Rangers 2, Cardinals 1: While It Is Never Appropriate To Bite One's Nails, There Were Extenuating Circumstances Here In My View

You've got that right, second base umpire Ron Kulpa!

I loved this game, loved it. Good pitching and even better defense (especially up the middle by Kinsler and Andrus) kept things scoreless until the bottom of the seventh, when the Cardinals eked out a run on an Allen Craig pinch hit off of Alexi Ogando (if this sounds familiar to you, this is with good reason). In the top of the ninth, the gloriously bearded Jason Motte came on in Scrabble's place, and got in trouble immediately: Ian Kinsler, who is in fact one hell of a player, singled on a ball barely pushed out of the infield. Kinsler then stole second despite a pretty much perfect throw by Yadier Molina, and I kind of can't believe Ron Kulpa got the call right: it was a tough one at a crucial moment in the game, and he was not swayed by the incredibly engaged crowd, so good for him. When Elvis Andrus singled up the middle, moving Kinsler to third, Andrus took second on a missed cutoff by Albert Pujols, who was charged with an error on the play, which I totally understand, because you have to account for that extra base, but yikes, that's a tough one. I must admit to having been a little surprised that La Russa pulled Motte and went to Arthur Rhodes at this point -- maybe leave Motte in and walk Josh Hamilton? I don't know. But what I should know is that Tony La Russa will take every opportunity to make a pitching change, so I should not have been surprised. Anyway, sac fly Hamilton, sac fly Micheal Young, and that was that. Neftali Feliz made things a bit worrisome with a leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth, but it was, in the end, no trouble. 


A couple of other photographs before I take my leave of you. First, there is sad Jason Motte:

And a couple of images from Game One that I have been slow to attend to, both of which have come to me by way of the Getting Blanked blog. First, a closed caption for the ages:

Finally, we've got Wash throwing some BP.

I honestly had no idea what was going on under Ron Washington's cap and frankly I am frightened.


KS

Cardinals 5, Phillies 3: Go Squirrel!

go squirrel go squirrel go squirrel

For the second day in a row, a squirrel -- the same squirrel? --- stole the show in St. Louis, and I am all for it, let me tell you. Tuesday night, s/he bombed around the infield and booked it down the left field line; last night, the marvelous creature you see in the above photograph made an appearance whilst Skip Schumaker took his cuts. Other cool things that happened: Shane Victoriano fell all over himself trying to get the ball back in from centre, and ended up throwing it behind him, which is not something you see every day; Albert Pujols pulled off the bag at first on a throw from short because he saw the runner at second breaking for third, gunned it, and got the out, which was amazing, frankly; Scrabble struck Ryan Howard out swinging in a key at bat late; and David Freese went berserk with a three-run home run and an RBI double. From that catalogue of notable occurrences, you might conclude that I have hopes for the Cardinals, but that is not in fact the case: it is entirely my hope and desire that Roy Halladay best Chris Carpenter Friday night in a winner-take-all showdown of former Blue Jays starting pitchers whom I will never forgive J. P. Ricciardi for losing. Play ball!


KS


UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 


Here's Victorino:

also there is SQUIRREL GIF:

HERE HERE HERE is a link to some squirrel video, and below you will find an outstanding single frame from that video, which I have captured on my own using advanced computer technologies.

Cardinals 5, Phillies 4: Kind of A Hell of A Game, Actually

yer out

Stake Cliff Lee to a four-run lead early, and you're good to go, right? Apparently not so! The Cardinals put together a three-run fourth that ended with Jon Jay tagged out at the plate, gunned down, as they say, by Raul Ibanez to much bellowing of "Rauuuuuuuuuuuul." Or were they saying "Ruuuuuuuuiz?" As you can infer from the above photograph, it's kind of amazing Carlos held on, really. Jay brought the Cardinals even in the sixth, knocking in Theriot, and then in the seventh Pujols brought in the winning run. Notably, the win went to Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel, who was repealed in the eighth in favour of Mark Rzepcynski; both of these fine gentlemen, as you will no doubt recall, were until quite recently members of your (which is to say "my") Toronto Blue Jays, and so are of particular interest go me. Good job, fellows! Also, the ESPN Radio broadcast kept talking about how Chris Carpenter was picked up for nothing after the Blue Jays decided to be dumb. That's totally what happened! I remember that vividly!


Also, and in closing, I hate Tony LaRussa, because he is literally the worst.


KS

Orioles 12, Blue Jays 4: But What Really Matters Here is that Alex Anthopolous is Still Totally a Ninja

Yikes.

It was unfortunate that the Blue Jays' streak of seven straight wins in games started by Brandon Morrow came to a crashing halt against the lowly Baltimore Orioles last night, but what was really worrying was the 0-2 fastball that drilled Jose Bautista in the head and put him out of the game. Seriously, it sucked, but he was back in the lineup Wednesday night, so in the end, no big deal.


The three-way deal that landed Colby Rasmus in Toronto, however, is totally a big deal. The particulars:

To the Blue Jays: Colby Rasmus, Trevor Miller, Brian Tallet, P. J. Walters, and Mark Teahen.
To the Cardinals: Edwin Jackson, Corey Patterson, Mark Rzepcynski, Octavio "Don't Ask" Dotel, and three players to be named later (or cash)
To the White Sox: Jason Frasor, Zach Stewart 

My first reaction to this trade was "oh man awesome," and I have yet to see anyone suggest that this was anything but an excellent deal for the Blue Jays, another totally solid Alex Anthopolous move. "Worst Trade Ever! Cardinals Send Colby Rasmus to Toronto for Spare Parts," writes Aaron Schafer of the Riverfront Times. Keith Law, to whom I look for guidance in all such times of change, said on the Baseball Today Podcast today that this is a horrible long term move for the Cardinals, sacrificing a potential star player (who is already not exactly bad) for a better rotation this year (he was on the Fan590 today, too). But you can kind of see why that might be: this could very well be their last season of Albert Pujols, so you go all-in to win your not-so-s-hot division and make this a championship year regardless of what this does to your team in the medium-to-long term. Also apparently Tony LaRussa doesn't like Rasmus, who is probably a bit of a jerk with a loudmouth dad who is probably an even bigger jerk, but Law was like, Tony LaRussa isn't exactly a part of the long-term future of the club either, so who cares? As has been pointed out at Drunk Jays Fans, the Blue Jays are clearly not averse to picking up players with lousy reputations: Escobar, Morrow, Lawrie. It's a chance to get potential star players on the cheap, basically. All reports are that Lawrie is no longer a dick; Bautista has by all accounts straightened out Escobar; and I actually didn't know Morrow had a bad reputation until like a minute ago.


What did the Blue Jays give up? Chiefly Zach Stewart, whom Baseball America has rated as Toronto's sixth-best prospect, and whom Keith Law thinks could be a number two or number three big-league starter someday (though he is by his own admission a Zach Stewart optimist). Beyond that, it's Corey Patterson, who is pretty terrible, Rzepcynski and "Don't Ask" Dotel, who are both serviceable bullpen arms (and Scrabble is maybe a fifth starter), and Jason Frasor, who if I'm remembering this right is the longest-serving Blue Jay and a guy who was on the cusp of setting the all-time Blue Jays record for appearances. I am fond of Frasor, but he is another pretty basic bullpen guy, you know? And in return, they get Rasmus, who will be the everyday centre fielder immediately and who has the potential to be at least pretty good for a pretty long time for basically no money; Mark Teahen, who is a Moneyball guy who is a total bust; and a bunch of bullpen arms. I am not going to pretend to know anything about P. J. Walters, but Trevor Miller we've seen before, as we have Brian Tallett, regrettably:

But whatever, man, I will take it. I can't see this as anything other than another good move from Alex Anthopolous, and one that nobody saw coming. This Alex Anthopolous is my kind of guy to the extent that he is making things happen, and those things that he is making happen are awesome.


KS

Rangers 5, Blue Jays 4: This Bullpen is For Shit

You will note that exactly none of the above players is a Toronto Blue Jay 

I totally get that you can't really play day games in Fort Worth in July, but I nevertheless choose to really, really mind that there's no Jays game on the radio in the afternoon when they play Texas. So I come into these games already minding things. Then Rzepcynski and Rauch combine to blow the one-run lead that came out of a three-run sixth on an Arencibia home run (his third in his last two games), an Escobar double, a Thames triple (and we all love triples!), and a Bautista single, and that seriously ups the amount of minding that I do. It is not helping that Corey Patterson can't catch a reasonable proportion of balls that are, you know, totally catchable.


This is brutal.


KS

Indians 5, Toronto 4: What Can You Even Say

Blargh.

Were I to focus on the positives from last night, I would have to say that by golly, we sure are getting a lot more out of Carlos Villanueva than anybody could have ever expected, and how about another home run from Jose Bautista! Rzepcynski and Frasor sure pitched well out of the pen! But of course the real story here is the Indians' five-run bottom of the ninth. Yes, it was Luis Perez who gave up the Asdrubel Cabrera RBI single and Travis Hafner's mighty wallop of a walk-off grand slam, but I choose to lay most of the blame at the feet of "The Closer" Frank Francisco, who opened up the inning like this: Single. Double. Walk. That is how you turn a four-run lead in the ninth into a shameful, grievous thing. That is exactly how you do it.


KS 

Blue Jays 6, Orioles 5 (F/11): Had I mentioned Adam Lind is your worst nightmare?

Adam Lind, still making his way to the to "Country Grammar."

A walk-off home run washes clean all the muck and despair that came before it. I don't even care right now that Mark Rzepcynski can't get anybody out anymore, or that Yunel Escobar pulled up rather than so much as slide into second on a Corey Patterson sacrifice bunt-attempt in the eighth in maybe the laziest, dumbest thing you will ever see on a baseball diamond. Not interested. Adam Lind ripped Koji Uehara's second pitch of the eleventh inning off the facing of the third deck, so we're good.


The biggest news for the Blue Jays these last few days, though, is the demotion of Kyle Drabek to Triple A Las Vegas, where one hopes he will quickly find his form and of course also his smoke. Apparently getting constantly battered and walking everybody was starting to wear on him psychologically -- and I get that -- so this is no doubt for the best.


Still on the subject of smoke, and specifically the throwing of it, here are the three swinging strikes that second basemen Mike McCoy threw in his 1-2-3 inning of work on Sunday. I find this all very, very awesome. And yes, this is totally lifted from FanGraphs.


First, we have a 1-0 pitch to Carl Crawford:

You can see that it touches the gun at 71 MPH, and you can also see Crawford's immediate disgust at himself. It's extraordinary. 


The very next pitch proved no less sneaky:

See, he brought the heat that time: 73 MPH. If batting is timing, pitching is disrupting that timing, friends.


Finally, an 0-1 to J. D. Drew:

I'm not sure what's going on here but I know that I love it.


KS

Royals 3, Blue Jays 2 (F/11): Et tu, Mark Rzepcynski?

Juan Rivera, feeling about this game like I feel about Juan Rivera

Before I get into minding last night's extra-innings loss to the Royals, there are a couple of other things I would also like to mind. First off, I know Alan Ashby is covering for Buck Martinez on the TV side of the broadcast right now, but do they have to replace the absolutely first-rate Ashby with Gregg Zaun as Jerry Howarth's number two in the radio booth? The drop off from Ashby to Zaun is the difference between listening to an insightful adult or a smug bro. I enjoy insightful adults. I do not enjoy smug bros at all. Also, I think part of why I fail to care at all about the plight of the Royals -- in addition to lingering bitterness over the 1985 ALCS, plus the obvious fact that the reason the Royals have been almost entirely bad since then isn't about economic problems plaguing the game so much as utterly inept management that can't seem to develop enough talent to be competitive in the straight-up embarrassing AL Central while Tampa managed to surpass four teams with vastly larger payrolls in the AL East -- is that the games start an hour later when the Blue Jays are in Kansas City and I always forget, so when I turn on the radio at the appointed hour I get nothing. All of these things need to stop but I worry that they won't.

To last night's game, then: a really crisp affair in the early going, with both Morrow and Paulino throwing very well. When the Blue Jays scratched out a lone run in the fourth on an error, wild pitch, and two ground outs, it looked to me like that might be the difference. Not so, of course, as  Eric Hosmer reached on an error in the bottom of the inning, and came in on a Mike Aviles triple (oh man triples!). Another Blue Jays run on a groundout in the seventh should have meant nothing but good times, but my man Mark Rzepcynski kind of didn't get anybody out and walked three dudes in relief, including walking in the tying run. This is a shame, in that it is on its own awful, but also in that Scrabble has been terrific out of the bullpen this year. Alas, and also alack. 


Why even mention that it was The Closer Frank Francisco who gave up the walkoff hit to Eric Hosmer in the eleventh? Everybody knows. Francisco is awful, legitimately awful. You don't even need to get fancy about it: 6.06 ERA, 1.78 WHIP. That's brutal, and brutal in a way that is easy to understand. End this. Someone. Please.


Finally, I couldn't help but notice that Fangraphs ran a neat thing on the worst players in baseball by WAR yesterday. I recently did the same, but I'm going to take this as a loving tribute rather than anything untoward. Here's what Seidman wrote about our dude E5:


Edwin Encarnacion (-0.9 WAR): Some players are on here as a direct result of their suckitude with the bat. Encarnacion, aptly nicknamed E5, makes this list primarily on the lack of merit of his glovework. In just 43 games his UZR is a spectacularly bad -9.1. If you’re more into the fielding percentage metric, consider this factoid Dave Cameron discussed recently. As of May 27th, Encarnacion had a .784 fielding percentage. The next worst was Andy LaRoche at .892, a gap of 108 points. Encarnacion is one of the worst fielders in baseball history, and if he can’t even match the lower league average with the bat, what actual purpose does he serve?


Aside from using "factoid" in the debased and subliterate sense that indicates no understanding of the meaning of the "-oid" suffix, the man has some valid points. Also, I am a dick.


KS

Blue Jays 8, Orioles 4: Big Fun In Baltimore

J. P. Arencibia: proponent of big fun.

The two early unearned runs were pretty boss, but J. P. Arencibia's fifth-inning grand slam was definitely last night's highlight in terms of overall awesomeness. Carlos Villanueva pitched well in his third start since leaving the bullpen, Perez, Frasor, and Rzepcynski took it the rest of the way, et voila. Also, it seems we have reached the point where Jose Bautista gets intentionally walked in the third inning, and, I mean, I get it -- .360/.504/.766/1.270, 20 HR, 5.0 WAR -- but it is nevertheless remarkable.

Also remarkable: both that Yunel Escobar is having such a great year, and that I have totally failed to say anything about it. The line on Escobar has always been that he is at least something of a jackhole, and I am not here to dispute that; instead, I am here to point out that his .300/.382/.449/.831 line and reasonable defense at short has him positioned as the seventh-best player in the American League this year by WAR (2.2). Did you have any idea? I didn't, and I follow the exploits of both Escobar and his bros on a daily basis.  


Finally, it is perhaps worth noting that Camden Yards is still the best looking ballpark ever.


KS

White Sox 3, Blue Jays 1: Ugh.

I will post pictures of Juan Rivera provided they are unflattering.

The easy and probably correct way to bemoan last night's 3-1 Blue Jays loss to the White Sox is to talk about John McDonald's throwing error that put Alex(is) Rios on base to start the ninth. It would be an understatement to suggest that McDonald is usually sure handed or something like that. He's usually awesome out there. And he absolutely needs to be: it's the only reason he's in the major leagues. All of his value (as a player; probably not as a man but I do not know him) is in his glove as he is a negative WAAB (Wins Above an Awful Butt) contributor with the bat. When he messes up in the field, everyone seems pretty quick to be like but he's usually so good with the glove out there which is true but not a defense, as being so good with the glove out there is all he brings to the table. All. Every bit. There is nothing else. I like him, but let us be real. 


Less galling, but still really pretty galling, was Juan Rivera's remarkably bad toss to Mark Rzepcynski covering the bag at first as speedy little Juan Pierre booked it down the line. It's not like a good toss would have gotten him, but it would have kept the ball from dribbling away and allowing Rios to score. Two errors in the ninth inning of a tie game at home: yikes.


But what I am actually superminding about last night's game isn't any of that. It's that with Cory Patterson on first and Jose Bautista at the plate in a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the eighth, John Farrell sent the runner. Patterson slid in safely, which is great, except it's awful, because that just meant the Sox quite rightly walked Bautista intentionally with a base open, which is exactly what literally everyone would do in that situation. I know I promised I would stop with the baserunning talk, but this one was nuts. John Farrell is a menace. He was asked about this obviously horrible decision after the game, and said, "The fact that he stole second is not the difference in this game." Well no, because everything fell to shit in pretty spectacular fashion the next inning, but come on John Farrell.  What I am left wondering the most about John Farrell is what does he even think this is.


Anyway. Back at it tonight. 


KS 

Blue Jays 5, Athletics 3, and the 2011 Toronto Blue Jays are probably the greatest collection of athletes ever assembled for anything (ever)

The price you pay for playing "ski" near a triple word score.

Jesse Litsch struck out seven over six-and-a-third, Snider blasted a three-run shot to put the Blue Jays out front for good, Scrabble pitched two strong in his new role, and Rauch sealed the deal. Aaron Hill even made an awesome play on a ball deflected off of Adam Lind's glove and got it over to Litsch just in time. This game owned, friends, it owned. If it wasn't for Escobar ending a three-for-three day by probably concussing himself sliding headfirst on a triple, I would be a man utterly without cares right now. As it stands, I must admit to some cares, but I am also thinking quite a lot about how the Blue Jays will now share top spot with the Baltimore Orioles atop the AL East should Neil's Tigers hold on tonight, and with the Rays and Red Sox continuing to lose at a nice clip, I don't think I'm being premature in speculating that the Blue Jays will hold at least a share of the AL East lead every day for the next six months. 


KS  


edited to add: OH YEAH, after E5 hit a grounder to Pennington at short in the home half of the fourth. It was recorded as an infield single, but really it could and perhaps should have been an inning-ending double play ball, and Jerry Howarth talked about how things like that won't show up in the box score, but those are the kind of plays that really inflate a pitcher's ERA through no fault of his own. Just as he was finishing his point, Snider ripped it over the wall in right. If I were Jerry Howarth, I'd have been feeling pretty smug right then, but because he is Jerry Howarth, he was filled with nothing but a good-natured love of the game of baseball.