OH, NO WAY, HALLADAY TRADED

I might be the only Blue Jay fan who just glanced around and just saw Roy Halladay from the sidelines as an abberation. I never thought he was the greatest pitcher in the game. I was just told he was the greatest pitcher in the game, the greatest pitcher the Blue Jays had ever had. And I trusted them. And it seemed extremely apparent. But for me, Halladay was never the greatest pitcher of all time until he just masterfully one-hit the New York Yankees. The Yankees would go on to win the World Series with the big three Andy Pettitte, CC Sabathia and of course A.J. Burnett. And who can forget Mariano Riveria? Fuck.

I always just thought Delgado was like the sweetest player of all time. He was a humble man, a man who gave to charity because he was rich like that, and he won the ROBERTO CLEMENTE!

The Jays should sign him to be their DH, mentor the younger hitters and he could be an explosive left-handed 30 homer guy that just pushes TORONTO OVER THE EDGE!

I seriously think playoffs in 2010. This offense is too good.

LOVEDEEP MINHAS

While I'm still on the e-mail train...a joke my friend sent me.


Hi,

My name is Lovedeep Minhas and I'm a Rutgers student who just began interning at Bigflysports.com, a website that sells sports memorabilia. I am a huge Red Sox fan and I'm an occasional reader of your blog. I thought it might be worthwhile if you can link to our website from the sidebar of your blog. Being a small company that is trying to compete with the big boys, that link would be a huge help.

We have a huge selection of Boston Red Sox products that your readers might be interested in. Ideally, the link would link to our MLB page http://bigflysports.com/category/1471085741/1/MLB-Baseball.htm with text "MLB Shop" or "MLB Memorabilia".

Over this past holiday season, as a thank you to our blog partners, we ran a special promotion offering a 10% coupon code to all of their readers and 10% of the revenue from those sales to the blogger. We plan on offering this promotion on an ongoing basis during 2009, to any bloggers who link to us. It was quite successful and we would love for you to be a part of it!

Please respond with any questions you may have. Thanks for your time and hopefully we can partner up shortly!

Sincerely,

Lovedeep Minhas
BigFlySports
201-653-4414

DAVE MERCER OUTDOORS

The Cabinet sometimes recieves rather interesting e-mails...

My name is Jeff Slute from Dave Mercer Outdoors. Just wanted to share this with you as it may make a comedic addition to your page. It is the first time in Major League History that the opening pitch was “cast” across the plate. It happened Monday September 27th in a game between the Blue Jays and the Orioles...



Judging by the Jays season and this pitch maybe they could hire Dave...might put a few more fans in the seats.

That was certainly true. And he also gave me a cool photo!

DOUG DRABEK VS. KYLE DRABEK

DOUG DRABEK...



Oh, and on a side note, I've been digging up all kinds of areas of the Internet trying to find a video of Doug Drabek pitching, who won the 1990 Cy Young Award with the Pittsburgh Pirates. THE VIDEO CONTENT IS SO LIMITED because MLB owns ALL THE RIGHTS. I can only find baseball cards, so I've posted one above...

JUICY PROSPECTS....VIDEOS.

Brett Wallace's sweet swing.



Kyle Drabek pitching.



ENJOY!

Thanks for the MemoRoys

It's (soon to be) over. Roy Halladay's tenure as a Toronto Blue Jay is nearing a close, following yet another circus of speculation that rivaled the midsummer nights' clusterfuck started by Kenny Ken. Bastian, Olney and Heyman are all chiming in on it over on Twitter the Toronto-Philly-Seattle megadeal is sealed saying Doc has signed a 3 year extension with Philly for $60 Million plus a couple of vesting options. Rumours right now indicate the Jays picking up $6 million of Roy's 2010 salary as well.

To the Jays as of right now consensus points to pitcher Kyle Drabek, LF Michael Taylor and C Travis d'Arnaud coming north...eventually since they're not big league ready. While this is an alright haul from the Phillies' farm system one could have hoped that at least one big league ready player would come over to help ease the burden right away of losing our best player. In my talks with Dan the Man last night he seemed to be holding out hope for J.A. Happ to get thrown into the deal but signs right now point to that not happening.

Enough can be said about how these prospects can help the team, I don't know enough to judge prospects so I'm not going to pretend to be able to, all I've heard about Drabek, Taylor and d'Arnaud is that Drabek and Taylor have the potential to be f'awesome and d'Arnaud isn't too shabby himself so I'll steer clear of any knee-jerk reactionary stuff about this making us amazing or this being the "death of the franchise, fuck the Jays" (which I've already heard plenty of). All I'm gonna say is that I hope that somewhere down the line they can help improve the club and live up to the massive pressure placed on their shoulders as "they guys we got for Roy Halladay".

Since I'm not gonna do any of that bullshit I want to talk about some of my favourite Doc memories, or memoRoys as you might say.

• September 27, 1998: Jays v. Tigers. At the age of 10 I tuned in to the last Blue Jays game of the season on CBC after getting told "some guy on the Blue Jays is a couple innings away from a perfect game and witnessed something spectacular, that was nearly much more spectacular. In his 2nd career start Halladay retired 26 straight Detroit Tigers before giving up a solo home run to Bobby Higginson that scraped the back of the left field fence to break up Halladay's perfect game effort in the 9th. Despite how much his game has changed since 1998, Roy's line for the day reads like something you'd see in the summer of 2009: 9 IP, 8 K, 0 BB.
• I'm not gonna lie, I took a sabbattical from the Jays for a little while in the early 00's. Halladay pulled me back in, hearing how awesome he was during his 2003 Cy Young season got me to watch. Roy Halladay pulled me back into baseball.
• April 4, 2006: Jays v. Twins. Opening Day 2006. My first opening day since the 2001 "If we lose you get a free ticket" deal. The first game in the wake of JP's winter of spending like a teenaged girl with daddy's credit card. Halladay dominated the Twins for 7.2 innings, giving up 5 hits and 2 ER. Bengie Molina smacked a huge home run of the facing of the 500 level in left and BJ Ryan got his first save as a Blue Jays.
• May 31, 2007: Jays v. White Sox. I took my brother to a game as his university grad present with some sweet seats I scored off of Dan, right behind the plate on the 100s. The only time I've got to see Doc work his magic that close. We witnessed a dismantling of the White Sox. 7 shutout innings, 7 strike outs. 2-0 victory. Just how on was Halladay that night? Time of game: 1 hour, 50 minutes.
• August 14, 2007: Jays v. Angels. What started as a mission of Cheesehead and myself to abuse Shea Hillenbrand on his return to Toronto was turned into a mission to get wasted and heckle the Angels in general. After pounding an abundance of cold shots on the train and carrying a lovely coloured sign (complete with sparkles) saying "We came to heckle Shea but even the Angels don't want him" our plans were overshadowed by a Halladay masterpiece. Doc mowed through the Angels tossing a 97 pitch complete game, allowing 5 hits and 1 run, in less than 2 hours. Also we almost got in a fight with a 45 year old woman.
  
• September 27, 2007. Jays @ Tigers. Dan and I roadtripped down to Detroit to witness the replay for a game that got rained out in April. Despite being a walk-off loss we witnessed an incredible game. Johnny Mac's contributions on that day are etched in the side of our blog. Doc's efforts saw him go 8.2 giving up only 3 runs. We worked his way out of trouble all game long, and if the offence hadn't shit the bed maybe the results would've been different. This was a scenario we saw far too often during Halladay's tenure.
• May 13, 2008: George W. Bush tells an interview with Politico that if had to pick one position player and one pitcher to build a baseball team around he would start with Roy Halladay.
  
• June 2, 2009: Jays v. Angels. Doc dominated the Angels. 14 strike outs. Complete game shutout. Arguably his most dominating performance ever.

It's gonna suck not getting to see Halladay pitch every 5th day anymore. But we'll learn to deal with it I'm sure. Let's not be angry about losing Roy, let's just remember how awesome having Doc around was.

THE TRICKS OF THE ROY HALLADAY TRADE..

The Roy Halladay trade stunningly reeks of the brutal Johan Santana trade...I'll go into detail, but first let's review the tricks of the trade.

It's hard to watch the team you love fall into the quicksand under new general manager Alex Anthopolous...

That's kind of what the feeling is around the fanbase right now, that this deal is the defining moment of Anthopolous' GM career. I don't want to go as far to say that, although Halladay, for eight seasons was certainly the cornerstone pitcher of the organization. Will the prospects turn out to be any good? Well, time will tell. They got the AA rookie of the year, the son of legendary pitcher Doug Drabek who's supposed to be even better, and a catching prospect that I really am not sold on considering we always have five or six highly-touted catching prospects in the organization that don't seem to pan out.

The one thing that shocks and annoys me is that the Blue Jays are being asked to pay SIX MILLION DOLLARS to the Phillies for part of Halladay's 15.75 million dollar contract this season, like honestly, what the fuck? How does that make any sense at all? The Phillies are gaining baseball's best pitcher over the last eight seasons. Anthopolous is an economics major, he should understand that this is six million dollars he wasted, and especially to buy players that may not even make it to the major league level? Unproven minor leaguers.

I don't get what the Phillies are thinking either- shipping Cliff Lee, who was just absolutely outstanding for Philadelphia down the stretch and in the playoffs to Seattle. Clearly, Philadelphia was concerned about their own future and giving up their prospects in obtaining Phillipe Aumont, who is rumored to be like a Randy Johnson, but not a number one. I never saw how that made any sense as top prospects often fall off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. Just check out this next example.

The Minnesota Twins dealt Johan Santana for four prospects:
Feb 2, 2008: Minnesota Twins traded Johan Santana to the New York Mets for Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra.

It didn't hurt Minnesota too much. Gardenhire led Minnesota to another improbable AL CENTRAL title, their fifth in eight seasons.

The prospects?

Phillip Humber- very mediocre starter in the minors, .500, ERA over 4.50...a few major league appearences out of the bullpen, but nothing impressive
Kevin Mulvey- not even with the team anymore
Carlos Gomez- hit .229 last year...brutal numbers in 137 games
Deolis Guerra- 20 years old, but not impressive in the minors;

The Minnesota Twins? They got fuck all for Johan Santana.

The Toronto Blue Jays? Did they just get fuck all for Roy Halladay?

FUCK.

Anthopolous better have picked some damn good prospects, because prospects aren't golden always. Prospects are prospective, remember? I sure as fucking hell hope this doesn't turn out to be like the Santana trade, because at the very least, the catcher they picked seems to be a flop.

Bye, Bye Scooter

After being made blindingly obvious upon the signings of Johnny Mac and Alex Gonzalez; shortstop Marco Scutaro is officially on his way out of Toronto to the land of chowdah heads and Massholes known as Boston.

Terms of the deal were just confirmed by SI's Jon Heyman who tweeted:

scutaro just got another raise. just kidding, i guessed low before. sources say he got $12 mil for 2 with #redsox

This comes off the heals of AA coming out and saying he offered a 2 year deal to Scooter who shot it down to go test the open market and try and find a winner which everyone knows he won't find in Toronto.

Scutaro had a solid but unspectacular tenure in Toronto; his first season saw him cover admibaly for GBOAT at third then take over the starting SS job from Scrappy Doo before having a career year in 2009 as the team's starting shortstop. He was a lynchpin in last year's offense when it was working, him and A-Hill were a deadly 1-2 atop the order early on; but during the massive shitdive midway through the year his efforts became less and less noticable.

This of course means some compensation picks but you've got to start wondering how much the Yankees proving once again that payroll can win the World Series how much of a shit teams are gonna give about mortgaging their future for a shot at the title? Boston's clearly gonna sign at least one more Type A to keep up with the Yanks, throwing away yet another pick to who they're departing from. And that's probably gonna fuck AA's efforts over and make him have to draft lower.

Two more years! Two more years! Two more years!

Sir John Eh McDonald will remain the Prime Minister of Defence for another 2 years! Johnny Mac re-signed with the Jays in an excellent bit of fan service that pretty much guarentees that Marco Scutaro is gonna peace out for some draft picks.

With the team looking like it's gonna suck hard for this season and facing the loss of the club's second most popular player with the inevitable Halladay trade, throwing a cheap contract to Johnny Mac to keep some of the fanbase satisfied makes perfect sense. Sure it's not something that's gonna make them contenders, sure it's not gonna help the amenic offence but I'd pay to see Johnny Mac take the field everyday just for my entertainment.

Since we're talking Johnny Mac the contract is cheap enough for it not to be enough to stop the club from going out and signing another shortstop to steal the starting job away from our hero (for the 3rd time), but at the same time if the team's gonna tank in 2010 regardless, why the hell would they bother? As happy as I am with not having to deal with losing both Johnny Mac and Doc in the same offseason (and come up with a new name for the blog with Dan) this seals the fact that the Jays don't want to keep the spirit of mediocrity alive in 2010; they want to fucking suck, but try and satisfy the fans at the same time.

Edit: The fuck!? I wait a day and a half to chime in on Johnny Mac because I'm bogged down with term papers and Assassin's Creed and by the time I do they've gone out and signed Alex Gonzalez in a deal that makes no fucking sense. Medicore bat, medicore fielder (former league leader in errors...), fuck this deal reaks of Royce Clayton. C'mon AA.

THIS BLOG WILL RUN FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER TWO SEASONS...

John McDonald, to the joy of the CABINET has been resigned to a TWO-YEAR, 3 MILLION DOLLAR CONTRACT!

But this might just mean Marco Scutaro's tenure is up in Toronto.

And you know Roy Halladay is going to get traded, but what will he get traded for?

Some interesting offseason questions for sure.

We'll see what transpires.

LVP! LVP! LVP! LVP!

Mr. Wells capped off his impressive 2009 season by being awarded SI's Least Valuable Player Award to the surprise of absolutely nobody.

Wells had himself a spectacular campaign earning his 12.5 million dollars swatting 15 home runs, 66 RBIs, batting .247 with a .689 OPS. Combined with his rapidly detereiorating defense Vernon truly earned this honour.

Wells played like a superstar all year long, striking out and grounding out weakly while batting clean-up for almost half the season. He missed flyballs in centre, was booed emphatically by an angry fanbase, and at the end of the season revealed yet another hidden injury that he was too much of competitor to sit out and let heal.

Sarcasm aside, Wells is the most deserving resipient of this award, as soon as I saw the link to this article on FARK, with no indication of who "won" I just knew it would be V-dub getting the honour. 2009 as a year turned me very solidly against Vernon; maybe it was the underperformance of himself, maybe it was the underperformance of the team and maybe it was the fact that his contract has him pegged as the franchise player who is supposed to lead the club.

While Wells attempted to show leadership through his refusal to leave the lineup to heal, get shunted down the order to work out his hitting issues, or shift over to a position which he could adequately handle in the field these decisions just made him an alternative scapegoat for all the problems that plauged the 2009 Toronto Blue Jays. Because c'mon, sometimes you've gotta blame more than just Cito.

In a season loaded with negatives this "award" is just another another reminder of everything that went wrong in 2009, and makes the outlook for 2010 look bleaker by the minute. Summers of mediocre Blue Jays baseball are painful enough, a summer of outright spectacularly bad Blue Jays are enough to make me suicidal. With Ireland not qualifying for the World Cup this is gonna make for one hell of a painful summer for yours truly.

I couldn't believe it when Matsui somehow lifted a ball from his toes over the wall on right field. I'd screamed "NO, IT CAN'T BE!" and the floodgates had opened up somewhat against the great Pedro Martinez, a 219 game winner, 8-time all-star, and a 3-time Cy Young Award winner with over 3000 strikeouts in his career. And the Yankee faithful went once more: "WHO'S YOUR DADDY, PEDRO?" Maybe not as much as before, when he was a member of the Red Sox, but the chants could still be echoed and heard. For Pedro Martinez was now 38 years old, and just as good still, having not pitched so much in the last few years, leading some to believe that Pedro had regained his youthful arm.

Opposed to Pedro Martinez was a familiar name to all Toronto fans, A.J. Burnett, who had yet to record a decision in three starts despite spectacular pitching in both the division and league championship series. Burnett was nothing short of spectacular, shutting down the Phillies over seven innings, and just allowing an RBI Single to Matt Stairs. Burnett's first win of the postseason could not have come at a better time for the Yankees who had their backs up against the wall early in the game considering the flawless Pedro early on...

Imagine how heavily Game 2 had weighed on Pedro's shoulders before the game, having not pitched at Yankee Stadium in the playoffs in five or six seasons. Pedro could also never escape the ghosts of the Zimmer throwdown in the 2003 ALCS that saw Boston lose in seven games, but New York lose in the World Series. Even as hilarious as it was to see Zimmer roll along the ground like a cheeseball, Pedro had to face up to his actions from that brawl. It never really seemed like Pedro ever recovered completely as a pitcher until now. Pedro, having pitched for the Mets in the past too, certainly knew the wrath of the New York Media- he had even said so himself prior to the World Series. What had he said? That the media was nothing until you went to New York. What you say can come back to bite you- after a loss in 2004, Pedro famously muttered that he would tip his hat and say that the Yankees were his daddy, after all. And the Yankees proved once more they were in Game 2.

Everyone who had hoped for yet another gem from Pedro Martinez last night got somewhat of one- you could call Pedro's start certainly effective. He struck out Jeter to begin the game, for god's sakes, but it seemed as if Matsui's homerun literally two inches off the ground deflated the future hall-of-famer. And while it wasn't as good as his seven-inning, two-hit masterpiece of the Los Angeles Dodgers a series ago, it was certainly good enough to give the Phillies a chance to back home with a 2-0 series lead.

But New York and A.J. Burnett believed differently. The offense didn't do much, but it did enough as A.J. Burnett's seven innings followed by Mariano's steady, albeit rocky eighth and ninth sealed the deal for New York to even the series.

In what is shaping up to be an epic World Series, the scene will shift to Philadelphia saturday night, under the cozy confines of Citizens Bank Park.

But remember, these are the defending Philadelphia Phillies. What trick will they pull out of the bag next? And perhaps a bigger question is: Will Pedro Martinez pitch again in the series- but this time for all the marbles? Because Cliff Lee figures to win every game he starts. But hey, Game 3? It's a toss-up.

You can't hate Pedro Martinez.

I LOVE PEDRO!

LET'S GO PHILLIES!

WE'VE GOT WORLD SERIES COVERAGE!

"they could dance around all season long, but for one period every year etched in time, the leagues best fought, and the greatest team won"

I've been so busy over the last three months with school, work and family bullshit that I've only had time to sneak in a post once in awhile, but for the world series I'll give you complete and uninterrupted coverage until the very last out is recorded.

This is our tribute to everyone who's followed the Cabinet this season, young or old, and who rode the 2009 Toronto Blue Jays season into the ground by season's end- what a brutal fucking season for any fan to experience. Seriously, this team broke the heart and soul of a city, providing them with insane euphoria when Doc beat AJ in a soldout SkyDome that was absolutely rocking on a Tuesday May night once. But that nine-game roadtrip that began in Boston would spell the beginning of the end for the Toronto Blue Jays. Boston was also only good for a short while, and Tampa Bay never really got things together, and so New York basically coasted their way to the playoffs under the bats of the much storied prevalent lefty Yankee lineup. Even their offense was supported by a great bullpen that could shut it down, and good starting pitching from their big three, Sabathia, Burnett and Andy Pettitte. New York went on to have the major leagues' best record with over 100 wins.

The worst thing of all though was that the American League Playoffs, nevermind the brutal umpiring, saw the worst unfundamental baseball of any playoffs that I can ever remember. The young and inexperienced Twins could not run the basepaths if their lives depended on it, and the Angels could not defend the baseball in New York like they knew nothing but Sunny California. New York had both series handed to them, and coasted to the World Series.

You could argue then that New York had played the most fundamental baseball of all. However, there were stars on New York too,- A-Rod finally shed the playoff monkey the New York media had put on his back, belting a number of homeruns at critical times, and was being compared to Reggie Jackson in the '77 and '78 World Series wins. CC Sabathia had won three games, and sported a 0.79 ERA. New York had not been in the world series for five years, and had not won a world series in the decade, and for their storied history, they better had won one in the final year of the decade or a baseball historian in Cooperstown might look back and label the decade as one without feats.

So Entering Game 1, and having had home field advantage throughout the whole playoffs, New York would have it once more in the World Series. The American League had extended the unbeaten streak to 13 against the National League by winning 4-3 on Granderson's mad dash in the eighth inning. Nevermind the fact that Granderson never even saw the real playoffs if you don't consider the one game playoff they had against the amazing Twins that collapsed Detroit's 7-game division lead in 18 games, because all that mattered was when the lights flickered on and out would come CC Sabathia for Game 1 of the World Series.

But this wasn't just any opponent. These were the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies, who just like the Yankees who had coasted through the American League Playoffs had done the same National League Playoffs. The Phillies, too, they never really had any contest in their division as the Florida Marlins and the Atlanta Braves never even mounted a serious challenge, and the New York Mets were nowhere to be seen all season long, living in the shadow of one of the greatest Yankee regular seasons in the last decade or so.

But Philadelphia didn't look like a team that could repeat until the trading deadline. Late season acquisitions of Pedro Martinez and Cliff Lee gave the Phillies the starting pitching power to blow away the National League, and earn a date against an equally tough opponent, New York.

Cliff Lee was absolutely beyond sensational in the National League Playoffs, pitching a complete game, and dominating with a 2-0 record and a 0.74 ERA with 24.1 innings pitched in three starts.

Pedro Martinez was also sensational in his lone start, going seven innings and allowing just one run on three-hit ball. It reminded folks of the old Pedro that used to dominate with the Red Sox, since it had been five years since the former Cy Young award winner had made headlines.

Philadelphia had no other starting pitching to support them, and if they had thrown guys like the already washed-up Cole Hamels and old-man Jamie Moyer to the hill, they would have certainly been fair game for their opponents, letting the offense spur crazy comebacks.

But Los Angeles, who had faced Philadelphia for a second straight year in the division series had no answers despite the breakout years of Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp. Neither them or powerful Manny Ramirez had a notable enough playoff performance compared to the starpower of A-Rod in New York. Cliff Lee really shut down the Los Angeles Dodgers, and prevented from really gaining any ground in the series.

And certainly not J.A. Happ, who was awful in his lone start. And definetely not Chad Durbin.

So it was the one-two power of Philadelphia's rotational punch in Lee and Pedro Martinez that could certainly beat either Burnett or Sabathia in the World Series, with Game 3 heavily favoured to New York considering the starting pitcher in Andy Pettitte, looking to add-on to his record-breaking postseason win total.

However, going into the series New York was still favoured when it came to pitching, but Philadelphia's offense certainly matched up with stars like Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez, and Jason Wyerth who could all belt homeruns much like the Bronx Bombers in Mark Texiara, A-Rod himself, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and Jorge Posada. Even though Posada was an aging catcher who sometimes made amazing mental mistakes that would blow your mind away but never cost the team any trouble in the American League Playoffs, he would hit decisive homeruns. At 36 Posada was clumsy, but certainly far from being done, even if the often-wild A.J Burnett wouldn't throw to him.

But then again, don't be surprised if Philadelphia pulls the aging Jamie Moyer out of the closet, who's been around the game longer than anyone else, really, and a veteran knows how to get another veteran out.

Philadelphia, all season long, has had the ability to pull someone off the bench or put them back in the rotation and throw you a twist. The Yankees? It's the same old guys coming at you, once more.

Joe Girardi better be ready for surprises, because if he isn't, the World Series might just go to Philadelphia, and this time by accident, for a second straight year, because New York has the best team on paper, and should win the World Series.

But Philadelphia could upset. There's no question about it.

But tonight, former teammates Lee and Sabathia duke it out in what should be one of the lowest scoring games of the World Series!

Here to stay

The Jays quest for a new CEO ended today with former interim chief executive Paul Beeston signing on to take the reigns for another three years, hopefully meaning the team will at some point find a new excuse to explain their lack of direction other than "we have an interim CEO we don't know what to do".

The Beest staying begs lots of questions, such as 1) What happened to any of the rumoured succsssors that have been floating around in the media ALL SEASON LONG. and 2) If he was going to stay why in the hell did he wait so long to fire JP.

Now if the team can just figure out a damn direction, decide on payroll, set some targets, run Vernon Wells out of town and drive a dump truck up to Roy Halladay's house...

AWARDS SCHEDULE

Announcements for the Baseball Writers’ Association of America awards (all at 2 p.m. EST):
Monday, Nov. 16—AL and NL Rookie of the Year awards
Tuesday, Nov. 17—AL Cy Young Award
Wednesday, Nov. 18—AL and NL Manager of the Year awards
Thursday, Nov. 19—NL Cy Young Award
Monday, Nov. 23—AL Most Valuable Player award
Tuesday, Nov. 24—NL Most Valuable Player award

Alex Anthopolous- INSPIRING SO FAR...

Last week, The Star featured a great biopic of recently named General Manager of the Toronto Blue Jays, 32-year old Alex Anthopoulos! You can read more in The Star

Anthopolous, simply with just the credentials of a well-earned business degree at McMaster's school of business, DeGroote, has raised in the ranks of Major League Baseball, and particularly in the Toronto Blue Jays' organization to practically running the show at age 32.

Six years spent as J.P. Ricciardi's aide has earned him the title- and you've got to like the swift politically correct businessman- on J.P. Ricciardi he said that every general manager has their strengths, and J.P. had some, but he also had some flaws...

Smooth, poised and ready to rock as a superstar in the business of sports is Alex Anthopoulos?

The Toronto Blue Jays' on-field performance will surely be the dictator of that, I'm sure, but I am a 4th year business student myself, and if Alex, through steadfast dedication can rise up to the highest ranks of Major League Baseball in ten years of service, the sky's the limit, really, isn't it for all us future grads? If we focus on the main goal of doing what we love, and continuing to do it while exploring every opportunity that we've allowed to fall into our laps, eventually we'll get where we want to be, I'm sure. A good man once said, "Create the Conditions to be Successful"- and Alex certainly did just that.

He's an inspiration to all Canadians, he really is, to land a big job like this one, to earn the respect of a legendary Blue Jays' president Paul Beeston. And maybe he'll blow the big sharks in the Yankees and the Red Sox out of the water time and time again.

I will say this though- the man must prove himself first, because under J.P. Ricciardi, even with Alex as his assistant, the Blue Jays were nothing more than mediocre. So how different can things be under J.P.'s assistant?

Only time will tell.

Holliday Changes the Face of the National League Playoffs

The Cardinals, were....oh-so-close to heading back to St. Louis with a two-game split, but Matt Holliday's inexcusable blunder with two out in the ninth inning would eventually lead to an improbable Dodger victory. Holliday's buckner-esque error, in which the baseball appears to have struck him directly in the penis is all the more embarassing than Buckner's brutal error in 1986 that eventually cost the Red Sox the World Series. This infamous play could go down as the reason why St. Louis lost the divisonal series after being predicted to win the National League pennant.

But Holliday has redeemed himself once before in games of insane magnitude. The Colorado Rockies 2007 improbable run was capped off by a one-game playoff for the National League Wild Card against the San Diego Padres. Holliday failed to make a difficult, yet makeable play which allowed the Padres runs, and eventually forced extra innings. But Holliday would score the winning run in the 13th inning, face-down in the dirt, and nevermind the fact that replays indidcated he was out because he was called safe. After that, the rest is history because the Colorado Rockies would go on to win the National League Pennant like it was nothing at all.

Never has the 2009 season seen such a brutal gaffe, and to have to wait until the postseason to see it happen makes it all that more magnified. Holliday may be forever remembered for this play, and certainly so if the Dodgers go on to win the World Series. Matt Holliday certainly gave them a big push to that ultimate goal last night.

Because now with the Cardinals seemingly all but eliminated from the playoffs, the Los Angeles Dodgers have suddenly become the front-runners to win the World Series. Then again, whoever wins this divisional series will probably go on to the World Series, so nothing has really changed, it's just that I don't think anyone expected the Los Angeles Dodgers to find a way to win, considering pitching for the opposing side was Carpenter and Wainwright, two Cy Young candidates.

And Matt Holliday, just like Bill Buckner, for all the good both of them did for their respective ball clubs will be always remembered for one unforgivable play.

Sometimes something sticks out more than anything else, and it's too bad- but then again, how could have they had made such a brutal mistake?

Well, Someone's Gotta Wrap It Up

It's over. And i feel like i should be the one to right the first post-season post. Why, just because I'm bored now, and I will be now that Jays games aren't gonna be on every single night to occupy me. At least this way I can constantly check this web page to make sure that no one has read or commented on what I'm writing.

SO

The Jays suck balls. BUT we have to have some optimism....right? I mean, if your a Leafs fan like me, one of the best things you've got going for you is that the Jays are at .500 again (0-0). Imagine if you took the Jays that you think will be around next year and put their career bests together...the team you had would be pretty unreal.

Of course, with the Jays luck next year Hill will have a shit year, Halladay (if he's still around) will get hurt, and Adam Lind will decide he wants to go back to school and finish up grade 10....you know, just incase Roger's folds the team. Meanwhile, Wells and Overbay will tear it up and Kevin Millar will be resigned and hit 45 homeruns.

The inconsistency will continue and we'll have another average baseball team.

OR

Maybe our lineup will look like this:

Scutaro: .282/ 12hr/ 100 runs

Snider: .280 / 20hr/ 80 rbi (its a solid guess)

Hill: .286 / 36 hr/ 108 rbi

Lind: .305 / 35hr/ 114 rbi

Wells: .317 / 33 hr/ 117 rbi

Encarnacion: .251/ 26hr/68rbi

Overbay: .312/ 22hr / 92rbi

Ruiz: .270/ 20 hr/ 80 rbi/ 35sb (AT LEAST)

Barajas: .254/ 21 hr/ 60 rbi / 43sb

THAT, my friends, is a potent lineup of career bests. ...some things might have been exaggerated (just the stolen bases really)

Now, if they're healthy, pick your best five from:

Doc

Marcum

Mcgowan

Litch

Purcey

Romero

Ray

Rzempcradkczyichizi

Jannsen

Mills

AND OTHERS

Fuck...we could be alright.

I mean, probably not, but WE could be. And that's what's gonna get me through the hockey season. And that's what's gonna get me through the winter meetings when our new G.M. Anthropologist (who reminds me of JP except that his nose is SLIGHTLY smaller) says that he didn't make any additions because he is confident in the team that elbow-face put together.

Happy offseason all.

Go leafs go.

AND AARON HILL?

Yes, it's Dan the Man, back from the dead.

I've been avoiding the Toronto Blue Jays like a pandemic. I haven't really watched many games since I started working weekends sometime in July, but there were highlights in the downturn of the Toronto Blue Jays. You could compare this season to the beginning of the recession last September when the stock market crashed from an all-time high to the newest lows ever in a couple of decades. Just like how the Jays were 27-14 in May before falling to a dismal current 65-79.

It was games like Halladay's one-hit absolute dynamite shutout of the New York Yankees last Friday, and Randy Ruiz's assault on Yankee pitching that gave way to extended Blue Jay boners once in a blue moon, and prompting famous sportswriters like I to post such things on facebook like this:

when they look back at the storied career of pitching great roy halladay, they'll remember the times like tonight when he dominated the new york yankees in absolutely convincing fashion....

ROY HALLADAY HAS SHUTOUT THE NEW YORK YANKEES WITH A ONE-HIT COMPLETE GEM OF A COMPLETE GAME SHUTOUT!

And yet, only 11,198 fans- the lowest ever attendance to go to a Blue Jays' game would show up to his next start. It just shows how apathetic Toronto fans have become towards the Blue Jays, just as they were to the Raptors after the firing of Sam Mitchell- which would end up becoming a key point in a season where Toronto took too long to adjust under Canadian-born Jay Triano.

And then there was last night- a game in which the Blue Jays trailed but never gave up? They'd won two straight games and made it three with Aaron Hill's 32nd dinger of the season, which happens to be just seven behind league-leading Carlos Pena. One may never have dreamed of Hill shattering the club-record for most homeruns by a second baseman formerly held by Robbie Alomar, but to hit thirty two? To double that total by season's end with at least 34 homeruns? Wow, there is all but one thing to say- that Aaron Hill is certainly the real deal.

AARON HILL HAS A FAVOURABLE 3-1 COUNT HERE, DRILLED INTO LEFT FIELD, THIS IS BACK, BACK, BACK, BACK AND GONE! AARON HILL HAS PUT THE JAYS UP IN THE TOP OF THE NINTH 8-6! AND FRASOR SHUT THE DOOR IN THE NINTH!

You know, it's exciting baseball like that that gets the fans back into it. And for one night, even if they lost today in terrible fashion to the Tigers 7-2, you become that baseball fan you've always been again.

It's just the way it is. And I'm geared for playoff baseball, but hey, would the Rangers ever fucking catch up to Boston? That's the one thing that I want to see left in this season I have now formally declared a write-off.

I Should Start to Watch More Jays Games

It now seems that the Jays lose more often when I don't watch them then when I do. For instance, the last 2 games I watched from beginning to end were the 18-10 shootout over Texas and Doc's utter dominance over the Skankees. I also watched a bit of last night's game and it just so happened that it was the 5th inning when I turned it on, and in the 6th was when they exploded and scored their 6 runs of the game, capped off by the Prime Minister's rope just inside of the foul pole....and it lead to another victory.

I then proceeded to go to a kegger and get drunk, then to another kegger and drank more. Hey it's frosh week, I'm allowed to skip watching this team for a more enjoyable event.

But in the coming weeks, if the Jays win, it'll likely be due to the fact that I was watching the game

.500!!!!!1 (for September?)

No This Blog Isn't Dead

I have kept my mind occupied with other things over the past few weeks. Things that generally bring a smile to my face. Things that I can positively view. Things not named Toronto Blue Jays.

Those things are: beer, work, beer, St Louis Cardinals, beer, work,work, beer.

I have thought about blogging about the shitshow we refer to as Canada's baseball team, but everything I could come up with would just be pretty similar to the other guys in the Jays blogosphere. AKA redundant. So I've kept quiet, just discussing baseball matters away from the computer screen.

Hell, even the boys at DJF have been pretty quiet lately. I used to read like 4 posts a day from them. Now we're lucky to get two.

But not to worry, us members of the Cabinet will continue to contribute...though more sporadically now as this joke of a season nears its end (why can't it end now), and we get ready for another year of boring profs in somewhat useless lectures.

On the plus side though, our Prime Minister is seeing regular action and contributing pretty nicely. But turds like Millar and Bautista, and the continuing suckage of Wells (cept for that explosion last night in Texas) virtually eliminates all positives we have left.

Yeah, I stopped blogging.

You know why? Even though the Great White Slugger of hope Travis Snider came back to town, and Randy Ruiz lit up televisions, Toronto essentially threw their season away when they traded third baseman Scott Rolen who was hitting .320 and was a surefire American League gold glove winner.

Toronto, already spiraling out of control spiraled further down the toilet, dropping to a season worst 10 games under .500. I was at a funeral yesterday and it seemed like there couldn't be a lower point to my summer. And at the funeral, it not only rained, but it poured. Kind of like the Jays season after another disappointing loss on Tuesday. Even the best of Jays fans realized it was time to throw in the towel yesterday in the 9th inning, but shockingly they would come back and win it with two runs and a walkoff victory to send the Toronto crowd to their feet!!

And so just as the sun had gleamed down in the afternoon following morning rains at the cemetary where it rained hardest at 11:12 am, the rainbow had also made way for the Toronto Blue Jays now wandering about in a town that had forgotten about them. And yet, the Toronto Star looked confused as the top of the sports section featured Wells tossing his helmet with his bat in a depressing fashion.....how did the Jays win with that picture?

Isn't the picture supposed to fit the story?

If there's one trend I've noticed though, it's perhaps the silver lining of this second half has been the emergence of yet another great young pitcher in Marc R. who seems to throw an effective six innings everytime he's out there, and leaves Scott Richmond hung to dry with the occassional start- Richmond was always best after a couple of starts...just like any Blue Jay, even eleven-game winner Ricky Romero who solidified his case for RoY with a win over the Angels Sunday, while Niemann of Tampa was battered and bruised by Toronto in the series opener.

Toronto sits 14 back of Boston for the wild card headed into a series against that very team I just mentioned, who I still think won't make the playoffs. COME ON, TORONTO, BE A FUCKING SPOILER! Beckett's August struggles should continue, right? And Richmond knows what to do, right?

Yes. Yes. It's Boston and Toronto at Fenway. Snider's ready.

I'm so apathetic

A season like this one can do that to a fanbase, sure I still want the team to win, sure I want to watch baseball, but the pain that watching this year's Toronto Blue Jays causes just makes it difficult to do.

Sure Travis Snider being back in the bigs and not batting 9th brings me very much joy, as does the success of Randy Ruiz, and yet the apathy remains. I watched them put up a 4-spot in the first inning last night, only to turn of the game in favour of watching Jurassic Fight Club on the History Channel before going out.

Especially when I consider myself to be such a huge Blue Jays fan, I've never wavered in my love for this team, I sat through the crap years, I watched the terrible trades, I even pretended to like having to watch Raul Mondesi play right field, I broke Barry Bonds HR record in MVP '05 with Shea Hillenbrand for god's sake, but there's just something about this year that makes it suck more than years past. And yet I was shamed by a checkout man at a Metro store yesterday, who claimed to have eloped last Friday and still somehow managed to watch the game.

Sure we all came into this season with no expectations at all, only to suddenly expect the world from this team, yelling "playoffs" quickly turned into yelling "pennent" and I told all the non-believers questioning me that yes, this is the year where it's gonna happen, only to have to swallow my words come mid-June. I was so sure of this whole thing that my wall calendar for school quickly turned into a 3' x 2' Jays schedule, keeping track of the record until the middle of July, now it just stares at me as a reminder of what could have been.

The only therapy to this season is sobbing while playing HR Pinball on the Bigs 2 as GBOAT.

Just some thoughts ahead of today's rubber match...

J.P. RICCIARDI'S ONE GREAT MOVE OF THE SEASON- CALLING UP RANDY RUIZ

Come on, it took this long to call up Randy Ruiz? And look at that, in his second at-bat he hits a fucking homerun. Are you retarded J.P. Ricciardi? Even after we've exhausted the position with Jose Bautista (.132 with RISP), Kevin Millar (too old and slow to make a significant impact), Joe Inglett (we already have a leadoff hitter in Marco Scutaro), and David Dellucci (I'm the quietest guy in the clubhouse).....

Yes, Travis Snider's demotion left J.P. Ricciardi with options, great options in the minor leagues. At the time Randy Ruiz was a guy they could have easily called up. And Ruiz went on to waste his offensive talents in Las Vegas all the way until now, while hitting .320 with 25 HR and 106 RBIs. Are you fucking kidding me? You waited this long to call him up?

I don't think there's been a more pervasive time to fire J.P. Ricciardi. Ricciardi said something along the lines that Ruiz was 31, too old to really be given a chance, but come on, when you hit .320 in back-to-back seasons in the minor leagues both in Rochester and Las Vegas, you certainly deserve a chance. After all, Randy Ruiz has to be better than a combination of Kevin Millar, Jose Bautista, Lyle Overbay, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells, Rod Barajas, Joe Inglett, and John McDonald, even if all those players don't play the outfield.

Imagine Ruiz hits .290 with the Blue Jays the entire season this year, and belts 18 homeruns versus his 26 minor league homeruns. WHAT A FUCKING IMPROVEMENT THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN? J.P.- you've never known how to manage a big league club. You've known how to draft and pick up sick minor league players, but you don't know when to throw them in the fire. You just love the Mench/Wilkerson/Delucci/Bautista/Millar creampile throwing into the outfield. For that, fuck you, until now, of course, as Randy Ruiz is now in the mix.

Oh, and Travis Snider's belted 13 homeruns in 165 at-bats in Triple-A- when is he coming back again?

THE RUBBER MATCH

Now this is a game I'm real interested in watching. It's pretty much A.J. Burnett's replacement in Toronto in Ricky Romero, who has bettered Burnett by just 0.01 ERA points, a 10-5, 3.66 ERA to Burnett's 10-5, 3.67 ERA.

In hindsight, the Blue Jays did the right thing in losing A.J. Burnett to free agency, because Ricky Romero came along and soldified himself as the number two, posting identical numbers to A.J. Burnett at a fraction of the cost! Everyone wrote off the Blue Jays because they lost the latter perennial number two to free agency. I remember the doomsayers of the Toronto sports media.

Toronto managed to win a rubber match against Baltimore on Sunday due to Roy Halladay's great eight inning mastery, but Ricky Romero must do the same today, if the Blue Jays want to save face at all....

Oh, I just thought I'd show the worst of Rios....

Yup, it was the beginning of the end for a man who went 0-5 with 5 strikeouts earlier that day...

And at times, Rios would anger beyond belief:



The crowd just went wild when he did that.

Now he's gone to Chicago, the most similar city to Toronto in North America- should fit right in, eh?

Yup, he should fit right in. And by the way, I'm starting a gay rumor just like Matty...because anyone who wears a satchel and super tight ass jeans leaving the ballpark should be the scrutiny of such!

Alex Rios Montage and Words...

Someone once said to me that you can have all the talent in the world but if you don't have the drive or the passion you'll never be the best you can be. I never heard anyone say that Rios had the most drive of anyone out there. They just said he had talent, and in the words of Bob McCown: "Rios is just not the brighest apple out there".

I know everyone believed that Rios was a bum, especially after that online YouTube video where he failed to sign an autograph for a little kid, and some dudes kept calling him a bum while Rios blatantly responded with f-bombs. The unfortunate incident along with his diminished play really cost Rios his reputation in Toronto and he had also developed the reputation of a slacker- or at least this was seen by the fan base.

I guess the latter was the beginning of the end for Rios, who really didn't live up to his contract or the expectations of Toronto management considering his poor play despite his talent. I can't say I wish him the best in Chicago because if a new scenery leads to a better player in Rios, that's not cool. He will have not served Toronto fans justice.

Rios only hit 81 homeruns in six seasons as a Blue Jay, and he certainly could have had twice that if perhaps he heard the words that I heard to open up this blog post...

Peace Out Alex

Alex Rios tenure as a Toronto Blue Jays is officially over, the "worst kept secret" in baseball as JP dubbed it turned out to be true as Rios was shipped off to Chicago for absolutely nothing, not even a sack of magic beans or future considerations.

Suffice to say, reaction on this deal so far has been incredibly mixed. While it's easy to just jump into knee-jerk anger and call for JP's head, I think it's worth taking a few deep breaths and thinking about this rationally.

There's some definate pros and cons to this deal that need to be weighed.

• Don't jump out and say "Woohoo money for Doc!" The Rios salary does not go towards a raise for Roy Halladay, it goes towards one Bo Jr. Ryan. Not having to pay 10 million dollars to Alex Rios to play baseball takes care of 2/3 of the 15 million dollars that needs to be paid to BJ Ryan to not play baseball. While it's a shitty way to find cash to buy the Beej a yacht, the money had to come from somewhere.
• Nothing comes back for Rios for that reason, if the Jays got something back they'd have had to eat at least some of the contract like the Rangers had to after dealing A-Rod to the Yankees. It's another way of saving some coin.
• This means even more Vernon Wells in CF. Ugh. Snider and Lind are clearly not centre fielders, Vernon Wells cannot stay out there forever, as we all saw about his fielding getting craptacular and Rios had been annointed his future replacement and now we're kind of left scratching our heads about just what JP is gonna do to fill this void.
• While this does clear the way for Travis Snider to come back up right away, that's also a double-edged sword as if he's back in the big league line-up too soon it can fasttrack him to arbitration eligibility which in turn fucks over any efforts to cut costs.
• This takes away a constant heading into a year of uncertainty.

The Chicago Media doesn't seem to psyched about this deal either, it was called shocking by Mark Gonzalez at the Tribune, and over on Yahoo, David Brown's headline speaks for itself: Ooops?! White Sox make $60-million waiver claim on Alex Rios

I don't know what I think about this deal yet either, it's just too much to weigh, I wish the best of luck to Alex in Chi-Town, and a final fuck you to his ROM heckler this year, but I have to question the satchel and tight jeans he was wearing as he was leaving Yankee Stadium; one last bit of fuel for the fucking stupid Rios is gay rumours?

AUGUST: THE MOVING MONTH FOR THE BLUE JAYS?

If weekend sweeps of the Philadelphia Phillies and Boston Red Sox were any indication of how quickly things can change in the standings when divisional rivals sweep their foes away, how quickly could the Toronto Blue Jays climb back into the race?

Tonight's game against the New York Yankees is the first of 15 divisional contests to be played against the teams in front of the Blue Jays over the next 18 games. Factor in a series against the Angels and then a four-game set against the Rangers and you have every team that Toronto must beat in order to gain ground in the standings. And I'm thinking playoffs for a 53-57 team who has fallen 15.5 games behind New York in the standings with a swath of teams ahead of them in the Wild Card? Those teams not limited to the clinging Red Sox who have fallen into a tie with the Rangers, and the pursuing Rays, Mariners and White Sox...I must be crazy, right?

But yet, the Blue Jays have so many divisional games left, and they find themselves just nine games behind the wild card leading Rangers and Red Sox.

Let's be realistic here, if the Jays could make up half of those games during this 18 game stretch, they would be right back in the mix headed into a daunting September. All the more reason for the Blue Jays playing better baseball in August was the continued confidence of Kevin Millar after a 3-3 day and a homerun against his old team in an eventual 7-3 pounding of the Baltimore Orioles Sunday afternoon. Millar remarked after the game that the team had been struggling since June, but they had to finish strong over the last 51 games.

That's right, there's still 51 freakin' games left!

And reports have also indicated that Shaun Marcum, who often flirted with no-nos last season could start Friday in Tampa Bay as the Blue Jays have not yet announced a starter to oppose Big Game James Shields.

Back in New York though, it's Marc Rzepsyncski against Sergio Mitre, in a rematch of Thursday Night at the Blue Jays' home, The Rogers Centre. The Yankees took that game, and went on to sweep the Boston Red Sox, winning seven straight in the process. Toronto lost the first game of the series to the Orioles in depressing fashion only to close out the series with two big wins to improve their August mark to 4-3.

Tampa Bay trails Boston by 1.5 games in the Wild Card, and Boston has now lost six in a row. Things aren't looking so sightly in Beantown right now...and maybe as I had predicted weeks ago, that August would be the month the Red Sox would fall out of it. You see, they were just benefited by this mediocre schedule throughout much of the season and now play a number of tough games in August...that's not to say the Blue Jays don't have an even tougher schedule, though.

It is the beginning of the stretch run in baseball's fabled 2009 season, and historically in the month coined after the great Roman leader Augustus, large divisonal leads have been known to falter, while teams have run away from the pack. It is also very similar to the third round of any major championship in golf- past the midway point, baseball players now must make a charge and leave it all out on the field. After all, the Phillies held a nine game lead at one point, and now that lead is just four with two teams- the Braves and the Marlins chasing them down.

Toronto might have to go 35-16 to do it, but they're not out of it yet. As the famous Yogi Berra once said, it ain't over til it's over.

BREAKING: BJ RYAN RELEASED FROM CHICAGO CUBS ORGANIZATION

Not even a glorious franchise like the Chicago Cubs felt they would require the left-hander's services considering his dismal performance this season with a 1-1 record and a 6.53 ERA with Toronto.....AND THEY RELEASED HIM FROM THE ORGANIZATION!?

Where will BJ Ryan's career now go?

He may as well just retire, because his arm has given out, hasn't it?

But hey, that's something Toronto fans already knew all too well, at a pricetag of fifteen million.

FADING HOPE...BUT YET, RENEWED OPTIMISM..

OKAY, DAN THE MAN'S BACK from the woods.

I've grown increasingly pessimistic towards this 2009 season, and with good reason. It doesn't look like my favourite pitcher Shaun Marcum won't be returning for a dream August and September where Marcum was flawless, winning eight games and losing none while the Jays stormed back in an AL East that didn't know what hit them...

You see, I've never been the biggest Roy Halladay fan out there. Call me Judas if you will, but Shaun Marcum and Travis Snider are my favourite players, even if they aren't with the ballclub right now! Throw in Casey Janssen the reliever, and you have my dynamite Toronto trio. Roy Halladay is as good as golden when it comes to pitching, but that wasn't the case last night against the evil empire. It seems as if Cito Gaston oftentimes leaves him in there too long. It's without question that when Roy has gone deep into games this season, he's been roughed up just a tad too much in those crucial later innings. I know we're trying to save the bullpen and all, but one must maximize Halladay's efficency. If this were Boston and New York, Cito's actions of leaving Halladay in the game once again for just a little bit too long would be much like that one fabled ALCS in 2003 when Pedro Martinez was left in the game and the Yankees turned a 5-1 defecit into a tie ball game, and one that they would eventually win. They would go on to win the series and although they would lose in the World Series, Boston fans never forgot it for at least a year until they won it all, ending one of the biggest droughts in sports.

And yes, Vernon Wells, for the first time all season it seemed like at the Rogers Centre ignited a Blue Jay comeback that made the ball game 4-3....but it was all for naught. Wells' spirited effort, despite his paltry performance this season was hopefully another indicator that Wells has finally put the ghost of the first few months of the 2009 campaign behind him and is looking to strive towards a strong finish! But many have already written off the centrefielder's season, so I doubt this is a sign in many people's minds.

What's going to happen in the last third of the season?

For one, Toronto's young arms must be limited to a certain amount of innings- we cannot have the disaster of Marcum, McGowan, Litsch, Chacin, Janssen, Ray, and others all over again. The six-man rotation is not a bad idea, with Roy Halladay the only one being put on a regular five days' rest. The last thing I want to see is American League Rookie of the Year candidate Ricky Romero suddenly lose a great 10-4, 3.53 ERA to an injury late this season or early 2010...
Can Aaron Hill win the homerun title in the American League?

Aaron Hill has 26 homeruns this season, one less than Yankee bomber Tex, and two less than American League leader Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins. Hill could hit 40 homeruns this season! Hill's going to be the best second baseman in the game if he keeps this up...and it's one silver lining this season! If Hill could hit 40 homeruns, I would declare an ephiphany for 2010!
And you know what?

The Jays can pitch, it's just, fuck, when will they ever hit enough to win consistently? Tonight they've got a lopsided matchup with Mitre vs. Rez-Man, and it should be enough to earn a series split with the Yankees, right? Yup. And then the combination of 11-5 Halladay, 10-4 Romero, and 5-1 Cecil could sweep Baltimore, right? And then the Jays would be .500, yup? But out on the road.....left to win? I'm still hopeful. At least with this many division games. The Yankees did it one year- an infinite number of games behind to take the division title. You just gotta win.

Randomness

Thanks for nothing TSN
TSN.ca has a frontpage piece up on the Jays that I peeped last night and made me cry myself to sleep. They hit the nail on the head in summing up the season and make it sound like the same broken record tale of a season we've been listening to for the last few years.

Read it here

Just how bad are the Cabinet at fantasy baseball?
I'm sure everyone noticed around opening day that Facebook had a salary cap fantasy baseball application, now being the trend-setters we are Dan, Bubbles and I all made quick rosters before heading out to Toronto. Now I put literally zero thought into mine, I'm assuming they went about it the same way, and none of us have made a transaction since April 4th.

The standings between the 3 of us:
Bubbles "We Kick Ass" - 3370.6 points. 20,808th rank
OF - Travis Snider (TOR)
OF - Jason Bay (BOS)
OF - Ryan Ludwick (STL)
3B - Evan Longora (TB)
SS - JJ Hardy (MIL)
2B - Chase Utley (PHI)
1B - Albert Pujols (STL)
C - Ivan Rodriguez (HOU)
DH - Andre Ethier (LAD)
SP - Johan Santana (NYM)
SP - Chad Billingsley (LAD)
SP - Joe Saunders (LAA)
SP - Chris Carpenter (STL)
RP - Kevin Gregg (CHC)

Matty L. Rock - "Mattreal Expos" - 2980.2 points. 53,432th rank.
OF - Rick Ankiel (STL)
OF - Vladimir Guererro (LAA)
OF - Ichiro Suzuki (SEA)
3B - Troy Glaus (STL)
SS - Troy Tulowitzki (COL)
2B - Marco Scutaro (TOR)
1B - Kevin Youkliss (BOS)
C - Jorge Posado (NYY)
DH - Matt Holiday (STL)
SP - Johan Santana (NYM)
SP - Roy Halliday (TOR)
SP - AJ Burnett (NYY)
SP - Chris Carpenter (STL)
RP - Eric Gagne (MIL)

Dan The Man - "John Mac's Cabinet" 2479.6 points. 91,902nd rank.
OF - Vernon Wells (TOR)
OF - Travis Snider (TOR)
OF - Manny Ramierez (LAD)
3B - Scott Rolen (STL)
SS - Stephen Drew (ARI)
2B - Mark DeRosa (STL)
1B - Albert Pujols (STL)
C - Brian McCann (ATL)
DH - Josh Hamilton (TEX)
SP - Derek Lowe (ATL)
SP - Andy Sonnanstine (TB)
SP - Chien-Ming Wang (NYY)
SP - Roy Halladay (TOR)
SP - Scott Downs (TOR)

We've all got some cringe-worthy picks there, Glaus (thought he'd come back...), Gagne (yeah the released in spring training thing kinda flew under the radar...), Dan's entire outfield makes me cring - Snider, Wells, and Manny, that didn't turn out too well. Sorry boys, I don't think anyone's winning the plasma screen.

Jays
Only 2 more months of soul crushing defeats left, with the move to deal Rolen at the deadline we know the season's done, TSN did the dastardly job of pointing out just how out of contention the Jays are, needing to go 31-26 just to finish at .500, 39-18 to maybe get a playoff spot.
We just have the little victories to look forward to now; how many wins will Doc get, can Rookie Romero win the rookie of the year, just how great of a year will Aaron Hill end up having, can Vernon Wells maybe stop shitting the bed or learn how to hit at home, who's gonna shine with a September call-up (T-Sni did just have a monster week in Vegas...), and maybe, just maybe they can play spoiler and screw over the Sox or Yankees.

Go Jays!
.500?

No Scutaro, No Problemo

Red Sox first baseman Sean Casey gives the umpire a mouthful after Toronto’s Marco Scutaro reached on an infield single in the fifth inning of last night’s game at Fenway Park. (Aug 17 08)

I know this has nothing to do with today's game, but it made me laugh and therefore I'm posting it here.

Scoot got a rare day off today (that's TWO this season). Once being revealed, most of Jays-land went into either a) "Oh well, it's just going to be another long day" mode or b) "Fuck this! Is Cito throwing away our season?" mode. I was in a) mode. I was kinda hoping for Wells to lead off today, as he's batting .284 leading off an inning and he might have been able to show some positive, but to the delight of those in b) mode, Jose Bautista was our new leadoff man!

Oh and the guy who's responsible for the name of this blog got the start at SS today.

Thankfully, rookie Vin Mazzaro decided to pitch extended BP today. Bautista led off with a walk. Then SUPERMAN (as ginger nicknamed him), aka Aaron Hill, roped a bomb over left field, #26 this season. Lind then doubled and Overbay walked. So none out, runners on 1st and 2nd, V-dub is at the plate. He's destined to hit into a double play or pop out somewhere right? WRONG! The unthinkable happened....WELLS DREW A WALK! His 29th of the season, and first since July 11!! Then Prince Rios comes up AND HITS A BASES CLEARING DOUBLE!!

All of this with no outs! Dare I say.......PLAYOFFS!!1???

Not quite yet as the newest Jay, EE, flies out. Then Big Rod grounds out and J-Mac flies out. So after half an inning, Jays 5 As 0.

RicKKKKKy Romero steps in and promptly Ks the lead off batter Kennedy and then allows Davis to hit a single. Romero's good buddy Suzuki steps up to the plate and hits a hard grounder up the middle....except HOLY FUCK JOHN MCDONALD! Drives, grabs the ball, flips it to Hill from his glove on his stomach, and Aaron calmly tosses to Overbay to end the inning. What happened to me after that, Andy Samberg and Co say it best

Next inning, Lind singles home Bautista (who led off with a single...2-2 batting lead-off folks!). And Wells fails yet again to drive home a runner at 3rd (Hill) by hitting a weak grounder to the 3-bagman, allowing Kennedy to gun down Hill at the plate. A's score one in the bottom of the inning and its 6-1.

RicKKKKKy Romero from then on pitched pretty well, but nothing overly spectacular. He finished with a line of 7IP 8H 2R 1BB 5K (hence the 5Ks in his name) for his 10th win of the season and lowering his season ERA to 3.53.

Johnny Mac hit a rope for a double but finished 1-4. He was also involved in another double play (same members as before) in the 4th, but it was a little more routine.

Encarnacion (anyone else noticed that his name wraps half way around his jersey?) went 0-4 but was also error free! The only error from the Jays was from Rios, who twice, for some reason, couldn't pick up a barely moving ball in the corner allowing Everidge to move to 3rd.

Big Hot Rod Barajas hit a jack in the 5th, one pitch after he hit one foul just to the left of the pole. That is his 10th of the season to tie him with the All-Mighty Wells for 5th on the team.

WELCOME ABOARD JOSH ROENICKE! After RicKKKKKy was pulled after 7, our closer of the future was called on to make his Jays debut. He looked solid striking out 2, but he walked one (Jack Cust of all people). His fastball topped out at 96, but threw a few at 95 (according to Gameday). Both of his strikeouts were via the curveball (or the half cutter-half slider pitch he has...Gameday called it a curveball).

Recently demoted/recalled Accardo came in and pitched a clean 9th.

So it turned out to be a good day after all. Things turned out well for the most part.

Next up: a 2 game series vs the Bronx Bumfucks (clever aint it?)

Good Bye Rolen

This is the last we will see of consistant fine defensive work at 3rd base this season. And since everyone else is doing it, I might as well throw something here too.

I for one am not a fan of this trade at all. If it somehow works out, I will swallow my pride and admit I was wrong. I'm too lazy to get into details again on this, but if you patrol through the endless blog posts (on different blogs fyi) about this, you will be able to see my thoughts about it. Defense is my main arguement. Plain and simple. Our young pitching arms rely on a defensively sound infield...E5 is almost as bad as Mark Reynolds manning the hot corner.

Take care Rolen. Don't try too hard to stick it to La Russa cuz Pujols and Holliday will eat you for breakbast, lunch, dinner, and midnight snack.

DEADLINE DAY?

Pfft. The Jays made a minor move in getting a Double AA pitching prospect by the name of who-the-fuck-cares right now, but rest assured, Roy Halladay will not have been traded by the time the Jays tee off against the Oakland A's later tonight!

HALLEJUIAH! IN THE NAME OF DOC...IN THE NAME OF DOC..

The Perfect Game

No, I'm not talking about Buehrle's masterpiece the other day. I'm referring to the edge-of-your-seat 15 inning gem played last night between the Dodgers and the Cardinals. It had everything a (real) baseball fan could ever want to see in a game: a pitchers duel, clutch hitting, spectacular defensive plays (and one is from the highlight reel Manny), managerial moves that work out (or don't), and the best player in the game putting the final nail in the coffin. I have watched many games that make you want to jizz in your pants, and this one has to be up there among the best. For those of you who didn't watch it, I'll recap what transpired last night. If for some reason, you'd rather watch highlights than read this semi insightful piece, then go here and watch the highlights. Watch them all.

Pitching Matchup
Clatyon Kershaw: 8IP 0R 4H 2BB 7K
Joel Pinero: 8IP 1R 6H 2BB 7K

Kershaw was nearly untouchable all game long (Pujols had a single and double, Lugo and Holliday singled). If the Jays were able to score him and a couple prospects for the Doc, then I would be more than happy to welcome Clayton to Toronto. I personally believe he is way better and more effective than Happ is. Interesting to note that his fastest pitch was a 96 MPH fastball and his slowest was a 66 MPH curveball that looked Zito-esque. He was then relieved in the 9th for the all-star flamethrowing closer Broxton in a semi controversial move. More on that below.

Pinero was almost as effective, inducing 2 key double plays, and handing Kershaw a sombrero. The only blemish on his night was a triple hit by Casey Blake...and even that wasn't a "legit" triple. It was a soft liner to center (where Ludwick was playing as both Rasmus and Ankiel got the night off for various boo boos). Ludwick attempted at a diving catch, clearly misjudged it as the ball fell like 2 feet in front of him and scampered to the wall. Had it not been for Stavinoha hustling over from RF to cover Ludwick's ass (something I highly doubt the all-mighty Rios would have done), Blake was destined for an inside-the-park homer. Loney, the next batter, promptly hit an RBI single (Hey Vernon, take note).

Clutch Hitting
- Loney driving home Blake to the game's first run
- Rasmus' game tying single in the bottom of the 9th
- Kemp's sac fly top 11
- Ludwick's RBI single bottom 11
- Pujols' walk-off single bottom 15 on a full count, 2 outs, runner on 1st and 2nd

Managerial Moves (both good and bad)
-In the top of the 8th, La Russa subs out Stavinoha for Rasmus, moves him to center and transfers Ludwick over to right. This turned out to be key later in the game...

- Bottom 9, Broxton comes in to relieve the dominating Kershaw after 8 shutout innings to face the heart of the Cardinals order: Pujols, Holliday, and Ludwick who was a combined 3-8 with a walk against Clayton. As the semi-homerish commentators on FSDodgers indicated (who were actually insightful and sounded like they knew what they were talking about...unlike the douches Rogers and NESN employ), if this move works out Torre is a hero; if it fails then Broxton is to blame. After Pujols grounded out to short and Holliday struck out swinging, Ludwick hit a 90 MPH 0-1 slider (according to Gameday) up the middle. Broxton then throws a pitch way inside to the left handed hitting Rasmus and it scoots to the backstop where Ludwick moves to 2nd. After falling in the hole 3-0, he manages to bring Rasmus to a full count. The 3-2 pitch was a change-up that jammed Colby, but he manages to hit a bat breaking single to center that easily scores Ludwick...AND THE GAME IS TIED!

- After Kemp hit his sac fly, the pitcher's spot in the order is up. Juan Pierre was in the on-deck circle, but was called back by Torre to have Troncoso bat so he can go back on the mound and close out the game rather than trying to increase the lead...he promptly strikes out. Troncoso then gives up a leadoff single to DeRosa, gets Pujols to line out to 3rd, and then has Holliday single to left and moving DeRosa to 3rd. Ludwick then redeems himself and hits an RBI single...GAME'S TIED YET AGAIN!

- Bottom of the 15th, Torre brings his infield in with runners at 1st and 3rd and one out. That includes the middle infielders who could turn a twin killing to end the inning. It turned out pretty good for the time being, except it leaves you to wonder what if Furcal was playing DP depth....

Defensive Gems
- Brendan Ryan. 8 hits to him, all converted outs (with Pujols bailing him out of one). And only a couple of those were routine. He also was involved in both double plays the Cards turned. He pretty much put together a highlight pack himself.

- Matt Kemp. Bottom of the 1st with the Cards threatening with runners at 1st and 2nd with one out, Holliday hits a rope to center. Kemp sprints and stretches out to rob Holliday of a 2-RBI double...a little more orthodox than Vernon's a few weeks back.

- Manny Ramirez. Yes you read that right. In the 8th inning, Ryan hit a shot deep to left, but Manny made a leaping catch against the wall to end the inning. What's even better about it was that he was so far away from the wall to start and it robbed my Cardinals of two runs, which would have put them up 2-1.

- Ryan Ludwick. After throwing just wide of the plate on Kemp's fly out in the 11, allowing Blake to tag and score, he guns out Manny at home in the 12th trying to score from second on Blake's single.

- Colby Rasmus. Leading off in the 10th, Furcal hits a little blooper to center, and Rasums, who entered the game 2 innings prior, makes a sweet diving grab....something the Jays' vastly overpaid CF will refuse to do.

- Andre Ethier. Not to be outdone, in the bottom of 11, runners at 1st and 2nd, Molina hits a flare to right. Either sprints and makes a game-saving grab.

- Rafael Furcal. Bottom 15, Ryan leads off with a triple. With runners on the corners and 1 out, Torre brings his infield in. DeRosa hits a chopper to Furcal who guns Ryan out at home to save the game...for the time being.

Miscues
A game of this epic proportion can't be complete without some blunders:

- Ryan Ludwick's misjudgement in the 4th

- Jeff Weaver's strike out on Pujols. This generally isn't that big of a deal (except for the fact that he has 41Ks in 356 ABs with 78 BBs), but Weaver made him look rediculously silly. Dropping his arm slot to a side arm pitch, he threw a slider that was about a foot off the plate, but was able to make Albert whiff at it and appear to be human

- Joe Thurston's wiped out double. Leading off the bottom of the 12th, he is put in to hit in the pitcher's slot. He ropes one down the 1st base line for a double...but forgets to touch 1st base!! How fucking useless do you have to be to miss 1st base?? Somehow Loney spotted Thurston's screw up and told Mota to throw over to appeal the play. The 1st base ump was watching the runner and not the play (something 99% of all umps wouldn't have done) and made the correct call as Thurston's toe was like an inch away from the bag.

It's games like this that makes me believe that the Cardinals will be the 2009 World Series Champions

WHAT'S WITH ALL THE ONE-RUN LOSSES? WELL, IT BOILS DOWN TO...

One-run losses, you say? Seven in a row? The last eight one-run games the Jays have lost in a row?

Well, how does any team end up on the wrong side of the scoresheet? They didn't hit well enough? They didn't pitch well enough? They just didn't get that "CLUTCH" hit?

Yeah, I'd say so. They just didn't get that clutch hit. As some of you may know, the Blue Jays have faltered to new levels of apathy- they rank just ahead the Seattle Mariners for the worst batting with runners in scoring position average since May 19th- the Jays' highwater mark at 27-14. I know I keep speaking about this, but the RISP has been a paltry .215 +/- since then, versus over .300.....

That's going to lose you alot of tight ball games, which the Jays have done, indeed.

And who are the biggest culprits on that Blue Jay roster? Who does the Cabinet point fingers at? Who do we blame and crucify for the Jays losing so many tight games that could have made a world of difference?

I know, I know! VERNON WELLS!

But hey, let's find out the numbers first:

THE WORST MEN TO THE BEST MEN WITH RISP (MIN. 50 AT-BATS w/ RISP)
Jose Bautista .140
Vernon Wells .162
Aaron Hill .257
Lyle Overbay .261
Adam Lind .264
Kevin Millar .267
Alex Rios .278, but .354 w/ 2 outs.
Rod Barajas .293
Marco Scutaro .300
Scott Rolen .341

The bottom line is that 6 of 10 regular starting positional players on the Toronto Blue Jays are league average or below average with Jose Bautista and Vernon Wells bringing down the Blue Jays dramatically. How can you hit .162 with runners in scoring position when you're being paid 126 million dollars over seven years?

That is why people are on Vernon Wells' ass, and frankly, he deserves it. This was a team that was hitting over .300 with RISP without Wells and Rios' contributions early on in the season, and while most hitters have fallen off that pace with the exception of Barajas, Rolen, Scutaro and Rios, the Jays just can't have that many average or below average players when it comes to hitting in the clutch! In order to be a great team, you have to be clutch. Clutch leads to winning one-run ball games, and that's the latter bottom line concluded!

And I know- someone's worse than Vernon Wells on the team?! JOSE FREAKIN' BAUTISTA. What a terrible addition he's been- and they traded a great catching prospect to get him.

The JP Deadline - I Call Bullshit

MLB Trade Rumors has been doing an amazing job and is proving very valuable in following the Doc situation, today's info can be seen here:

Yesterday's news coming from Yahoo by Tim Brown says that no GM really believes JP will stick to his self-imposed deadline of tonight for trading Halladay, and really does anyone? We've all learned by now that JP is an absolute tool, TSN's Reporters hit the nail on the head this weekend when Dave Hodge said something to the effect of: "there is no GM worse at using the media". JP has been caught several times to have been bold faced lying to reporters with situations like the 2008 BJ Ryan injury during spring training, taking the team in 3 different directions, and with this absolute clusterfuck about moving Halladay this year.

Think back to how the whole thing started, the Rosenthal article from July 7th and the broken record that is JP's usual response to the idea of moving Doc. JP told the little Fox Sports Elf:

"We have to see what's out there...I'm not saying we're going to shop him. But if something makes sense, we at least have to listen. We're leaning more towards listening than we've ever been"

Ok so that's what JP said 3 weeks ago, however anyone notice how the Jays MADE an offer to the Phillies for Doc. The rejected proposal to the Phillies for JA Happ, Kyle Drabek, and Dominic Brown is a clear indication that JP has gone beyond listening, that he is actively shopping Roy Halladay, proving yet again that the dude is completely full of shit.

So what should make us think that the self-imposed deadline set for tonight is actually going to be followed and isn't just another case of JP lying to the media and the fan base? He's set himself on record as being terrible at using the media, this could just be another case of trying to get a sense of urgency into the deal and trying to rush teams into selling him everything they own for Doc. And since it's a tactic utilized by JP Ricciardi we all know it will fail fucking miserably.

The only thing that can settle me down is the nugget posted in the link to MLB trade rumors earlier, it's not just JP in charge of handling the trade, so at least there's someone else making sure he doesn't fuck up too terribly.

FOLLOWING WEIR ALL DAY AT GLEN ABBEY TOMMORROW..

Will return at a later date.

TEN THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT THE TORONTO BLUE JAYS THIS FRIDAY JULY 24TH!

1) Joe Inglett batted .451 in Triple-A and was called up to replace struggling outfielder GAYVID CRAPLEUCCI.
2) Roy Halladay is still a Blue Jay.
3) John McDonald is hitting .297.
4) Roy Halladay goes for his 12th win tonight.
5) Defense cost two games against the Indians in what could have easily been a sweepable series.
6) Ryan Schimpf, the Blue Jays' fifth round pick signed with the Jays for $150,000, and hit .336 with 22 HR and 70 RBIs to help lead his LSU Tigers to the national championship!
7) The Blue Jays will not lower their demands for Roy Halladay.
8) J.P. Ricciardi might not have much left in his tenure as General Manager.....it's speculated that he must be replaced regardless of how the Halladay situation will be handled (see post below)
9) Dustin McGowan underwent knee surgery, and might not even be back for Spring Training 2010.
10) Scott Richmond is the closest Blue Jay pitcher to coming back, but Shaun Marcum is also rehabbing and we could see him as early as the first week of August.

RICCIARDI BLAMES ROY HALLADAY FOR TRADE TALK...

In perhaps an absurd twist of events, Halladay is now the subject of blame for the trade talks according to General Manager J.P. Ricciardi.....but hang on one second- maybe this is Richard Griffin twisting his words. But sometimes Ricciardi has too much of a big mouth, and his mouth has gotten him into trouble in the past. Remember Adam Dunn? Remember how he dealt with Shea Hillenbrand? The ruthless general manager struck again, it seems.

Ricciardi never downright accused Halladay of being a disruptor, as one to be blamed for the Jays' recent struggles. No, it took a total team effort to lose as many games as they did following their 27-14 start. No, Roy Halladay was promised that Toronto would make the playoffs at least one freakin' season this decade under Ricciardi's tenure- and when it finally looked like it might just happen the Blue Jays went back to their old ways, being around .500 at the all-star break and wallowing away the months of July and August into a meaningless September. And after a number of sub-par seasons I can't blame the best pitcher in the game. He loves Toronto, but seriously, what's best for his baseball career? To play 20 seasons for one team that never ever gave him a chance at glory? Ricciardi is simply out of trump cards when it comes to Roy Halladay- he doesn't have any trump at all in his present hand, and all he's got is a terrible fucking euchre hand that he's going to lose with 98.78% of the time if his partner across the table, Roy Halladay, doesn't save him with the right and left, plus another trick...

But before I begin to sound like the very pessimistic hairy Richard Griffin, you must realize that you have to feel for Roy Halladay. Halladay was only operating in the best interest of his team and himself when he alluded to the fact that he might not be a Blue Jay by the trading deadline at the all-star break news conference Monday July 12th, and his wife wanted a chance to say goodbye to all her friends and supporters in the Jays' care foundation if needed be. Even a dynamic duo that seem to have an impenetratable wall need closure, too....The Halladays are human beings, and when one man gets blown out of proportion as much as Roy has, he becomes larger than life, and more intimidating than ever....if that matters.

If Ricciardi truly believes that it is Halladay's fault that this is happening at all just because he's indicated that he wants to try out the free agent market at the end of 2010, shame on Ricciardi. This is the nature of the game. Halladay has every right to test out the free agent market. J.P. Ricciardi, as a General Manager should be ponying up offers already to keep the superstar in Toronto. I like what Bob McCowan has said- offer Halladay a brand new contract, three years with an opt-out deal like Clemens and Burnett for the start of next season and you buy yourself one more year with the superstar pitcher who at that point can decide whether or not he wants to move on. That's fair to Halladay, and it's fair for Halladay to give Toronto one more year.

Then again, Ricciardi never really said he blamed Halladay for all the trade talk, Richard Griffin just wanted to create another news splash in this incredible frenzy known as the Halladayanzia that has taken over Major League Baseball with seemingly every team in the running for the ace's services! Who else was there to blame, though? Halladay is his own man, and it's up to Ricciardi to find something that works for him, that's his fucking job! And the media? Well, we've got to report on something I guess. Even if it was big hairy Richard Griffin talking.

But hey, you know how you get a punch card, and you have twenty punch holes to use up? Ricciardi's getting close to that punch card being rendered useless- he's out of freebies and might just face the music if this situation goes sour.

But hey, if this is indeed Halladay's last start against the Rays tonight, it could certainly be a special one......so show him love, for he is the greatest pitcher Toronto Blue Jays' fans have ever seen- even greater than Stieb.

DAN THE MAN OUT.

IT'S ALL ABOUT MARCO SCUTARO...

Sctuaro might just be the coolest Blue Jay ever. The gestures, the facial motions, what a funny guy! Extroverted, and now having the season of his life!!

Did you see the game last night? Marco Scutaro took old man Carl Pavano deep and then added further insult to injury after a kiss of death on his own wodden stick with a 3-run bomb in the 7th inning that gave the Jays a 10-4 lead at the time....and they never looked back....

What I meant by the kiss of the bat, otherwise known as the Scutaro Kiss of Death was yet another one of the veteran major leaguer's infamous poses, just like pictured here in Baltimore just before the all-star break. Scutaro's antics have not slowed down this season, and that was increasingly evident at both the dish and when in front of the camera last night! Scutaro's first multi-homerun night of his career lifted his average to .286, his homerun total to 8, his runs total to 67, his RBI total to 43, and with a .384 OBP, he's one of the better leadoff hitters in the game. Not only that, his defense has also been admirable as pictured to your left side...

Scutaro jumps over runners like it's his job. And he'll try to avoid spiking players like utilityman Cabrera in the face.

Last night reminded Blue Jay fans of walloping wins earlier in the season, where every Blue Jay up and down the lineup contributed to destroy opposing pitching. Not only did the Blue Jays set themselves up for a series win over the Indians with a rubber match in tonight's contest, it was the sizeable contributions of Alex Rios and Vernon Wells, who both homered too that had Scutaro willing to jump in on the fun. In all, Toronto hit five homeruns, but Scutaro was the star of the show. And once again Vernon Wells and Alex Rios were overhsadowed by the savvy Venezeulan shortstop who can't stop smiling. I remember why the Jays were overly successful in the beginning part of the season- it was a team effort with enough pitching like we've seen so far since the all-star break, and when the offense was needed, they stepped up their game. It seems to me the Jays are poised to win alot of games in the second half, and last night was just the beginning of the ticker tape.

OKAY, WE'VE GOT ANOTHER GAME, BUT NOT BEFORE I GET TO SAY THINGS.

For a second I actually thought the Blue Jays might enter tonight with a 3-game win streak on the heels of a beautiful 1-0 win! But that wasn't meant to be, and if you've been reading at all, the post below summarizes thousands of people's reactions following Overbay's mishap, and finally the Victor Martinez double that would see the game's end- a 2-1 loss to last place Cleveland, the worst team in the American League! Inexcusable...considering I'd drowned myself in beer and pizza at The Pump in Toronto's legendary Annex.

Cleveland, however, did not have a subpar pitcher on the mound last night in Cliff Lee. Lee ended up working all nine innings in a complete game victory, and Cecil, although shaky throughout the entire game managed to battle his way out of trouble with nine strikeouts over seven rocky shutout innings.

Lee's only blemish came in the bottom of the seventh when Scott Rolen homered to left-centre field, snapping the scoreless tie...and a bomb that was. 402 feet and there was no doubt about it.

The Jays haven't hit in the second half, scoring just 11 runs in four games, and the paltry offense was once again for show last night. However, they have a 2-2 record to show for it due to great pitching! Rookie of the Year candidate Ricky Romero looks for his 8th win tonight, and a chance to rebound from a start against Boston in which he got off to a great start, but a difficult 5th was his demise, and we didn't see anymore of Ricky after that....The Jays would ultimately lose 4-1.

The above silver lining- the fact that the pitching has been so good since the start of the second half combined with Aaron Hill seemingly coming out of a funk last night with two hits gives me reason to believe that the offense will wake up over the next two games...

After all, if one lefty can hold a lineup to zero runs in seven innings, this bodes well for the other two lefties in Ricky Romero and Marc R. who will start these next two games!

COME ON TORONTO! I do not want to see a repeat of '04, where the team acted like the Baltimore Orioles of the last decade- completely disenchanting their fan base with a horrid second half, year after year. They're so much like the Raptors of this year, these Blue Jays- because everyone was so optimistic only to be completely disappointed by horrific struggles....and ultimately the fan base basically turned on the Raptors by yelling "CRAPTORS!".

Or at least I did.....and I don't want to see that happen.

IT WAS OVERBAY'S UNDOING...

The bunt.....OVERBAY GOING FOR SECOND!?........THE THROW'S OVER THE HEAD OF HILL...

And that's when you knew it...BLOWN, and a long creaky subway ride back to Kipling.

THE BLUE JAYS MUST LIFT CITY SPIRITS AS THE STRIKE RAMBLES ON...

Can't even upload an image...anyways...

God, I'm trying to find that fucking pitcher named Marc R. on the Internet, and I can't fucking find him because his last name is so fucking impossible to spell! So fuck it, just bear with me here.

I don't know who this kid is because I haven't gotten the chance to watch him yet this season (I was golfing one night, out another night, out his third start, and out his last start, but hey, i need a social life, so there!)....but he seems to be doing a pretty damn good job if you ask me! Man, if the Jays could get four reliable starters and enough offense, they could get back into the race! Toronto actually did gain a game on division leading Boston today, and since the start of the second-half (the important part of the season), they are 2-1 against FIRST PLACE TEAMS, and overall! Better yet, it wasn't Ricky Romero who had to win one of the games, as he was the only guy who was holding his own during the brutal stretch where they lost a bunch of games in late June and early July. Losing streaks are just so fucking killer, you have no idea. I just find it so amazing that Toronto continues to just pull random crap out of the minor league system for the pitching that just fucking does amazing! Why don't they try some young minor league stars on the offense?

WHY NOT? TORONTO COULD FUCKING USE IT and there's gotta be at least one fucking guy who could help Toronto- look at Boston, they use minor league callups and they turn into productive players...New York hasn't done as well with that, but TAMPA sure has, so hey, come on!

Toronto actually could go on a winning streak here if they called up minor leaguers instead of sandbagging left-fielders like David Delucci who swings at pitches that hit him in the feet.. The Blue Jays finally play another American League Central team in Cleveland with somebody who just needs to get out there and be more consistent- Brett Cecil. Cecil has done well in non-pressure games, and I don't expect him to continue to suck, even if he opposes the great Cliff Lee, who ironically, after a stellar Cy Young year has put up remarkable numbers at a 3.31 ERA but doesn't have the record to show for it at 5-9.

a 3-game series against the mighty Cleve followed by a 3-gamer against the Rays and a little road trip through the shitty teams in the West along the west coast could give the Jays a bit of a boost and a recharge to play the East again!

I was impressed by Toronto's pitching in the series, just masterful dominance of the Red Sox! Toronto pitchers only gave up 7 Boston runs, and that's just over two runs a game. They won their first series in a month, and go for a three game winning streak Tuesday Night!

I guess I might be getting over-excited, but the Blue Jays might just climb out of this hole and get back to .500!

And then we can see if the Jays can have a hell of a second half....a season that would have two points to it leading up to the second half- an amazing elating start, followed by a horribly disappointing struggle only to rebound and capture a city alive in a deep dark recession known as the harrowing city strike that's about to take a turn for the worst as the weather heats up and the smell intensifies.

And how about in one game it was all about Rod Barajas and Roy Halladay- masterful as a duo and Barajas knocked in all three runs, and Halladay himself was the dominating man on the mound, just like so many have seen countless times over the years..CG, six-hitter!

'Til Cleve comes to town. And Mike Wilner, I used to like you, but now I think you're a bit of a faggot- I've gotten tired of you saying you're never wrong. Because everybody's wrong at some point. We're all human. Sometimes there just is no right or wrong answer, Wilner. Just like sometimes you need to let a friend's little debt slide by because it doesn't matter. Friends cost you money, that's the reality of life, so hey, I'm not going to let Wilner cost me any more of my time unless I'm in a car driving somewhere and JaysTalk happens to be on, because well.....there are more things to life than just baseball....even if the Blue Jays have rocked my socks in the past...okay?

Random Stuff: Tallet & Halladay

BT
As we all know right now, Brian Tallet is being "promoted" to the bullpen according to Cito. Honestly, I completely see the line the boss is coming from, Carlson is often very tough to stomach when the game is close and they definately need tallet to take that role over and steady things out while they try and win some ballgames. the bullpen sucking ass contributed so much to the 9 game losing streak back in May and there have been flashes of them sinking back into a slide like that again as of late.

One other reason that we definately need to acknowledge will all the injured arms in the Jays system right now - Tallet has thrown 103 innings this year, before this season he's never thrown more than 62. They want to rest him up a bit.

Tallet was great in the rotation, fun to watch and he was very good aside from a few shaky outings, his 5-6 record is largely a record of being left out to dry by the offence, or having his leads blown by the bullpen. Hopefully he'll be back once the offday every week trend ends.

Doctor Cy
Roy Halladay makes his first start since Tuesday's all-star game today, hoping for his first win since June 7th complete game shutout against KC and hoping to win the series for the Jays in what could possibly be his last home start (ugh). This ridiculous speculation we've all been thrown into has me wanting to kick my own ass for even writing this paragraph.

I heard and made several completely fucking ridiculous theories while at a kegger on Friday night with Dan and Bubbles until our discussion was cut short by the arrival of police officers. Highlights:
- Fuck baseball
- Leave for nothing next year
- He'll re-sign by the 31st because of what Beeston said last week on PTS
- Philly
- LA
- Cubs...for Dempster, Johnson and prospects
- St. Louis, for Pujols, straight across

It's amazing where mindless speculation can get you so fast. Thanks alot for a fun party game Rosenthal.

This is a can't miss game, and I hope a big home crowd shows up to cheer on Doc and fight off the Massholes.

.500 is the new playoffs.

A LINE ON THE SECOND HALF...

"You may be getting excited about an idea that, you fear, isn't quite as good as it sounds. Success depends on your ability to believe in it"

SO THAT MEANS THE TORONTO BLUE JAYS MUST BELIEVE IN THEMSELVES, FOR IT'S THE ONLY WAY...And things could start as well as you could expect with the MLB recognized front-runner for Rookie of the Year, Ricky Romero.

SECOND HALF WONDERS: THE RETURN OF SHAUN MARCUM IS NEAR!

If the Jays have any hope of contending despite being a harrowing eleven games back of division-leading Boston and eight games back of wild-card leading New York, they've got to have Shaun Marcum to fill out a rotation that would supplement a healthy Roy Halladay, Ricky Romero, Brian Tallet, Scott Richmond and Brett Cecil. I think Tallet must be moved to the bullpen in advance of Marcum's return to limit his innings, for it might be Tallet who would find himself on the disabled list- and they need a rock in Tallet so that Hayhurst can become a go-to guy in the late innings.

Regardless, Marcum could win a bunch of games down the stretch. And it looks like it's the Marcum of old.

Courtesy of CBC....

The Toronto Blue Jays were idle Thursday night, but the organization and fans could take heart in nearly five innings of scoreless minor league pitching from a rehabbing Shaun Marcum.

Marcum, in his first double-A appearance since undergoing elbow ligament replacement surgery last year, gave up three hits in 4 2/3 innings for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats against the Connecticut Defenders. He struck out four and walked two in the Eastern League game.

The 27-year-old had previously made two appearances with single-A Dunedin.

Marcum was 9-7 with a 3.39 last year when his season came to an abrupt end due to the surgery.

The right-hander went 24-21 over parts of three seasons with Toronto, with the Blue Jays hopeful he can return to the majors before the end of the season.

New Hampshire would go on to win Thursday's game 1-0. Connecticut pitcher and top San Francisco Giants prospect Madison Bumgarner went head-to-head with Marcum, pitching five innings of no-hit ball before leaving in the sixth after having his bid end!!

CASEY JANSSEN UPDATE

The dynamite reliever of '07, Casey Janssen will not be coming back as a starter after his latest rehab assignment, but rather as a reliever! He'll anchor a pen that could only get stronger in his return....I understand that Janssen loved to start, but in the end, everyone could see that what was best for Casey was to be a bonafide late-inning man.

Is BJ the Saviour?

Word from Yahoo! Sports is that the Cubs are in need of another lefty in the pen. So they sign BJ Ryan to a minor league contract. Could BJ be the missing piece to help the Cubs end a 100 year drought???

As far as trade rumours are concerned...

that's about it. Nice try, AJ.