Games 141 & 142 Preview: Springs/Herget vs Manoah/White
After the Blue Jays fired the opening salvo of this five game series yesterday, taking the first game in dramatic fashion over the Rays. Today the Jays and Rays play a double header, with the first game set for 1:07 ET and the second set for the standard 7:07 start.Alek Manoah gets the ball for the Jays in the first game, coming off possibly his best performance of the year. He allowed 1 run on 3 hits and a walk over a season high 8 innings last week against the Orioles.
For game two this evening, the Blue Jays are expected to use Mitch White after calling him up as the 29th man due to the double header. For White, this will be his 7th start as a Blue Jay, and things have gone very badly for him in the first 6. Through 25.1 innings as a Blue Jay, White has allowed 23 earned runs on 35 hits and 11 walks. He only allowed 2 home runs in that span, so that at least wasn’t hurting him.
Springs’ only start against the Jays came in a matchup against Manoah on May 15, and Springs matched Manoah pitch for pitch while he was in the game. Still ramping up his workload as a starter, Springs went 4.2 shutout innings, allowing just 4 hits and nothing else while striking out just 2. The double header today likely results in most guys getting a start today. It’ll be interesting to see if they go full platoon advantage with Espinal, Merrifield, Biggio, Bradley and Tapia or not. Springs has reverse splits as a left hander so that’ll probably be a consideration. And expect to see Springer at DH in one game and Vladdy at DH in the other, so the above five guys will probably have three positions to cover in both games.