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Posted at 10:05 AM EST.

1:05 PM EST. Maybe we’re crazy but c’mon now, Trent Thornton cannot be priced in this range over anyone in this league. Furthermore, the Orioles have enjoyed success against the Blue Jays all year and while we hate to play a team after they won the first two games of a series, each game is independent of itself so we can’t worry about that. The price here absolutely dictates the play. 

Toronto is a big favorite because the Orioles will start 30-year-old career minor leaguer, Asher Wojciechowski. Wojciechowski was recently acquired from Cleveland in a minor league deal on July 1 and made his Oriole debut a day later. He went five innings against the Rays that day, gave up five hits and four runs, while walking two and whiffing six. Dude saw MLB time with Houston in 2015 and Cincinnati in 2017 (with poor results in both places), but did show 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings and very good command in 84.2 innings during 2018 at Baltimore's AAA-Norfolk affiliate, so they are giving him a chance at the back end of their rotation. Coincidentally, at Triple-A Columbus this year, Wojciechowski has thrown exactly 84.2 innings again while posting an 8-2 record in 15 starts with a 3.61/4.77 ERA/xERA split. He also struck out 82 batters. He's a flyball pitcher with 1.8 hr/9 in his 79 MLB innings, which could pose a problem here but we’re merely giving you the details to make a decision. He was tagged for 19 jacks in those 84 minor-league innings this year because of his weak groundball rate of 28%. Something one can admire about Wojciechowski is that he’s been mostly a minor leaguer for about 10 years and therefore has paid his dues. Most of these lifelong minor-leaguers have seen it all and will not be overwhelmed when given an opportunity. It shows his resilience and dedication to a game he loves and he’ll just go out there today and give it his best shot like he’s been doing for years. 

The bet here is against Trent Thornton and the Jays being a -171 fav (at the time of this writing). Trent Thornton has a 23% groundball rate over his last five starts and a 29% overall groundball rate after 18 starts. He also has a 5.82 xERA over his last 10 starts, a 5.18 overall ERA and a 6.38 ERA over his last five starts. Is this the profile of a pitcher that his worthy of being priced like he’s Kyle Hendricks? Trent Thornton established himself pretty clearly in the minors as a control-oriented, low-to-average strikeout pitcher, so it has been very odd to see him struggle with walks while piling up strikeouts in the majors. His subpar first-pitch strike rate suggests the control problems have been legitimate,while his below-average swing & miss rate gives another indication that his current K-rate probably won't last. There has been some debate over whether Thornton will be a better long-term fit for the rotation or the bullpen, and his struggles against lefties would seem to be one reason to lean toward thinking he'll eventually become a reliever. His minor league numbers suggest a pretty low upside as a starter. With the Blue Jays in rebuilding mode, he’s been getting a long leash as a starter here in 2019, but his current skills would seem to limit his value to when he’s taking back big prices and not laying them and maybe not even that if his strikeouts continue to fade. Big overlay here.

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