Long Weekend Edition

Arizona In a Flash

Arizona 8, Toronto, 6 - POG Encarnacion
Arizona 8, Toronto, 5 - POG R. Lewis
Toronto 12, Arizona, 4 - POG JoBau

Cecil Dominates Angles



I agree. Thumbs up for Brett Cecil after a dominating 7.1 inning of ball against the Angels. For his effort, he wins another POG award.

Big Deal News Over the Weekend



Dana Eveland was designated to AAA, but of course his awesome stats will have to pass the waiver wire first. No real shock here. Although he did say this about the Blue Jays organization, "Top to bottom, it's the best organization I've been in."

With the demotion of Eveland, let the speculators speculate who will be the 5th starter. Purcey Lewis was called up, but he will be in the bullpen. This week the Jays have opted for a 4 man rotation, so no answers for a bit.

While perhaps the Jays will call up someone from AAA, my guess is that it will be our Weather Man, Brian Tallet. He is due for a return "late-May." Long shot off the DL would be Jesse Litsch who could possibly be back June 3. All injury updates here.

Lyle Overbay just recently has put his average over the two-hundy mark. Keep it up Lyle! Maybe we will be able to trade you for more than a roll of bubble tape and water bottle after all!

Aaron Hill just cannot seem to figure it out at the plate. I have the utmost faith that he can regain his stroke, but it would be nicer to see sooner rather than later.

Adam Lind has seen his average slowly drop the past 2 weeks. He hadn't hit a home run in awhile, but took one large in Arizona, and has been hitting a little better since then. Let's hope, he's out of his little funk.

My esteemed colleague found perhaps one of the internet baseball worlds most interesting websites. This website ranks all umpires on whether they are pitcher-friendly, or hitter-friendly. Most definitely worth a read.

Tonight's game features Slick Rick and rumor has it that the Angels may not even bother showing up.

Cecil Fans 10 Over 8

Brett Cecil is looking good. Tabler and Martinez both say he has a new found confidence, feeling comfortable enough to throw any pitch in any count. I agree. Obviously so do the Cleveland Indians.

The Indians struck out 10 times in 8 innings of Cecil, and managed one hit, and only scored one because of two consecutive walks.

So, yeah, Cecil is looking damn good.

And for that, Cecil is awarded another POG award.

The hitters. Well they do what they have done all year. Hit doubles and homeruns with a dash of singles. 3 long balls, 1 double, 4 singles for 8 hits.

Speaking of the hitters, one has to like the way Snider hit the ball yesterday.

I don't think there can be much denying what Cito said said in Spring Training. You know, the Jays have 7 guys that can hit 20 homeruns? Well yeah. They probably do. Wells, Hill, Lind, JoBau, Snider, Buck, and Gonzalez seem like they will, and Overbay could if he ever gets hit shit together.

Questions of the Day

Considering the way Cecil is pitching, and the way Eveland pitches (or doesn't pitch), what does it mean when Tallet comes back?

The most logic solution is to say goodbye to Eveland, and give Tallet a rotation spot. That being said, there has been some turnover in the bullpen and maybe Tallet will provide another lefty arm?

Similarly, what does it mean for Randy Ruiz and Mike McCoy when EE is back?

Being frank, I don't think McCoy will be sent down because Cito seems to appreciate his speed and defense capabilities. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Ruiz.

As much as I want to love Ruiz, and as much as I want him to crush 40, what team has a primarily DH on your bench? I mean, you can put him at first, but he's not the slickest fielder you ever did see.

A little random maybe, but I was thinking the other day.

Eveland Comes Back To Reality With A Crash

Dana Eveland lived up, er, down to our expectations tonight and showed us that, no, his sparkling ERA would not last. 7 ER over 3 innings will not do it.

We lost to my least favorite, no, most despised team in the league, but there are some pluses we can take out of this!

The Jays had 16 hits, and half were singles. My god, I have never been so happy to see the singles coming! I mean, yes, it was a game that also saw 8 extra base hits, but what the hay, we lost, but we hit. Also, Lyle Overbay gets his first POG award for finally having a good game! 3 for 5, with 2 runs, 4 RBI, and perhaps more importantly only 1 strikout. Yay.

Now, the bad.

One could read and deduct that if we got 16 hits, 8 for extra bases, and lost, the bad must be the pitching. Well, yes you are correct, but let's look for something shinny in this steaming pile of crap!

There's one! There's another!

Downs had a solid outing! 1 inning, 2 strikeouts, and zeroes across everything else.

Kevin "Chacin" Gregg had another solid outing. To this point and date, including today which cancels out Camp, Gregg has hands down been the best reliever thus far. Imagine that mid-offseason.

Jeff Blair Has Never Heard of You

Jeff Blair of the Globe and Mail had an article about Jays hats being a top 3 seller in New York that I posted on a couple days back. Now I know that there is one reader because they asked if it was true.

Well, not I was not lying, and found it after looking a little harder. It was hiding here.

Well, Mr. Blair, here are my issues:

Are you going to seriously tell me that the Blue Jays have a "no-name roster?" Even if you are going to tell me V-Dub sucks, everyone has heard of his 3 years of JD Drewness. Aaron Hill and Adam Lind, who are Silver Slugger winners are not no-namers. What ever team you cheer for, if you are even a baseball fan, would welcome those two. So, no-name? No.

"Marketers are aware of the importance of “hook-ups” - matching the colours of one piece of sportswear with another." Holy fucking shit, whoever thought to match the colours of the things you are wearing? No more pick shirts and yellow pants with my Jays lid, I'm going to hook-up!

“The phenomenon of hook-ups is very much in play in Canada,” Blair says. So, matching the colours of what you are wearing is a phenomenon now?

Jesus.

Find something real to write on, sport or fashion, preferably fashion.

V-Dub Continues to Rake

Vernon Wells is hands down the POG for Tuesday's game. 3 for 4 with 2 R and 1 RBI. Oh yeah, did I mention his seventh home run? V-Dub is living proof that indeed three years can be forgotten in 15 games into a season.

15 games and they Jays are 9-6. Eveland got a ND and pitched not very well. For Eveland to be successful he has to be ahead of pitchers, and while only issuing 2 BB, he wasn't exactly pitching to strong hitters. That outing from Eveland could have gone very different against the Rays or Yankees.

Today's early morning game has a pair of aces in Marcum and Grienke, but things are not looking good early for the Jays. The Royals have put 3 runs on the board early courtesy of Jose Guillen and a fastball from Marcum.

Morrow Dominates, JoBau Hits

Today's POG awards are split between Brandon Morrow and Jose Bautista. Morrow went 7 strong allowing only 1 ER with 8 SO. Almost makes one forget about the two not-so-good starts he had, but after a quick look at his ERA those games come flooding back (7.31). Whatever Bruce Walton told Morrow to do seemingly worked as Morrow looked good.

Jose Bautista, our bench-converted starting outfielder-converted lead-off hitter- converted third basemen-converted 6 hitter had a heck of game today. 2 for 4, with 2 HR, 5 RBI, 2 R and 1 BB is nothing to scoff at, but despite not striking out once, he still had a 5 LOB to lead the team in that department.

While his high LOB was enough to consider not sharing the POG honours with Morrow, I'm feeling nice today.

Eveland goes again this afternoon. I don't know whether to insert a cynical comment or praise here... not yet anyways.

Blue Jays Lids are the Talk of the Town



Apparently Blue Jays New Era Caps are all the scourge of fashionable cities like the Big Apple and even outsell Mets (no way!) hats in some areas.

Well I suppose if we can't have a winning team we can have selling caps, but right now we have both!

I unfortunately do not have the link to this article from the Globe & Mail, but I'm very sure it was from that. It was in their British Columbia version that was in real print, not internet.

Sorry!

Also, I can neither confirm or deny these numbers, but apparently at least 50% of Jays hats being sold are having their stickers left on by wanna-be gangsters, skaters, and general bad-ass people, and even more rare, 60%% of Jays hats sold do not get a curve put on them.

Experts are suggesting peeling stickers on all hats you see (even if you do not buy them).