BEST LINE: Pinnacle +261

Posted at 10:15 AM EST

After setting the world on fire with an offense that looked unstoppable for a month long stretch, Toronto is now pressing at the plate and swinging for the fences in every AB. Over the past 10 games the Blue Jays are batting .218. Jays’ batters combined to strike out 15 times last night against Masahiro Tanaka and two relievers. After being kept off balance the entire evening, the struggling Jays will now face a pitcher they’ve never seen in Chase Whitley. Whitley was called up to make his major league debut for the Yankees on May 15. He has some deception in his delivery, he throws a lot of strikes and he commands his pitches well. Whitley has looked really good after six starts and 34 frames with a BB/K split of 3/24 to go along with a groundball bias profile. Even more promising is his 12% swing and miss rate, a mark that is normally associated with 9½+ K’s per nine. Over his last 29 innings, Whitley has walked one batter while whiffing 20. The Yankees have won five of Whitley’s six games with their only loss occurring at home against the Twins in which he went five full and allowed just one run with a groundball/fly-ball split of 60%/20%. Whitley had a 32/7 K/BB in 26 IP at Triple-A prior to his recall so this might be more than a blip. Whitley’s 2.40 ERA comes with full skills support.

Mark Buehrle has rewarded his backers with 10 wins and a sub-2.50 ERA after 95 IP. The real reason for his success has been his effectiveness with runners on base that has led to an unsustainable 82% strand rate. Digging deeper, his avoidance of hits and home runs with guys on base has fueled his tiny ERA. He has a crazy low 21% hit rate and 2% hr/f with runners on. Both marks are among the top-10 lowest marks in MLB. Once those regress, and they will, his ERA and WHIP will head north quickly. How long he can keep avoiding disasters remains unknown but the safe bet is that regression is on the way. At age 35, Buehrle has never been an ace, he’s still not an ace and he’s not going to keep winning games at the pace he won games in the first two months. Mark Beuhrle is one of the most overvalued pitchers in the game and now is the time to sell high. Wrong side favored.