Marlins 9, Blue Jays 0; Blue Jays 9, Red Sox 6: Et Tu, Henderson Alvarez?

lol seriously?

A 9-0 drubbing at the hands of the Marlins is obviously not great, but Jesse Chavez is not a dude who should really be pitching in the major leagues, and there he was starting, so what can you do? We do not have any guys. Further to that, young Henderson Alvarez left Monday night's game against the Red Sox with soreness in his elbow, making it I believe four starting pitchers pulled due to injury in the last two weeks. This is ridiculous, however, I have chosen to focus on the positive from last night: three dingers! Rasmus! Arencibia! Joseph Batts! Also I think it is kind of cool that the Blue Jays have signed 49-year-old Jamie Moyer who, honestly, could totally be a fit right now. In darker news, Adam Lind has been recalled after tearing it up in Triple A, but, I mean, he better have, and also it was Las Vegas. I don't know man. I do not know.


KS

Blue Jays 14, Mets 5: An Abundance of Dingerz

Yan Gomes and Rajai Davis: sluggers of the highest calibre apparently

For a minute there in the first, it looked like Jon Niese was going to work his way out of a pretty sticky situation but then lol nope as J. P. Arencibia ripped one down the line, just fair, for a three-run dinger of the "out of a here in a hurry" variety which I trust you will agree is an awesome kind of them. He added another in the third, and Rajai Davis, of all people, had a pair of two-run shots, and young utility dude Yan Gomes hit the first of his career. Gomes has this awesome stance, front foot slightly open, bat held up high and hell of erect, and he just slashes it through the strike zone man he just slashes it. He looks like a guy who is maybe going to strike out a ton but really lace it every now and then, which, I mean, fine, as it looks super cool and what do I care other than that from a young utility guy with a sick catcher's arm that he deployed a couple of times from third last night. 


I should add that Ricky Romero was a boss, allowing but a run through six. The bullpen was a little shitty after that, but I am not going to mind that right now. 


KS

Blue Jays 5, Angels 0: I Probably Have to Stop Minding Brandon Morrow

neat

I went to bed last night wondering if J. P. Arencibia's three-run home run was going to stand up, and it turns out it totally did, because Brandon Morrow threw a three-hitter against the unexpectedly woeful Angels. Will that be enough for me to finally stop minding Brandon Morrow, a little? Only time will tell. 


KS

Red Sox 4, Blue Jays 2: Thanks For That, Sergio Santos

You will never hear me complain about a roof, but the light is inarguably shitty in there.

Well that was a pretty funny looking save. After Henderson Alvarez -- a kind of anti-Brandon Morrow, in that you look at his stuff and you are like, "there is no way this guy ever records an out in the major leagues ever," and yet he throws strikes, doesn't walk anybody, and so is totally going to have a career out there -- allowed but a lone run in his six innings of totally credible work against the Red Sox, and we got solid innings from Francisco Cordero and Darren Oliver (have I mentioned that I love that we have that guy?), Santos put up this truly awful butt of a line: 


2/3 IP, 2H, 3 R, 3 ER, 3 BB, 1 K, 1 WP


What. The what. 


It all would have been a little better had Jose Bautista's throw to the plate been handled cleanly by our boy J. P. Arencibia, because the runner would have found himself totally Joey Bats'd had that happened because that guy has a cannon man a cannon, but I choose to put all of this squarely on Santos and no one else.


At least it all went down in front a sellout crowd of over 48 000! Had beer sales not been limited to one per customer per transaction up in the 500s, blood would have flown. 


Oh hey, returning to the subject of J. P. Arencibia for a sec, we all know and agree that he is, like, absurdly handsome, right? Do not act like you do not know this. I mean, gosh:

*swoon*

If you are a straight dude reading this, please do not be one of those straight dudes who is such a tool that he is like "oh really? I can't tell with guys." Shut up; yes you can; J. P. Arencibia is a beautiful man; you know this. Anyway, these young ladies know it, too (internet propers to the unstoppable Drunk Jays Fans):

I hear you ladies, I do. 

At DJF they named this file "dadmustbeproud," but I think this is just a couple of young ladies having good-natured fun with their sexuality and it is not to be feared or shamed in that way. I would remind the reader of our collective politics of sex-positive feminism here at Baseball Feelings.


Anyway, this game was the worst and I demand Santos be traded by daybreak. 


KS 

Blue Jays 7, Indians 4 (F/16): Blue Jays Open Their 2012 Championship Season with the Longest Opening Day Game in Major League History

maybe baseball is impossibly beautiful, big deal

It began as all epic journeys begin: with dudes like, quick, Poseidon isn't around, let's get this shit going before he gets back and is mad. In fact it was nothing like that at all, but it ended up being really great! I will not fault Ricky Romero for being far less than his best on this day, as it was really cold and windy in Cleveland, and I am not at my best under those conditions either. For the longest time, what we were looking at here was a 4-1 game in which Romero had been tagged for a three-run shot, and Blue Jay bats had been stifled except for the unstoppably amazingly great Jose Bautista who is the best and who homered. 


But then a rad top of the ninth pretty much fell out of the sky: Yunel Escobar singled, Kelly Johnson did likewise, and a Bautista shot to centre was knocked down by the wind and ended up a sac fly rather than his second round tripper of the day. Adam Lind was up next, and I pretty much lost it (in my brain) when he looked at a fastball for a strike on a 3-1 pitch, like, I was thinking thoughts like "3-1 and a chance to tie it in the ninth you've got to be swinging like a big dog Adam Lind like a big dog" and I don't know what that means exactly but I really felt it. But he walked!  And was sensibly pinch-run for, because say what you will about Rajai Davis, but that guy can run fast. He had occasion to pretty much right away, too, as E5 got a hold of one, doubling off the wall on another one knocked down by the wind (Edwin came out of the box like yep there it is, a dinger but in the end it was not). 


And then it was 4-4 pretty much forever. The coolest thing that happened during all of the scorelessness that followed was definitely when John Farrell turned into Mike Scosia for a minute and brought sure-handed forty-four-year-old Omar Vizquel into the game as a fifth infielder and the Blue Jays turned a double play to get out of a seriously sticky spot in the twelfth. (One time the Angels did that in Toronto! Chone Figgins got a different glove!) My vote for the least cool thing to happen during of all of that scorelesness was when Rajai Davis bunted terribly and then froze in the batter's box instead of running and made me so mad that I don't even know man. 


But then! J. P. Arencibia -- who way, way earlier in the game did a cool thing where he scrambled after a pitch in the dirt and dove to tag out Shin Soo "Big League" Choo at the plate -- hit a three-run home run in the top of the sixteenth after attempting to bunt on the previous pitch. Had he not bunted that first one foul, who can say? Who can know? Also, while we are asking questions: how must it have felt to have sat out in the cold in Cleveland for sixteen innings to watch your side lose like that?


Anyway, what a great way to start the season, if you are either the Toronto Blue Jays or me. I would like to tip my hat (I am not wearing a hat, but I have been enjoying watermelon Big League Chew, which is in my view a greater act of baseball fandom) to the Toronto bullpen, because eleven innings of shut-out baseball is awesome even if it is only Cleveland. Let's hear it, too, at least a little, for Colby Rasmus, who made a terrific diving grab in centre early on (he just straight up missed one for an error later, but let's not dwell). And while J. P. Arencibia is totally the home run hero on the day, let us note, finally, that Jose "@JoeyBatts19" Bautista went 3-4 with a HR, 2 BB, and a sacrifice fly. Because he is the best hitter.


Yours in baseball,


KS

it sure was!

"In The Belly of the East": Tyler Kepner of the NY Times Slums It For A Weekend

As previously noted in this space, Kevin Gregg is the worst.

"For the fourth season in a row," Tyler Kepner writes in the Times, "the Blue Jays will almost certainly finish fourth while the Orioles finish last. Yet, in some ways, this was baseball in its purest form, the game for the sake of the game, with nothing to prove in the standings. The teams fought for three compelling days, one game ending with a go-ahead hit and the two others with the tying run at the plate." This is worth reading. For Kepner, seeing losing (or barely winning) baseball up close like this is something of a novelty, and part of me would like to resent that, but I can't. In unthrilling but steady prose, Kepner describes the genuine pleasure to be found in a well-played, hard-fought three-game set without anything resembling postseason implications on the line, played before relatively few fans, even. It is still baseball, and baseball can always be awesome. This puts me in mind of a friend's story about his late (as in, his 20s) conversion to baseball: at a nothing game in the middle of the summer between teams that obviously weren't going anywhere, this friend of mine was witness to an epic at-bat, one of those million-pitch encounters where everything close gets fouled off forever. This single at-bat won my friend to baseball. Sure, baseball was still slow and lazy and archaic and actually kind of bizarre, all of those things he'd thought before, but in the middle of all this strangeness and profound meaninglessness, the outcome of this particular at-bat could not have mattered more to this pitcher whose count was getting out of control, and this batter who was treating this plate appearance like it was the most important of the hundreds he'd have that year. My man was like, "Oh, OK, baseball. I get it now." It's easy to get baseball when you're watching the late innings in a close game seven of the World Series; it takes a different kind of character to really get baseball in a nothing game on a nothing day in a nothing season. For that, it takes my man Matty, or, indeed, Tyler Kepner of the New York Times. Kepner showed up on the Jeff Blair radio show (you can listen here) to discuss this further; Matty did not. 


Lots of great stuff here, including the annual ritual of Rookie Cosplay, but the real highlight for me is this:


"Johnson works a walk, and Gregg crumbles. A single, a hit batter and a wild pitch tie the score before the rookie catcher J. P. Arencibia wins the game with a pinch-hit single to left. In the clubhouse, Arencibia wears a Maple Leafs cap backward as he speaks for the cameras. Pitcher Brett Cecil shoves a hockey stick at him, and Arencibia knows what to do.

"'We played hard — all three periods,' he says, to belly laughs from reporters and teammates. 'I don’t think the third baseman was expecting me to go top shelf.'"

Beauty!

KS

Red Sox 18, Blue Jays 6: The Seven-Run Eighth Made This Look Worse Than It Was (A Little)

It got worse.

Not everything was awful, last night, not everything: J. P. Arencibia hit his twenty-third home run; Bautista hit his forty-second; and David Cooper is making me think things about Adam Lind that I would not share with Adam Lind. Beyond that, though, not a great one: Brandon Morrow continues to be a confounding butt; Luis Perez might as well have walked the ball to the plate and set it on a tee; and John Farrell's "what's the worst that can happen?" decision to run some kids out there in the eighth truly showed the worst that can happen. Let us salute Tim Wakefield, however, on this, the occasion of his two-hundredth win. Tim Wakefield is awesome. Knuckleballers are awesome. If you do not trade for at least one of them when you are playing baseball video games, you and I are very different people.    

KS

Blue Jays 6, Orioles 5: You Called Down the September Call-up Thunder? Well now you've got it.

Are you . . . Loewen it?

Dustin McGowan probably dreamed that his first start in the big leagues in three years would go a little better than four runs on three innings, but whatever, it's pretty remarkable that he made it back at all. The crowd gave him a nice ovation as he left the field, and were pretty clearly angling for the ol' tip-o'-the-cap, but McGowan wouldn't do it, which is kind of awesome: yes, he's clearly thrilled to be back, but now that he is back, he's not going to act like four runs in three innings is going to get it done, and he wasn't about to tip his cap after he'd walked the last two, because he had been, in his own estimation, kind of horseshit. And good for him, you know? Good for him.

Another late-inning comeback yesterday, this one down 5-3 in the seventh. Pacific Coast League batting champ David Cooper led off with a home run, and, after J. P. Arencibia flied out to the wall, Adam Loewen homered to centre to tie it up. When Jose Bautista singled in Mike McCoy's double later in the inning, the day was won! Hurrah!  

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

Blue Jays 7, Rays 3: This Is So Much More Like It, You Have No Idea

You got stuck in a rundown, and you can't get out of it.

Nobody knows exactly what hitting coach Dwayne Murphy said in the team meeting yesterday in which he is thought to have implored everyone to stop yapping at the umpires, except of course for me, with a big assist from both Imagination and the viewless wings of Poesy: "OK then (Jose Bautista), so everybody (Jose Bautista), I am going to keep this short (Jose Bautista), but (Jose Bautista) let's all just agree to lay off the umps (Jose Bautista), because it's getting out of hand (Jose Bautista), and we're getting the kind of reputation that's hard to shake (Jose Bautista), and the bottom line (Jose Bautista) is that it's not doing us any favours (Jose Bautista), so let's just cut it out. Jose Bautista." This issue had been troubling me, and so I am very glad that this has been dealt with.

I am equally glad that the Blue Jays avoided the four-game sweep last night by hitting everything. Ricky Romero once again looked slightly below his usual top-notch self: three runs over six is far from poor, but four walks to go along with six hits (including two Johnny Damon dingers, no less) and only two strikeouts is subprime Romering. But who cares? Every Blue Jay in the lineup last night had a hit, except for Dewayne Wise (did I mention Colby Rasmus is on the DL, and that that sucks?), but let's be reasonable in our expectations re: Dewayne Wise. It was just straight-up mashing of the best kind: Jose Bautista's thirty-eighth home run; Adam Lind's twenty-third; Kelly Johnson's three hits, including a triple; J. P. Arencibia's three hits, including a double, a triple, and a stolen base. All these things occurred, and owned. 


And the bullpen! Nobody would tell you the Blue Jays bullpen is anything but a butt, and so we should really show warmth and appreciation in the direction of Litsch, Janssen, and Francisco for allowing but one hit in three innings of relief last night, because it would have been depressing as hell to have blown that one, and don't act like it couldn't happen, because that sort of thing is happening on the reg/is killing me. Ricky Ro' is now a pretty choice 13-9 with a 2.84 ERA and four complete games (two shutouts). I know the advanced stats prefer Brandon "I'd rather look at the nerd stats" Morrow this year, bless his heart, and I am not a PITCHER WINZ guy by any stretch, but I just feel a whole lot better with Romero on the hill, friends, what can I tell you. The man is a bulldog out there, A Bulldog.   


In short, bring on the O's.


Hey also: I am not here to tell anybody how they would best enjoy the game of baseball, but let me say, you can do a whole lot worse than getting rid of all of your cable, giving our evil overlords at MLB twenty dollars to get access to every game on the radio (blackout free!), spending twenty minutes a day watching the luxurious and non-YankeeSox-centric game recaps at MLB.com (blackout free!), and checking in on whatever the MLB.TV free game of the day is (pending blackouts). It is seriously incredible how much baseball there is out there, and the kind of access we have to it. Being a baseball fan in 2011 is roughly a zillion times better than it was to be a baseball fan, say, twenty-five years ago. Let us not loose site of this (unless you really liked the Expos, I guess, in which case I would forgive you for loosing sight of this). Sometimes I think that the only thing about baseball that might not be as awesome as it was when I was a kid is baseball cards, but then you see something like the 2011 Topps Prince Fielder, and wonder if any baseball card has ever captured l'essence of its subject better:

Fattest vegan alive, friends; act surprised.

But then you remember, oh yeah right, his 2010 Topps:

Really, this got him beaned? Really? 

Anyway. Baseball. Let's hear it for it. 


KS

Rays 6, Blue Jays 5: And Yet There Was Much to Like

This close to a triple play!

Maybe it was the lawn-mowing-perfect-summer-Saturdayness of it all, but I enjoyed the heck out of yesterday's long, lazy game. Which is saying something, because Shawn Camp and Jesse Litsch combined to ruin Louis Perez's solid start with a three-run seventh (curse you, B. J. Upton) and the Blue Jays' comeback ultimately fell a run short. And actually, this one-run loss came on a day when Jose Bautista totally misread an Adam Lind drive off the wall in the first. There can be absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind (least of all Bautista's) that he should have scored on that play, but he didn't, and yet here I am, utterly undespondent. I just really like that Eric Thames went 2-4 with a home run late (after a nine-pitch at bat!); that E5 homered and walked; and that J. P. Arencibia doubled and threw out three baserunners (and nearly picked a dude off first, which is arguably the ultimate form of catcher awesomeness). Even Bautista, while not at his best, doubled, walked, and threw a guy out at third, you know? Just all kind of cool things happening yesterday, even if the end result isn't what I might have had in mind. 


Hey, did you hear that A. J. Burnett allowed six straight extra base hits the other day? Isn't that awesome? I can't think of a single baseball player that, broadly speaking, I don't want to do well, beyond a simple "I hope they do not do well against the Blue Jays" -- it's just not how I enjoy the game, and I'm not suggesting this is better or worse than a legitimately hate-filled approach, which is a totally viable way to enjoy sports, obviously -- except for maybe A. J. Burnett. And so his recent struggles have, well, they haven't made me glad, exactly, but I have certainly chuckled. Not chuckling: A. J. Burnett.

A. J. Burnett, shown here not chuckling.

The struggles of A. J. Burnett make up for things like the Yankees hitting three grand slams in a single game against Oakland this week (they batted sixteen times with the bases loaded, which is maybe the even crazier stat). 


Finally, how did I not mention previously that the Arizona Diamondbacks this week fielded an infield that was identical to a 2007 Blue Jays infield, and that according to Retrosheet, that has probably never happened before? McDonald, Hill, Roberts, Overbay. That is nutty! 


Actually finally, here is a neat picture where you can see the field reflected in Tim Tschida's mask. Neat!

Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

KS

Royals 9, Blue Jays 6: Toronto Drops Series to Kansas City Juggernaut

If you are wondering whether or not this dropped pop up led to runs, know that it totally, totally did.

Not great. The Blue Jays came back from a 4-3 west coast road trip -- which, given the way the Blue Jays play out west, is an unassailable triumph -- only to lose two out of three to the perennially, deservedly lowly Kansas City Royals, a team which I have not yet forgiven for 1985, when they had the audacity to come back against an obviously superior Blue Jays team in the American League Championship Series and deprive Toronto's best-ever baseball team the championship it so richly totally didn't deserve because it couldn't beat Kansas City in the ALCS. I was six.

Rather than focus on the negative coming out of last night's s-show, however, I would like to take a moment to point out that J. P. Arencibia hit his twentieth home run of the season, tying John Buck's all-time team-high mark for catchers, leaving him only four behind Eric Hinske (lol)'s Blue Jays rookie record of twenty four. Should we also note that Jose Bautista went 2-3 with a double and two walks, and at this point should pretty clearly win the AL MVP this year and actually might because of Ellsbury/Pedroia/Gonzalez vote splitting? Let us also note that E5, who has been absolutely tearing it up in the second half, is having the weirdest year ever: how is it even possible to hit 13 HR and 31 2B and only have 42 RBI? That is legitimately shocking. I was no less shocked when it was demonstrated at Drunk Jays Fans (which has been so much better this season than last, you have no idea) that E5 is basically the fourth-best DH in the league, and the three guys who are better cost a comparative fortune. He is an enigma, this E5.


But the final word today goes to Brett Cecil, whose countenance here speaks to last night's awfulness.

Hwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh?

KS

Athletics 10, Blue Jays 3: I think the bat-around third was our undoing; also SPYDOME

A lazy, dog-dangling afternoon.

I totally dig Brad Mills as the guy with literally no stuff (he does not throw appreciably harder than the batting cages at Atlantic Playland, for instance) who nevertheless gets people out at Triple A and so you've got to give him a chance with the big club. But dude got pounded yesterday. Here's what happened before Mills recorded an out in the third: BB, 2B, 2B, 1B, HBP, 3B, WP (oh, a run came in on the WP, yes indeed it did). He got the next three batters he faced, mercifully ending the bat-around third, but that was it for the day, and here's his line: 3 IP, 6ER, 2BB, 5K. How on earth did he strike out five? Weird, weird pitcher, man. 


Also, in case you have not been keeping up with SPYDOME -- in which case, shame on you, because this is the best story (arguably ever?) -- Jonah Keri (author of a recent sub-literate account of Tampa's almost rise to almost glory that we here have previously discussed) has put a lot of things together in one place here, including the heavy lifting done over at Steal of Home (great, great job, baseball internet), and Tom Tango's statistical breakdown that undermines or at least mitigates the impact of the statistical stuff in Amy Nelson's original piece (also, those of you who are taking this article and its fallout as an opportunity to show how little you think of women, guess what you guys are idiots and that is why girls don't like you much bro). Keri also points out, quite rightly, that "Cheating is awesome," which is a point that I think a lot of people are overlooking here. Keri showed up on the Jeff Blair show yesterday, too, and they had a pretty good conversation about all of this. Lots of good stuff coming out of J. P. Arencibia's Twitter the last few days, too, including "Just read the dumbest article on ESPN about us getting signs? I'm hitting 200 and we get signs at home, that makes sense? #clowns" and "Signs in the outfield were #pro today! Still didnt see them! Had to punch out with bases loaded for @blawrie13 to go Grandslam!" 


Finally, Spydome t-shirts are now on sale.

KS

Rays 9, Blue Jays 1: A Proper Shellacking

"Be cool, but these guys are going to rip the shit out of everything you throw."

Yeah, this was ungreat. The one thing I am feeling good about here, though, is yet another home run from catcher J. P. Arencibia, who is streaking.


KS

Blue Jays 3, Rangers 2 and Rangers 3, Blue Jays 0: I Hope You Enjoy Crispness

Crafty lefties are maybe the best kind.

Neither the Blue Jays nor the Rangers are messing around this weekend, and that is what I like to see (something I also like to see: when everybody just messes around, so either way I'm good, really). Friday night, Brett Cecil got the best of the totally solid Alexi Ogando for the second time in less than a week, getting all the run support he needed from a J. P. Arencibia three-run home run in the bottom of the fifth. I'm not here to tell you that J. P. Arencibia is some kind of unstoppable juggernaut of a dude -- there is, after all, the .284 OBP to consider -- but he has been hot lately, and it is just straight-up factual that here we have a rookie who is leading all AL catchers in home runs with 17, and who trails only Carlos Santana (who is awesome) in extra-base hits. He's second only to the Angels' Mark Trumbo in rookie home runs, I hasten to add. I know the thinking is that Travis D'Arnaud is actually the top catching prospect in the system and probably has the higher ceiling; all I am saying here is that I am enjoying J. P. Arencibia as a rookie catcher with some power despite his .220 batting average. The only other thing I want to mention about Friday night, really is that Jon Rauch worked for the third straight night (to which: cheers!) and gave up a home run for the second straight night (to which: jeers, sadly). Oh yeah finally: both Bautista and Lind are turning in nifty plays at the corners of late, and that is rad!


The story of today's game was starting pitching. Brad Mills came up for the Blue Jays, and pitched admirably despite having what scouts like to call "fringey stuff," by which I think they mean that everything he throws has little shit fringes around it. This is a guy who puts pretty much nothing behind the ball, and to make matters better, he leaves it up in the zone like all the time. But hey: two runs on six hits over seven innings, that's awesome. Unfortunately for him, Derek Holland only needed 95 pitches to shut the Blue Jays out, the Rangers fourteenth of the season. These guys can pitch, and it would be neither surprising nor in any way awful to see them back in the World Series this year. I had a friend from Houston visiting all week, and when the subject of the Rangers came up, he just looked disgusted and scoffed, like "pppppppffffffffffffffff the Rangers" and I get where he is coming from on that, I really do, but I'm not there with him. 


Another feature of this weekend's series I am enjoying so far is that Michael Young has brought his "IRL Roger Dorn Fielding Shitshow" with him to Toronto, and it is an absolute joy to behold. The best is listening to the commentators try to make sense of it. "Uh, I guess he was battling the sun a little on that one? Uh, that was maybe a bit of a tricky hop? Uh, Young is really battling out there today." It's pretty much the best. Also I'm totally going to pretend this isn't just sour grapes over how the Blue Jays traded Young and his eventual 2000 hits away as part of the Esteban Loaiza deal a million years. 


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

Braves 5, Blue Jays 1: Again.

Yeah, he got most of that one.

As the Atlanta Braves continued to exact their horrible revenge for the 1992 World Series yesterday, I totally got to a point where I didn't even care, particularly, that the Blue Jays loaded the bases in the eighth inning. They could have tied the game with but single swing of J. P. Arencibia's reasonably mighty bat, but I was so sure it wasn't going to happen that I didn't even break vegetable preparation stride (getaway day; afternoon game; it was wrapping up right around meal time; there you go). I take a small measure of consolation in Jose Bautista's home run, and his leaping catch at the wall to rob Jordan Schafer of a home run in the seventh. The previous batter, Brooks Conrad (note: I know none of these players at all), hit a ball pretty much the same place, but Bautista didn't play it quite as brilliantly and it was initially ruled to have been a ball in play and a triple but was rightly overturned for a home run. It was all pretty neat.


Also it is perhaps worth noting in closing that Jose Bautista, despite yesterday's awesomeness, has come back to the pack. According to FanGraphs, Bautista still sits comfortably atop the WAR leader board ahead of Adrian Gonzalez, Jose Reyes, and Matt Kemp, but according to the slightly different formulas employed by the keepers of Baseball Reference, Bautista is now neck and neck with Gonzalez and slightly behind Matt Kemp, who it must be said is dealing with a post-Rihanna life better than anyone could have anticipated. And so I salute him. 


KS

Royals 3, Blue Jays 2: Ricky Romero, King of Run Support

Ricky Romero is roughly this happy all of the time.

Ricky Romero threw a complete game and lost 3-2 because nobody but the rookie catcher got anything done with the bat. Were a calamitous injury to now befall that fresh-faced catcher, I would know exactly what it's like to be a Giants fan.


KS

Blue Jays 8, Royals 5: SMOKE

Adam Lind: more coy than you might expect.

The first inning of last night's game against the Royals was just outstanding. Yunel Escobar led off the game with a single, which is not a surprise or anything, in that Escobar has been quietly excellent so far this season, so I'm not trying to make a big thing about Escobar getting on to start the game as thoughtthat's some sort of rarity. No. He is good; and I like him. But then, with Corey Patterson at the plate, Escobar ran. His plan? To steal second base, I think. But he achieved so much more. 


In a series of events that I'm not sure I have witnessed since little league -- when it happened pretty much every game, especially, though not exclusively, when I was catching -- Matt Treanor's throw to second skipped over the bag and rolled into centre. Escobar took off for third, and Melky Cabrera was like we'll see about this! and gunned it to third, except the throw was horrible, and it went to the screen, and Escobar scored on a stolen base and two throwing errors. Seriously: this is probably the single most common source of runs in little league baseball. Took me back, man. Took me back.


From there, all that was needed were home runs from Adam Lind and J. P. Arencibia (tenth of the season for both), and a strangely effective outing from Kyle Drabek despite allowing nine hits and a mere three walks over five and a third. He did not strike anybody out. He did, however, throw four -- four! -- wild pitches. This Kyle Drabek, ladies and gentlemen, is a character.


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