Blue Jays 7, Angels 5: Adam Lind, Home Run Hero

home run hero adam lind amidst several lessers

I am not going to act like I thought Adam Lind had even a little bit more to give, even after he tore it up in Triple A, which, I mean, he'd better have torn it up in Triple A, as I may well have said at the time (I am unwilling to check). So yeah it came as a full-on surprise to me that Lind jacked not one but two entirely credible dingers last night, leading the Blue Jays to victory with his mighty wallops. Other cool things that happened twice last night include Rajai Davis stealing two bases, which is way less surprising than Rajai getting on, because on those rare occasions he reaches he just takes bases at will man he just straight up takes them. It is always somewhat more surprising when E5 swipes a couple, but swipe them he did! All of these cool things happened in support of the totally useful Carlos Villanueva, who just goes out and pitches completely OK-ly in whatever role he's cast in, and just like that, the Blue Jays did not make me sad on this night. That's all it took: all of those many things.


KS

Blue Jays 5, Athletics 2: Now That Wasn't That Hard, Was it

lovin' that stride

All it took was an overdue demotion of the basically reprehensible (baseballically, I mean) Adam Lind -- a man who is a career 2.4 WAR player, guys/ladies -- to the eighth spot in the lineup and a promotion of my main man Casey Janssen to the closer spot (a made-up spot that should be abolished in my view because I am enlightened in that regard) and there you have it, a nice and easy 5-2 win in which Brandon Morrow was cool and Lind (and Arencibia and E5) homered and Janssen pitched a still-as-deepest-sleep ninth and we are golden. That's the way, fellows!


Did you know that the Blue Jays are actually second in the AL in run differential this year, behind only the mighty Texas Rangers? Isn't that awesome? No doubt, there have been areas of concern: too many blown saves (a stat that I of course despise; see earlier parenthetical remark re: my enlightenment), some troubling outings from Kyle Drabek, from whom we had smokey expectations (indeed, the smokiest), and Jose Bautista not at all doing what we have come to expect him to do. Also have I mentioned that Adam Lind is wretched? But E5 has been a beast, Kelly Johnson has been really good, and the starting pitching has been, on the whole, as good as you could have hoped, really. With four games against the pitiably lowly Minnesota Twins and so a chance to really put some wins together here before some big games with Tampa and New York, I remain wildly optimistic about what this season could bring! Seriously I do! Also my wife got me a new fitted hat for my birthday! How is that for excitement?  Tonight my friend was like, "Hey did you get that for your birthday?" and I was like "Yeah!" 


AND TODAY THE BLUE JAYS SIGNED VLADIMIR GUERRERO! On my birthday! Were you aware that every time I play Baseball Mogul, like every time, I move heaven and earth to get Vladimir Guerrero on my team? Of course you were not aware of that, but that doesn't make it any less true. Like, if I were running the IRL Toronto Blue Jays right now, this is absolutely something I would have done. Immediately. Actually maybe instead of feeling amazingly about Alex Anthopolous for making this happen, maybe I should be furious he didn't do it sooner? Anyway: come to me Vladi. Come to me.


KS  

Blue Jays 7, Rays 3: I May Have Correctly Interpreted an Omen!

bawse

This morning, there was a lone blue jay in my yard, and (s)he was not being a dick, which any birdwatcher will tell you is rare and uncharacteristic behaviour from a blue jay. I chose to interpret this as a friendly omen! If this particular blue jay could find it in his or her heart to not be a dick to me on this day, perhaps the Blue Jays could be the same? And so it came to pass: another bosslike start from R. Romero, Bossquire; a well-sassed second deck shot from Joseph Bats; an opposite-field dinger on a hanging curve from the generally execrable Adam Lind (who I just typo'd as "Adam Linda," which I am going to file away for possibly future implicitly misogynistic dissing); and a blast to straightaway centre from Brett Lawrie (who[m] Bautista, in his wisdom, is not mad at for that ridiculous attempted steal of home the other day: "He’s an aggressive player and that’s what led him here. So whenever he feels like he needs to take a chance on a play like that, he has to, in order to stay true to his nature.") Also Bautista threw Pena out by a mile tonight!  


Is it too early in the season to be scoreboard watching? Should I not actually have the Orioles game up right now, hoping they blow it, so the Blue Jays will be alone in first? Man, if the Blue Jays are actually in it this year (and I am willing to interpret "in it" in the broadest possible sense), I might not make it.

KS

So Once Again, We Have Reached That Point

Travis Snider is at times surprisingly dainty

The point, that is, at which my elation at (and gratitude for) the mere fact of spring training baseball is replaced by my need to see real games that count, pretty much right away, thanks. This is especially true this year because the weather is really nice here, and when this happens, the season should be started early in my view. Pretty much everything the Blue Jays wanted to see out of pretty much everyone has materialized this spring, and the excitement surrounding this 2012 edition of the club has me poised for a summer of unusually bitter disappointment, and I'm ready to get that going, basically.


Also in case you were wondering just how mind-blowingly awful Adam Lind has been, you might enjoy this Drunk Jays Fans post: "The Mind-Blowing Awfulness of Adam Lind." I know I did!


KS

White Sox 4, Blue Jays 3: So Long, Ozzie Guillen.

"He's garbage, still garbage, going to die as garbage." -- Ozzie Guillen on contemptible sportswriter and convicted stalker Jay Mariotti (June, 2006)

It looked like the story of last night's game was going to be how the Blue Jays left the bases loaded in the top of the second only for the Tyler Flowers to hit a three-run shot off of Dustin McGowan in the home half of the inning, because really, for the longest time after that, nothing happened. Kyle Drabek got touched up for a run in a hard-luck seventh, and the Blue Jays finally got on the board in the eighth on a mere groundout, but things didn't really get interesting (well, baseball is always totally interesting, but you know what I'm saying) until White Sox closer Sergio Santos came out for the ninth and threw forty pitches (!), allowing a pair of runs on a David Cooper double and walking pretty much everybody before getting Adam Lind (no doubt feeling fresh as a daisy coming off paternity leave) swinging to end the game with the bases loaded. 


But all of that ended up seeming minor, as it turned out to be Ozzie Guillen's last game as White Sox manager, which is, you know, pretty major. As has perhaps been noted elsewhere previously, Ozzie is a character. He will no doubt be loved forever in Chicago on the strength of the White Sox first World Series win in eighty-eight years, and loved everywhere for the amazing things he would say in the papers and on Twitter. All signs indicate that he is on his way to Miami (possibly in exchange for a pair of minor leaguers), which means even though he will still probably be somewhere being awesome, I will almost never think of him, because I almost never think of the Marlins (I see no point). So this looks a lot like goodbye, Ozzie: you are a good egg.


I also wanted to mention unartfully in closing that the attendance at last night's cold, rainy, nothing game between the Blue Jays and the White Sox drew a crowd of 21 320, while only 18 772 showed up at Tropicana Field last night to watch the Rays beat the Yankees to draw even with the Red Sox for the wild card with two days left in the season. I would suggest that this is because people in Chicago, unlike people in the Tampa Bay area, enjoy baseball and deserve a team. Maybe even two! As everyone who has ever gone to baseball games at all knows, the Yankees are the best road draw around -- this year, for instance, they're averaging crowds of 33 954 in away games -- and yet you can't even get 20 000 into the (admittedly wretched) Trop for a crucial game. "If people don't want to come out to the ballpark," a great man once said, "how are you gonna stop them?" And this is certainly true. All I am saying is this: pretty lame, Rays fans; pretty lame.


KS

Blue Jays 3, Angels 2 (F/10): YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH

EXUBERANCE 

Ricky Romero, who continues to own, went nine strong innings last night, with the only real damage coming on solo shots from Mark Trumbo and Torii Hunter. Two runs over nine was not quite enough to earn Romero his sixteenth win, though, because aside from J. P. Arencibia's two-run single in the fourth, the Blue Jays were kind of junk with runners on the rest of those nine. Particularly poor: the bottom of the very ninth, in which E5 singled and Johnson reached on sacrifice attempt that turned into a bunt single before Lawrie sac'd, Molina K'd, and Arencibia lined out to Hunter. However! In the bottom of the tenth, Adam Lind grounded to Hunter -- who, because Mike Scosia is awesome, was playing as an extra infielder for the second straight inning -- whose throw to the plate came too late to beat the sliding Mike McCoy. I am loving these walk-off wins, let me tell you. 


Also, with the Angels in town again, my thoughts cannot help but turn to the plight of poor Vernon Wells, who is playing miserably, of course, and who has recently become the subject of internet fun owing to an interview in which he went on the record thus: "Maybe it’s just society, but people put too much on struggling." Oh, Vernon . . . 


Finally, here is an awesome picture of Torii Hunter hitting a home run. 

KS

Blue Jays 3, Yankees 0: Brandon Morrow and Adam Lind Are Kind of Awful . . . But Not Today

J.P.: hey Swish, that's three, bro
Swish: lol I know right

This was an excellent baseball game.


Brandon Morrow, who has been wretched for ages now, struck out eight and allowed only four hits in eight innings against a Yankees B-squad today (no Jeter, Cano, Granderson, or Teixeira), and three of those four hits were the merest of infield singles. The fourth hit was a Nunez ground ball through the right side that Jose Bautista scooped up all casual, and, without looking like anything was up in the least, fired a strike to E5 at first to force Nunez, who had made a big, lazy turn around the bag. Nunez proceeded to curse his lot, surely, and then attempted to advance a base, which he did not, as E5 put for an uncharacteristically accurate throw to McCoy, who applied the tag. It owned. It owned.  


Add to Morrow's fine start Adam Lind's two home runs -- or dingers -- and you've got yourself an extremely content guy over here enjoying an afternoon of Blue Jays baseball. Also Eric Thames fouled a ball off his own head. Seriously, look:

 That rarely happens! 


KS

Orioles 2, Blue Jays 0: Shut Down By A Guy with Seventeen Losses

Dynamism!

Jose Bautista and Adam Lind combined for three hits last night, and that's all the Blue Jays got against undominant non-flame-throwing O's right-hander Jeremy Guthrie. No complaints whatsoever about Brett Cecil, who pitched into the eighth and allowed but two runs, only one of which was earned. Kelly Johnson managed to both boot a surefire double play ball and then perform perfectly unclutchly at the plate when Toronto actually had a chance to score for a second there, so if we are to affix goat horns for the small but real disappointment of last night's loss, let them be affixed to Johnson. In more cheering news, Kyle Drabek threw his first inning in months, a scoreless ninth in which he managed to not totally walk everybody all the time, which augers well, maybe? 


KS