We've hit 10 home runs this year, in 16 games. That means we're on pace for 100, which is not good. Obviously this is a small sample size blah blah blah, but fuck that. Would it kill our guys to put the ball in the air once in a while? More than half the positions on the field are not a power threat at the moment. It would be fine if we were hitting gappers (aren't we supposed to be a doubles-hitting powerhouse?) but so far we have 23 two-base hits, the second-fewest in the league. I'm sick of stranding all those baserunners that we have been getting, or worse, seeing all those DPs (and not the good kind). Let me check that [momentary pause]: yes, our hitters have grounded in 24 double plays, tied for most in the league.
Everyone's noticed that Thomas looks terrible out there. Let's start by calling up Lind, get him playing almost every day, and platoon Thomas with Stairs at DH. Thomas over the last three years has hit .292/.424/.600 against lefties, while Stairs has hit .273/.357/.484 against righthanders. That would improve two positions. Do it now, J.P.
Of course this is a knee-jerk reaction, but it's unspeakably brutal to have to watch our offense right now, even if (by runs and OBP) we're not that bad.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
A baseball broadcast brought to you by John Yoo
Rance Mulliniks is terrible. For anyone who watched last night's game, there is surely no need for me to say more, but it is said that victims of abuse sometimes derive cathartic benefits from sharing their experiences, so I'll add a bit more.
He is utterly banal (useful synonyms: trite, obvious, predictable, hackneyed, devoid of freshness or originality. Used in a sentence: The banality of the speaker's remarks put the audience to sleep. Nice one, dictionary.com!). I assume he gets paid by the word, because he never fails to use 10 words where 2 will suffice. Worst of all, he's dumb as a sack of rocks and has the grammatical abilities of a third-grade dropout.
We often assume that people who look like enormous nerds are intelligent - on the theory, I suppose, that "God" is fair and distributes blessings and curses relatively equally. The obvious converse is the assumption that beautiful women and handsome men must be dumb. I have long since laid the latter assumption to rest, and Rance must surely be exhibit A for the flaws in the former assumption.
Last night's broadcast was chock-full of Mulliniks-ian low-lights, but the absolute nadir came when Sportsnet vomited up a graphic that demonstrated, to the utter shock and amazement of all eight people still watching, that the Jays this year have hit better, and scored more runs, in the games they've won than in the games they've lost. A moderately decent commentator would have seized the opportunity to poke a little fun at the obviousness of it all. Rance - not so much. Joined by his partner in banality, Jamie Campbell, Rance expounded on this point at some length, then posited that, if you looked around the majors, you might very well see this pattern repeating itself. Finally, he suggested that their in-house stat guy Scott Carson do some research on this point.
All in all, I think I lost 25 IQ points sitting through the entire shit-show. If they persist in foisting Rance on us every other series, they should at least insist that he alternate innings with Garth Iorg.
He is utterly banal (useful synonyms: trite, obvious, predictable, hackneyed, devoid of freshness or originality. Used in a sentence: The banality of the speaker's remarks put the audience to sleep. Nice one, dictionary.com!). I assume he gets paid by the word, because he never fails to use 10 words where 2 will suffice. Worst of all, he's dumb as a sack of rocks and has the grammatical abilities of a third-grade dropout.
We often assume that people who look like enormous nerds are intelligent - on the theory, I suppose, that "God" is fair and distributes blessings and curses relatively equally. The obvious converse is the assumption that beautiful women and handsome men must be dumb. I have long since laid the latter assumption to rest, and Rance must surely be exhibit A for the flaws in the former assumption.
Last night's broadcast was chock-full of Mulliniks-ian low-lights, but the absolute nadir came when Sportsnet vomited up a graphic that demonstrated, to the utter shock and amazement of all eight people still watching, that the Jays this year have hit better, and scored more runs, in the games they've won than in the games they've lost. A moderately decent commentator would have seized the opportunity to poke a little fun at the obviousness of it all. Rance - not so much. Joined by his partner in banality, Jamie Campbell, Rance expounded on this point at some length, then posited that, if you looked around the majors, you might very well see this pattern repeating itself. Finally, he suggested that their in-house stat guy Scott Carson do some research on this point.
All in all, I think I lost 25 IQ points sitting through the entire shit-show. If they persist in foisting Rance on us every other series, they should at least insist that he alternate innings with Garth Iorg.
A baseball game brought to you by John Yoo
That was pure torture. And I'm not just talking about listening to Rance Mulliniks for 5 hours (more on that later).
It would be tough to bemoan our bad luck and missed opportunities when the fact is that (1) Texas had far more opportunities than we did to put this brutal game to the sword, and (2) the only reason we ever reached extra innings was Broussard's shocking error in the eighth. But still, man, we sure could have used a timely sac fly from the Midget in the 8th or the formerly great Joe Inglett in the 10th. Vernon also had a couple of chances to get the decisive hit, and made great contact on both occasions, but it wasn't to be.
It's painful to think about the game, let alone write about it, so I'll limit myself to a couple of thoughts:
(1) Gibby might at least consider the possibility of extra innings when managing his bullpen. Burning through the entire pen by the 11th inning was absurd, and put us in a terrible situation.
(2) Good on AJ (and, apparently, all the other starters) for volunteering to go out there. But man, was there any doubt at all that we were dead the second he toed the rubber in the top of the 14th?
(3) Jesse Carlson's performance last night should go in the annals as one of the best, and gutsiest, pitching performances in Jays history. Seriously. The guy is one week removed from his ML debut, he was brought in to an extra inning game with the bases loaded, and he struck out the side! It was pure brilliance. And then he added on another two scoreless innings to boot. His stuff looks nasty as hell against lefties, although I have my doubts about his likelihood of sustained success against righties. Regardless, we may have stumbled upon another lefty specialist, which would be great since when Downs trots out from the pen I still see the useless 2006 version, not the surprisingly decent 2007 version.
(4) Zaunie looked like shit on the game-deciding passed ball (Rance said he did everything right, which I take as rock-solid proof that he fucked up). He made a superficial attempt to block the pitch, but he left a Lohan-esque enormous hole between his legs. I'd forgive him if he had played a full 14 innings, but he came in half way through the game for Fat Rodney.
(5) Maybe it's just me, but the difference between 8-7 and 9-6, from a psychological perspective, is huge. I don't know why, but to me 9-6 sounds like a winning team well on its way to a 90-win season, while 8-7 sounds like a team that just scrapes by and will be happy with 85 wins. Fuck.
It would be tough to bemoan our bad luck and missed opportunities when the fact is that (1) Texas had far more opportunities than we did to put this brutal game to the sword, and (2) the only reason we ever reached extra innings was Broussard's shocking error in the eighth. But still, man, we sure could have used a timely sac fly from the Midget in the 8th or the formerly great Joe Inglett in the 10th. Vernon also had a couple of chances to get the decisive hit, and made great contact on both occasions, but it wasn't to be.
It's painful to think about the game, let alone write about it, so I'll limit myself to a couple of thoughts:
(1) Gibby might at least consider the possibility of extra innings when managing his bullpen. Burning through the entire pen by the 11th inning was absurd, and put us in a terrible situation.
(2) Good on AJ (and, apparently, all the other starters) for volunteering to go out there. But man, was there any doubt at all that we were dead the second he toed the rubber in the top of the 14th?
(3) Jesse Carlson's performance last night should go in the annals as one of the best, and gutsiest, pitching performances in Jays history. Seriously. The guy is one week removed from his ML debut, he was brought in to an extra inning game with the bases loaded, and he struck out the side! It was pure brilliance. And then he added on another two scoreless innings to boot. His stuff looks nasty as hell against lefties, although I have my doubts about his likelihood of sustained success against righties. Regardless, we may have stumbled upon another lefty specialist, which would be great since when Downs trots out from the pen I still see the useless 2006 version, not the surprisingly decent 2007 version.
(4) Zaunie looked like shit on the game-deciding passed ball (Rance said he did everything right, which I take as rock-solid proof that he fucked up). He made a superficial attempt to block the pitch, but he left a Lohan-esque enormous hole between his legs. I'd forgive him if he had played a full 14 innings, but he came in half way through the game for Fat Rodney.
(5) Maybe it's just me, but the difference between 8-7 and 9-6, from a psychological perspective, is huge. I don't know why, but to me 9-6 sounds like a winning team well on its way to a 90-win season, while 8-7 sounds like a team that just scrapes by and will be happy with 85 wins. Fuck.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The Adam Lind Watch
Lind is now at .391/.442/.696 (1.138 OPS) over 51 PAs in Syracuse. It won't be long now.....
Uh, Tabby?
Campbell: Marcum hasn't had to worry much about pitching from the stretch tonight.
Tabler: He's hardly had to worry at all about base runners tonight.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Rolling Rolling Rolen ...
So good news, right? Scott Rolen is ahead of schedule in his rehab!!! "I've started hitting. I've been throwing. Baseball preparation-wise, I'm ahead of schedule," Rolen said. Of course he followed that quote with this caveat. "The time frame (for return) doesn't change because of the healing process. That nobody can speed up." What? Wait, wait, wait. So what exactly is he ahead of schedule of? This sounds suspiciously like a non-story? Which translates nicely into a non-blog post. Thank goodness we have Inglett manning the hot corner.
In other news, old friend Orlando Hudson is looking for 15 milion next year! Which I think is ridiculous. O-dog's great defensively, but not a 15 milion dollar player, right? And then I checked out his numbers. Compare his last three years to this all-star who received a seven year 126 million dollar contract. (C'mon, you know I ain't talking about a contract without talking about the contract. Just like I shall only refer to the shortstop position as the place where Troy Tulowitzki plays --- I've typed that name so many times I can actually spell it from memory. And I still mess up "your" and "you're.") Maybe they're not identical, but I'd be convinced that a 2nd basemen of superhuman D-skills like O-Dog trumps a CF of Vernon's possible B+ defense. Now I'd rather have Vernon this year straight up, but a 3 year 45 million dollar for O-Dog deal, while not wise certainly doesn't look preposterous, does it? Especially in light of Delgado's, Oops I mean Vernon's, albatross contract (Sorry I got confused with what the Pimp thought of Delgado's contract when he took over, with what the next GM thinks of Vernon's.)
In other news, old friend Orlando Hudson is looking for 15 milion next year! Which I think is ridiculous. O-dog's great defensively, but not a 15 milion dollar player, right? And then I checked out his numbers. Compare his last three years to this all-star who received a seven year 126 million dollar contract. (C'mon, you know I ain't talking about a contract without talking about the contract. Just like I shall only refer to the shortstop position as the place where Troy Tulowitzki plays --- I've typed that name so many times I can actually spell it from memory. And I still mess up "your" and "you're.") Maybe they're not identical, but I'd be convinced that a 2nd basemen of superhuman D-skills like O-Dog trumps a CF of Vernon's possible B+ defense. Now I'd rather have Vernon this year straight up, but a 3 year 45 million dollar for O-Dog deal, while not wise certainly doesn't look preposterous, does it? Especially in light of Delgado's, Oops I mean Vernon's, albatross contract (Sorry I got confused with what the Pimp thought of Delgado's contract when he took over, with what the next GM thinks of Vernon's.)
Monday, April 14, 2008
That's better
We mostly sucked, yet we got the sweep. I'll take it. The bats were horrible all weekend, but our horribleness was hugely trumped by the overall stink-bomb that the Rangers laid. If a team played like that in the first week of spring training you'd worry a bit; when they play like that two weeks into the season they should probably have their franchise contracted.
Any time we go into Arlington, I hold my breath and hope to leave with at least one win and with the entire roster intact. So this was good, on the whole. A few quick thoughts:
- our offence looks pretty troubled at the moment. Vernon and Hill (and, of course, Joe Inglett) are the only guys hitting at an acceptable level. Without them we'd be seriously fucked. Rios and Hurt haven't looked good for a week; Lyle hasn't looked good in twelve months (of note: last April I remarked to someone that his gorgeous swing makes him "slump-proof". He has been in a slump pretty much since that day); and we're getting very little production from C, SS, 3b, or LF.
- good on J.P. for deciding that Scutaro's production to date has been unacceptable and making a change. I doubt Joe Inglett will be the second coming of Mike Schmidt, or even Kelly Gruber, but there's no reason we should have to grin and accept 0-for-4 from the 3B position every night till Rolen returns. Even if Inglett never plays for us again once the man is back, at least he played a big part in an important series sweep.
- B.J. looked good, the leadoff triple notwithstanding. He buckled down and absolutely dominated the last three guys. I still worry that he's back too soon, but fuck it, we're going all in this year, and if it means taking a few risks along the way so be it. The rebound effect on Accardo will hopefully be huge as well.
- we need to come up with a term other than "stealing home" for what Zaunie did the other night. It was a nice play, but it's an insult to the memory of Jackie Robinson and Rod Carew and Aaron Hill to compare that to the situation in which a guy actually outraces the pitch to the plate.
- the Texas TV guys were surprisingly good. I was initially pissed at Rogers for relegating the games to some backwater channel and forcing me to listen to the other team's TV crew, but now I wish we could have them every night. They made more witty comments in one night than Jamie Campbell has in his career (I enjoyed their reference to Frank Thomas "moonwalking into third base" and their repeated insistence that Joe Inglett, while doing a good job, was "no Buck Coats". Both sounded funnier than they read, I swear.).
- Leroy is so fucking good, he makes me weep. He was absolutely filthy on Saturday night.
- We're back in town on Wednesday. It's supposed to be somewhere between 15-20 degrees and sunny. If the roof is closed I will stage a one-man Attica uprising that will make them wish for simpler times when all they had to worry about was toonie Tuesday riots in the upper deck. You've been warned, Will Hill.
Any time we go into Arlington, I hold my breath and hope to leave with at least one win and with the entire roster intact. So this was good, on the whole. A few quick thoughts:
- our offence looks pretty troubled at the moment. Vernon and Hill (and, of course, Joe Inglett) are the only guys hitting at an acceptable level. Without them we'd be seriously fucked. Rios and Hurt haven't looked good for a week; Lyle hasn't looked good in twelve months (of note: last April I remarked to someone that his gorgeous swing makes him "slump-proof". He has been in a slump pretty much since that day); and we're getting very little production from C, SS, 3b, or LF.
- good on J.P. for deciding that Scutaro's production to date has been unacceptable and making a change. I doubt Joe Inglett will be the second coming of Mike Schmidt, or even Kelly Gruber, but there's no reason we should have to grin and accept 0-for-4 from the 3B position every night till Rolen returns. Even if Inglett never plays for us again once the man is back, at least he played a big part in an important series sweep.
- B.J. looked good, the leadoff triple notwithstanding. He buckled down and absolutely dominated the last three guys. I still worry that he's back too soon, but fuck it, we're going all in this year, and if it means taking a few risks along the way so be it. The rebound effect on Accardo will hopefully be huge as well.
- we need to come up with a term other than "stealing home" for what Zaunie did the other night. It was a nice play, but it's an insult to the memory of Jackie Robinson and Rod Carew and Aaron Hill to compare that to the situation in which a guy actually outraces the pitch to the plate.
- the Texas TV guys were surprisingly good. I was initially pissed at Rogers for relegating the games to some backwater channel and forcing me to listen to the other team's TV crew, but now I wish we could have them every night. They made more witty comments in one night than Jamie Campbell has in his career (I enjoyed their reference to Frank Thomas "moonwalking into third base" and their repeated insistence that Joe Inglett, while doing a good job, was "no Buck Coats". Both sounded funnier than they read, I swear.).
- Leroy is so fucking good, he makes me weep. He was absolutely filthy on Saturday night.
- We're back in town on Wednesday. It's supposed to be somewhere between 15-20 degrees and sunny. If the roof is closed I will stage a one-man Attica uprising that will make them wish for simpler times when all they had to worry about was toonie Tuesday riots in the upper deck. You've been warned, Will Hill.
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