and being able to contribute some sort of data to every detail in a ball game, there will be one thing we will never be able to measure, the reationship between a pitcher and his catcher. No one is showing the value of a good relationship right now like Mark Buehrle and Dioneer Navarro of the Toronto Blue Jays. Buehrle collected his 8th win of the season last night with a impressive 7-2 win over the Red Sox. Last season he didn't get his 8th win until the 10th of August when his primary catcher was J.P Arencibia. 

Big things were expected out of the Blue Jays for the 2013 season, especially from the newly revamped pitching staff. However with Arencibia behind the plate the pitching staff struggled as did Arencibia. He lead the leauge with 13 passed balls and add the 54 wild pitches to that and the Jays were the 4th worst in the majors at catching the ball. Now giving up a base due to a passed ball isn't the end of the world, but what it does do is get into the mind of the pitcher and doesn't give him confidence in what he is throwing will be stopped by the catcher instead of the backstop. This leads to hanging breaking balls, pitches up in the zone and lots of runs scored against. 

This year seems to be different for the Jays starting pitchers and it's due to one reason only Navarro is a better defensive (and offensive) cathcer than Arencibia will ever be. He is in no way perfect but what Navarro gives to his staff is unfortunately a stat that can't be measured in anything but wins and so far this season the Jays have more wins than at this time last year. 

Casey Jansen - Quality Control

Blue Jay fans should be able to breathe a little easier these days with the return of closer Casey Jansen. Last night Jansen locked down the Jays 6-4 win over the Boston Red Sox with a very boring ninth inning, something Jays fans haven't seen as of late. Jansen didn't have good stuff last night as his breaking ball wasn't sharp and his cutter was flying out of the zone. However what he did have was a very controled and well placed fastball, just ask Johnny Gomes, who struck out looking on a fastball that was right at the knees. 

With a pen that has been absolutely terrible at times this year, Jansen could be the key to keeping it together. There is no doubt that this team will score a ton of runs this year, it's gonna be how they keep the other guys from scoring that will dictate whether or not this team can end a 20 year playoff drought. 

V-Mart shows everyone comes back from injury at their own pace

In January 2012 Victor Martinez tore his acl in his left knee, a devastating injury that according to Victor Khabie, chief of sports medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y.,  the timetable from surgery to a return to baseball is usually around nine months. People in the Tiger's organization were optimistic that they could have V-Mart back for a possible playoff push that September, but V-Mart had a different timetable. He was not able to return until the Spring of '13, over a full year after surgically repairing his knee and for the first half of the season he was a shell of his past. By the end of June his batting avg. was hovering around .230, well below the +.300 career avg. we were used to seeing from him. But then all of the sudden he started to figure things out, more so he started to feel comfortable again. 17 months it took him to get back to his elite level, well past the 9 months Khabie said it would take and even past the year prediction then teammate Carlos Gullien, who went through the same injury twice, had said. What this tells me is that every player is different, every indivdual has their own unique challanges and their own timetable. So when you hear someone say "he'll be out for 9 months" you have to wonder if they can make it back in that time and if they do will they be close to or even 100%. As for V-Mart there is no doubt he is 100% healthly as his now 12 homeruns and his sterling .333 avg. have shown. It just took a little longer than the Tigers had hoped, but at least he's got it going now.