Blue Jays 8, Rangers 7; Blue Jays 11, Rangers 5: Hooray, and yet Dang

meathead jubilation

When you find out that a game you bailed on ended with a walk-off home run for the good guys, what can you do but feel like the merest fool? Then, the next day, when you do not realize the series is wrapping up with a day game because you inexplicably do not keep a 2012 pocket schedule on you at all times, you are left feeling even worse. The Rangers are the best team in baseball, and the Blue Jays just took a glorious two out of three from them, and I missed all the best parts. I need to get way better at watching baseball. 


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

Blue Jays 9, Orioles 2: Much, Much More Like It

yeah man just do this instead of trying to steal home on an 0-2 pitch
with two away and the bases loaded and Jose Bautista at the dish

Kyle Drabek, thrower of smoke! Brett Lawrie and E5, belters of dingers! Kevin Gregg, loathsome ex-Blue Jay who once exhibited both the audacity and the temerity to argue with Cito on-field after being pulled for being horrible, lit up for three runs as part of a seven-run bat-around sixth! Yes sir, this one pretty much had it all, if you are me. What's next for these first-place (also "these 5-4," but work with me here) Blue Jays, you ask? Well, first an off day, which is unacceptable, but after that it is the Rays for three! 


That could be neat!

KS

Blue Jays 7, Pirates 2: A BASEBALL GAME

Yusssssssssss

I had known for some time that Grapefruit League action, such as it is, was scheduled to begin for these Toronto Blue Jays on this the third day of the third month in the year of our lord 2012, but somehow this managed to sneak up on me all the same. Fortunately, the thoughtful folks at MLB.com went ahead and signed me up for another year of GameDay Audio without me even having to ask! Can you believe it? So I am all set! As is my favourite douchebag in all the world Brett Lawrie, who hit two two-run doubles today, so he remains on pace to be literally the greatest hitter in the history of professional baseball (I will overlook today's error). Nine pitchers took the hill for the Blue Jays, which only ever happens in the first week of spring training games or I guess in the All-Star Game, too, sometimes, and the not-as-fat-as-previously Brett Cecil got the start but not the all-important win, which instead went to Kyle Drabek, who pitched a scoreless inning and struck a guy out so it's like :) SMOKE but also he walked a guy so it is also like :( and so on the whole is like :/ which is the probably the best case scenario for Kyle Drabek this season.


I would also like to call your attention to Eric Thames, who homered today, and who I fully support in the battle for the everyday spot in left field because he not only reads but totally gets Beowulf and also sketches out plans for his facial hair but most importantly he is not Travis Snider. If one is a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays one is supposed to be of the opinion that Snider has been jerked around between the majors and triple-A to such an extent that his confidence lies in ruins and he is a broken man and probably this is mostly Cito's fault, or something, but on the whole he is a dude who has looked less like a dude than a butt, if I may be frank, and I am sure we all agree that the proper place for butts is on the bench. Anyway, go Eric Thames: you are skilled, maybe, and I exhort you. 

moustaches for all imo

I'm listening to the replay of the radio broadcast right now man and Alan Ashby and Jerry Howarth are cold killin' it on day one like I mean killin' it and I just heard a couple of little girls singsong something about raffle tickets and I don't care that it is the grossest day ever outside as the wind howls around my creaky old house because baseball is here and not in the abstract way where there are dudes who sometimes play baseball jogging in uniforms and stretching somewhere but in the very real sense that games are being played and I am listening to them which at the end of the day is what this is all about is it not my friends? 


KS

Blue Jays 5, Red Sox 4: Ricky Romero Yeeeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhh

No big deal.

Ricky Romero, who is awesome even when he isn't particularly awesome, allowed but three earned runs in eight innings in Fenway yesterday, and Adam Loewen (yeah, Adam Loewen!) came through with a big hit late to put the Blue Jays on top 5-4. Romero, who you know is good but who you do not fully appreciate, is now 15-10 with a 3.02 ERA, despite pitching in a hitter's park with some pretty brutal defense behind him in the toughest division in baseball. As Jerry Howarth pointed out when he was shooting from the gd hip on the Jeff Blair show yesterday, the Blue Jays really only have one-and-a-half reliable starters heading into next season: Romero is the real deal, and Morrow is kind of almost OK sometimes, so, yeah, there's your 1.5. I'm feeling pretty good about Henderson Alvarez, but he's clearly a back-end-of-the-rotation kind of guy, right? I completely agree with my mainest man Jerry that Anthopolous needs to find some arms this winter. There's been a lot of speculation about the Blue Jays making a big play for Yu Darvish -- especially with AA's recent scouting trip to Japan -- and much hand-wringing on the blogs about paying the huge posting fee and everything, but who cares? Definitely, definitely not me. Whatever, man, the ghost of Ted Rogers is loaded, let's spend some. It's what he would have wanted, probably. (Note that he would not have wanted that.) 


Anyway, this closes out the season series against the Red Sox. The Blue Jays went 8-10, which I'll take, given that Boston is legitimately good, and Toronto pretty much isn't. This is fine. It is not fine, however, that there are now less than two weeks remaining in the regular season. I find that quite unacceptable, actually. Where do the days go? Tell me. 

Oh yeah also: Brett Lawrie slammed into Varitek at the plate yesterday, and Varitek totally lived up to his almost impossibly hard last name, held on, and sent Lawrie out of the game with . . . a contusion. 

yerrrrrrrrrrrrr (by which I mean Brett Lawrie) out

INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT UPDATE SERIOUSLY I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS: the collision at home in .gif form, via Drunk Jays Fans via The Blue Jay Hunter via Some Guy with NESN I Guess:








KS

Blue Jays 5, Orioles: 4: Another Blow Stuck Against the Loathsome Kevin Gregg

OH NOES KEVIN GREGG I THINK HE IS IN THERE

In the early going, there was much to cheer: Jose Bautista's 41st home run of the season; Brett Lawrie's 9th; Dewayne Wise's throw to the plate to end the third inning; and Lawrie's ridiculous bare-handed play on a chopper to third to end the fourth. Add to this another solid outing by young Henderson Alvarez, and it was easy to not get all that bent out of shape when Jesse Litsch couldn't quite keep it together in the eighth, allowing Vladimir Guerrero (bless him) to double in the go-ahead run. It had been a pretty good one! It would have been OK had the Blue Jays come up just a little short. It seriously would have been. I was at peace.


However! After Clay Rapada -- sleeper pick for best name in the majors, in my view -- got David Cooper swinging to open the ninth, Buck Showalter went to Kevin Gregg to close things out, because he is, as you know, A Closer, and that's vitally important. To his goonish, loathsome credit, Gregg managed to put Lawrie away swinging and totally get two strikes on Kelly Johnson before falling apart completely and ruining everything. Johnson worked a walk, which brought Jose Molina to the plate, and I had every expectation that J. P. Arencibia would be brought out to  pinch hit at that point, playing for the longball, you know? But as Alan Ashby rightly noted, that's a tough call for manager John Farrell: Arencibia has the power, but the lovably plump Molina hits for the much better average. Sure enough, Molina singled (oh, there was a pinch runner alright: it was Chris Woodward), and Adam Lowen -- a former Orioles pitcher on whom the Blue Jays took a flyer as an outfielder, sent to A-ball, and here we are three years later -- came to the plate for Dewayne Wise, and was awarded first after being ever so faintly brushed by a pitch. 


So it was with two out and the bases loaded that John Farrell at last brought J. P. Arencibia off the bench, at which point the irredeemable Gregg uncorked a wild pitch that brought home the tying run, and allowed a crisp single to left to bring in the game winner. Take that, Kevin Gregg: the universe is never going to forgive you for being the way you were with Cito, and I am but part of the universe.


To conclude on an unrelated topic, I would like to pass along that Jerry Howarth mentioned yesterday that he had served as master of ceremonies at Adam Lind's wedding last year (registry details here if you have yet to send a gift; pic of the happy couple here), which, I don't know, I found both nice and perhaps surprisingly amusing. "There she goes!" etc. 


Oh actually to conclude, here is rad shot of Jose Bautista rounding the bases. 

JOSE JOSE

KS

Blue Jays 7, Red Sox 4: Toronto Takes Three of Four from Boston; No Big Deal

Jays Win, I hear.

Last night, behind American League Pitcher of the Month Ricky Romero, it was kind of like, the future, maybe, a little? David Cooper, fresh off a Pacific Coast League batting title, had three hits and two doubles; Brett Lawrie doubled and continued to own; J. P. Arencibia hit yet another dinger; and Eric Thames put one out, too. These are young men barely out of boyhood, friends, and there they were, ripping it up against the mighty Boston Red Sox (let us not discuss who started for them last night, lest all of this seem way less impressive). And we're back to .500. Does that matter? Not really. But it feels good, man. Feels good.


KS

DO IT, JEFF FRANCOEUR

The other day, I heard on the radio that the only players with more extra base hits than Brett Lawrie in their first thirty MLB games were Albert Pujols and Jeff Francoeur, which sets some pretty broad boundaries, you know? But while Jeff Francoeur is quite famously not awesome, the above totally, totally is. 


KS

Blue Jays 1, Red Sox 0 (F/11): You Love Brett Lawrie. You Love Him.

Hey awesome it's Chris Woodward over there on the left!

It's only right that Geddy Lee was in his customary seat behind home plate on a day when Brett Lawrie sent everyone home happy with a walk-off home run in the eleventh, because he is awesome and so was this. And it is only fitting that Geddy Lee was not at all in his customary seat behind home plate, but in fact nowhere to be seen when that mighty wallop was indeed walloped, because this game took forever: the Red Sox insistence on dragging out every last god damned pitch has gotten to the point that Geddy can't take it anymore. That's how dire this situation has become: the way the Red Sox play baseball is too long and drawn-out for a guy who plays in Rush. 


It was a relief, of a kind, when Josh Beckett left the game early with an apparent leg strain or something. Sure there was going to be that massive delay that happens when a pitcher comes in from the bullpen completely cold to replace an injured starter and is given as long as he needs to warm up, but at least then things would start humming along after that, right? Well, they did, sort of, until Papelbon. Until Papelbon. For a minute there, and by a minute I actually mean about half an inning, it seemed like Blue Jays radio ace Alan Ashby was about to join Geddy, wherever he was. Ashby was so sick of Papelbon's shenanigans, you have no idea. Utterly disgusted, and completely unwilling to hide it in any way. Misses outside and I can't effing believe we're going to have to wait another eighty seconds before he throws again. (That is not a direct quotation or in fact a quotation of any kind.) The inning was only rescued for me by my wife's observation, "Papelbon jeans; boots with the fur." 


Anyway, Jerry Howarth noted about an inning before it happened that, with everything else that has gone Brett Lawrie's way in his brief time with the club, it's almost surprising that he had yet to get a walk-off hit of some kind. And then there we were, bottom of the eleventh, watching the ball sail out to centre, just below where there once was a restaurant called Windows but now there are only windows, an ideal finish to a nail-biter that saw five innings of shutout relief after the young arm of Henderson Alvarez went a scoreless six. If only Geddy had stuck it out . . . 


KS 

Yankees 6, Blue Jays 4: The Real Star Here is Home Plate Umpire Phil Cuzzi

Ricky Romero, a man squeezed.

I am not, generally speaking, critical of umpires. It's a ridiculous job, really, especially at home plate: make a couple of hundred split-second calls over a three-hour period, each of which can later be scrutinized in high definition slow motion, except not by you, ever. And get them all right, or else people will be irate. That's tough. I've read Bruce Weber's As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of the Umpires (read a sizable excerpt at the NY Times site), and even though I think Weber's work would have been better suited to a New Yorker-length essay rather than a full-length book, I realize how awful the life of a minor league umpire is, so awful, in fact, that anyone with any other options at all in life would do probably choose to do something other than become a minor league umpire, which means the people who make it to the top are actually . . . how best to say this . . . not always awesome? 


Anyway. I am sympathetic. I am not quick to condemn umpires. But Saturday afternoon in Yankee Stadium, home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi was, in my view (but not mine alone), baffling and awful and wrong.


Ricky Romero, who lost for the first time in nine starts (last loss: July 16 vs. the Yankees), was getting squeezed mercilessly in the early going, whereas the awesomely horrible-bodied Bartolo Colon could do no wrong. It was perverse. I am not going to do the thing that happens on the internet where we all get worked up about how the Yankees get all the calls, because I don't at all know that that is true, but yesterday Phil Cuzzi was doing his best to lend credence to that probably incorrect argument. It got so bad, in fact, that absolutely beloved third base coach and miracle-working infield instructor Brian "Butters" Butterfield lost his cool and got run. How many times a year do you usually see the third base coach get run? Any? At all? If it's too much for Butters, it's too much for me. And yet, despite all this tomfoolery, had the Blue Jays' best reliever gotten Robinson Cano out after getting ahead 0-2, everything would have been fine. A strange game, this baseball.


Amid all this bitterness and frustration, though, we must salute Dewayne Wise, who came in as a sub for Eric Thames ("dizzy symptoms"), and ripped a triple and a home run. Also homering: Adam Lind, which, I mean, is nice, but did you know it has gotten so bad that Adam Lind is currently rocking a .745 OPS? And that he didn't draw a walk for a month? It saddens me that he has become something of a disaster out there. Finally, Brett Lawrie started a particularly nifty 6-4-3 double play, further establishing that he owns.


KS

Blue Jays 8, Orioles 2: Brett Lawrie Makes Me Want to Shoop

Here I go; here I go; here I go again. 

He is the best! 


In his twenty-six big league games, Brett Lawrie's slash line is .340/.392/.713/1.105 with six doubles, four triples, and now seven home runs after cracking the game-winning two-run shot in the eighth. There were worries about his glove coming into the year, but look, I'm telling you, he's making all the plays, and he has a rifle of an arm, a rifle. I am just all the way in on Brett Lawrie, is what I am saying to you right now. I recognize that it is unlikely that he will sustain a 1.105 OPS throughout his major league career, but what if he did? Wouldn't you feel dumb for not getting excited about that when it first got going? That is egg that I simply will not have on my face. I won't have it. But you very well might, unless you get in on this immediately.


It is fortunate and good that Brett Lawrie decided to be amazing today, and also that Yunel Escobar was willing to get four hits, because Luis Perez stunk it up out there. That is not stunning; what is very close to stunning indeed is that the bullpen pretty much held the line the rest of the way, putting Lawrie in position to be the best guy. So, thanks!


The game was played before an announced but obviously bogus attendance of 11,617 after first pitched was moved up about seven hours so the Baltimore Grand Prix racing route could be finalized, or something. Look at this, though:

Big fun in Baltimore?

Paltry, man. Paltry. But baseball is baseball, and it is awesome whether forty thousand people show up or like eight people show up. Actually, if I may be frank with you for a moment, let me say that I actually wasn't actually nuts about the half dozen times a year the SkyDome would have a big drunk crowd of 40,000 or more. One felt, literally, crowded. There was nowhere to put your stuff, you know? Let alone your extra stuff. And you couldn't wander to other sections and just kind of see what was up. You know what is the perfect number? Like 24,000, somewhere around there. That's how many people I want to be with me at a ball game, tops. I want the lower levels to be nicely filled up, and then I want some room to put my feet up in the upper deck and just spread out and be with my people (but not that near my people), the deeply odd people of the 500s. I want there to be a guy a section over who is totally just completely reading the paper, a study in leisure from another era. On a darker note, I want plenty of room between me and my Mr. Sub-devouring nemesis and his poor unfortunate potato of a ladyfriend. I also want Maureen the usher to have to come over like two sections to say "hello" to us, just because it makes me feel special that she comes all that way. That's vanity, but I'll admit to it. I liked it when that happened. Yes, it can be totally exciting for the place to be packed with, like, a teeming mass of humanity, I get that, and I'm not saying that you don't need that -- I would absolutely miss that if it never happened; I'm not made of stone -- but that's really not the day-to-day of baseball, and it is the day-to-day where baseball really shines.


Anyway, in Baltimore today you pretty much could have had this guy right here as your private dancer.

Big fun in Baltimore!

KS

Orioles 6, Blue Jays 5 (F/10): Try Not to Blow Another Save On The Way to the Team Bus, Bullpen

Kevin Gregg: still loathsome.

First, the good (don't worry, this won't take long): Brett Lawrie continues to absolutely rake his first time around the league, last night adding a three-run homer to his completely awesome line so far (.329/.380/.682, 6 HR, 4 2B, 4 3B) in the second inning. And then much, much later -- in the ninth, in fact, when the utterly loathsome Kevin Gregg took the hill for the O's -- Dewayne Wise went into crafty veteran mode and stole third when the base was left undefended after a bunt attempt. Yeah, a bunt attempt: there was no bunt, but everybody charged, and nobody covered third, and Dewayne Wise dared to be great. Have I mentioned Kevin Gregg threw five straight balls to dudes clearly trying to bunt? Totally happened. Anyway, the Blue Jays, trailing by one at the time, only managed to plate the tying run before E5, who looked totally lost up there, grounded out to end the inning. 


After Casey Janssen pitched a solid bottom of the ninth, Kelly Johnson led off the tenth with a triple, and came home on a wild pitch, you would think everything would be cool, right? Run Janssen back out there, and seal the deal, n'est-ce pas? But no. Instead, we were treated to one of these:

The only difference here is that rather than Cito, the man we must blame is acting manager Dan Wakamatsu, subbing for the pneumoniac John Farrell. But yeah, Brian Tallet. So that was that, Orioles 6, Blue Jays 5, walk-off win. "I know they had to take Brian Tallet, but to use him," my wife trailed off from the other room as she overheard this nonsense. 


This is easily the worst Toronto bullpen I have ever seen, and I hate it. Everybody but Casey Janssen should be catapulted. I miss Jason Frasor and Scott Downs. That is what I have been reduced to, my friends: missing Jason Frasor and Scott Downs.


KS 

Blue Jays 4, Royals 3: Brett Lawrie Homers and Triples; Jose Bautista Homers and Owns

Call it two.

It's probably crazy to like anything from last night's Blue Jays win over the Royals more than the Brett Lawrie solo shot in the seventh that put Toronto in front for good, but here I am thinking about Jose Bautista's two-run homer in the fourth more than anything else. Luke Hochevar started the inning by plunking Yunel Escobar, who got a little heated up about it. Escobar was probably in the wrong: there really isn't any reason to think there was anything intentional about what had just happened. But Escobar didn't like it. And so after Jose Bautista ripped a ball off the facing of the third deck in left, Bautista lingered for a moment at the plate, staring at Hochevar, and, indeed into the very souls of the haters. It was clearly an act of backing his dude up, even if his dude was wrong and is, to many (though not to me), quite unlikable. Jose Bautista is the best, man. Not unlike Eli, he did it.


Also it is worth noting that this was the first time Ricky Romero wasn't awesome in like six weeks. I'm going to let it slide.


KS

Blue Jays 7, Athletics 0: You know what, I think I like this west-coast road trip.

Three-hitter. No big deal.

Not only are the Blue Jays winning out west, they're scoring most of their runs before I go to bed, which is simply outstanding. Last night, to go along with Ricky Romero's three-hitter (9 IP, 2 BB, 6 K; no big deal), Lawrie singled in a Rasmus double, E5 singled in a Bautista double, and Rasmus hit a two-run shot all before bedtime. It was exquisite. Also I have heard and read reports that further runs were later scored! 


KS

Blue Jays 13, Mariners 7: The Raveled Sleeve of Care

damn it is #35 haters

Such is my shaken/shook state that even after a six-run, bat-around first inning last night, I still had serious doubts. Half an inning later, it was 6-3, and it felt like we were already losing. Had I not then gone immediately to bed, and stayed up for the Mariners' next three-run inning to pull even, I don't know man, I don't even know. Fortunately, the Blue Jays kept hitting, and between Hill homering, Lawrie going 3-4, and Jose Bautista going 2-2 with a HR and three walks, everything was, in the end, cool. Pretty unassailable work from the 'pen last night, too, with Perez and Camp allowing only one run in  six innings of work (wow, six innings out of the bullpen, ye gods that's hideous). The bullpen is much changed these days, too, with Jon Rauch on the DL and Trevor Miller, uh, gone forever. 


Hey also, Alan Ashby is doing TV this road trip, so it's Howarth and Zaun on the radio, and while I am still far, far, far from a fan of Gregg Zaun, he's clearly getting better. Like, when he is on I am not necessarily overcome by hate or anything anymore. As much.


KS

Mariners 6, Blue Jays 5: Great Job, Bullpen

Jon Rauch, ladies and gentlemen.

Home runs by Thames, Lind, and Lawrie were not enough to overcome a middling start by rookie Henderson Alvarez and, after two solid innings of Jesse Litsch, the horror show that is the back end of this bullpen. Back-to-back home runs by Mike Carp and Caspar Wells off of Trevor Miller and Jon Rauch in the bottom of the eighth have vaulted the Blue Jays into a first-place tie for the most blown saves in the league, twenty. Blown saves. Twenty of them.


In other news, MLB.TV is really awesome. I watched a little of the free game of the day, and man, if they ever figure out the blackout situation, I am in. Don't tell MLB, but I would pay twice what they are currently asking to make that blackout free. The way you can flip around to highlights from other games, all picture-in-picture stylee? It is almost too much. On the topic of highlights for a moment, good for Jim Thome, who hit his 600th home run last night, which you can see here, and good for the Brewers infield, who turned a triple play that is awesome even by the standards of triple plays, which you can see here. When you see the super slow motion, you see that Matt Kemp definitely got his hand up and over that tag, but you can hardly fault the umpire for missing it in real time.


To recap the most important news of the day, though, this bullpen is killing me. 


KS

Blue Jays 8, Athletics 4: Brett Lawrie's Grand Slam Was Arguably the Coolest Part of This

lol

Through five-and-a-half innings, it looked like the Blue Jays were going waste a perfectly fine debut by twenty-one-year-old Henderson Alvarez. Fortunately for all concerned, Brett Lawrie (also 21) launched a grand slam over the left field wall in the home half of the sixth. There was, as you might expect, much rejoicing, and Lawrie was all fired up in the mookiest of mook ways in the dugout, but you can't really be like "act like you've done this before" when he has literally never done this before, right? Curtain call and everything, man, it was a scene. Later, the benches cleared when Jordan Norberto threw at Yunel Escobar, and while nothing else came of it, it was just like, baseball is awesome.

KS

Orioles 6, Blue Jays 2 and Blue Jays 7, Orioles 2: Not Quite What I Had In Mind But Fine

:

Camden Yards: still somewhat OK

I have no problem with Yunel Escobar -- shortstops with .820 OPS are fine by me -- but he managed to pretty much single-handedly undue an excellent start by Brandon Morrow when he booted a potential double-play ball in the sixth inning Saturday night. But that's baseball. And yesterday was also baseball, you will be pleased to know! Ricky Romero allowed only two runs in his eight efficient innings of work, picking up his tenth win and lowering his ERA to 2.94, if I may cite two stats we don't pay nearly as much attention to as we used to but to which we still cling when they make dudes we like sound awesome. The Blue Jays hit a whack of doubles, E5 is streaking, and Brett Lawrie hit the first home run of his major league career. That is all really agreeable stuff to me. After an off day Monday, Oakland comes to town for three, and then it's the Angels, which, with the Blue Jays only 4.5 games behind Los Angeles for the playoff spot that will probably exist next year but which totally doesn't this year, doesn't actually matter more or less anything else. Except that I will enjoy those games extra because it is the Angels and Vernon will be back! Kind of a rough year for him, what with the .629 OPS and the negative WAR. Did you know he is owed $86 million over the next four years, and the Blue Jays are only on the hook for $5 million? Is that something you have heard about previously? Good for Vernon; good for the Blue Jays; Angels you guys are crazy man I love it.


KS