Life of Brandon

Last nights effort by Brandon Morrow, here in known as B-Mo, is akin to parents watching their children grow up in front of their eyes. Just last week I was changing his diapers, and now he’s in college doing keg stands and playing hackey-sack in the quad. Or drugs, whatever kids are into these days?

Blue Jays fans are used to roller-coaster seasons; we take the good with the bad and never really get too high or too low. Unless you’re one of the aforementioned college students, in which case you do go through highs and lows.

A similar trend has been observed with the Blue Jays starting rotation this season. Good starts are followed up by lets-walk-the-bases-loaded and its-not-my-fault-its-my-gloves. On two occasions this year, Hutchinson has been the one to reverse poor performances from the order 1-4. And those efforts were stellar.

However, little compares to the efforts B-Mo put in on Wednesday night. He threw 119 pitches for his MLB leading third shutout. B-Mo finished the game striking out 5 and allowing on 2 hits.  He also sat down 18 in a row at one point during the game.

Let’s compare some stats for the season:

Player A: 64.2 IP, 0 W, 11 BB, 66 K, 2.92 ERA, 7 QS
Player B: 81.1 IP, 4 W, 19 BB, 69 K, 2.55 ERA, 8 QS
Player C: 78.1 IP, 7 W, 23 BB, 74 K, 3.68 ERA, 7 QS
Player D: 77.2 IP, 7 W, 24 BB, 67 K, 2.90 ERA, 8 QS

Any guesses? I’ll give you a hint. No fat-ass Colon’s, nor old-man Moyer’s on this list. What you’re looking at are the current stats for Cliff Lee, Kershaw, Sabathia and B-Mo. If you have him on your fantasy team you must be laughing at not wasting a top-5 pick on getting similar production.    

Wednesday’s game lowered Morrow’s ERA to 2.90. Impressive considering the scoring change on an error in Tampa led to 6 earned runs, instead of what should have been 1. Opponents are batting a Mendoza like 0.191 against Morrow and his WHIP is 0.99.   

What was most impressive about B-Mo’s outing on Wednesday was his fastball command. Of his 119 pitches, 78 were thrown for strikes and according to Mike Wilner only 10 were breaking ball pitches – TEN!

Where does B-Mo go from here. Well if he continues developing at the rate he has, by this time next year he’ll be cashing out his RRSPs and buying property in Gulf Coast Florida. Until that time, let’s remain hopeful that he stays consistent and healthy and that the young Jays starters – Drabek, Alvarez, and Hutch pick up a few things along the way.