The Arizona Fall League is down to its final stretch, and the Blue Jays’ group in Mesa has spent the month giving us a pretty clear split between who’s surging and who’s searching. Toronto sent eight players to the Solar Sox, who sit second-to-last in the standings at 8-11, but the record is mostly background noise at this point. This stage is about reps, and a few Jays prospects are making theirs count.
The loudest bat in the bunch right now belongs to Jake Cook. Over his last three games, he went 5-for-15 and pushed his team-high hit total to 19 in just 13 games. After a pretty ordinary first pro season in Low-A, he’s suddenly forcing people to take a closer look at what he can do.
Not every Jake is enjoying the same ride. Jake Casey has gone the other way in a hurry, going 0-for-15 over that same span and dropping to a .082 average in what has been a rough AFL showing.
Aaron Parker, meanwhile, has been one of the steadier hitters on the roster, adding four more hits this week and lifting his line to .367/.500/.467. That .500 on-base percentage leads the Solar Sox.
On the mound, Jake Bloss had the kind of outing that can yank a little shine off an otherwise encouraging fall. After opening his AFL run with real momentum, he ran into a wall in his fourth start, lasting only one inning against the league-worst Desert Dogs and giving up seven runs on seven hits. His ERA, which sat at 2.70 through three starts, now stands at 10.57 through four.
Still, the bigger picture with Bloss hasn’t changed much. He’s thrown just 51 innings over the past two seasons while working back from Tommy John surgery and a teres major strain, and the important part is that he looks healthy. As long as he keeps getting his scheduled turns, the Blue Jays can still call this AFL stint a success.
The rest of Toronto’s pitchers had quieter weeks, though not exactly clean ones. Gilberto Batista allowed three runs across three innings in a shaky outing, and Yondrei Rojas surrendered three runs over two innings in his two relief appearances, even while picking up a save.
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