Rays 7, Blue Jays 6 (F/12): Jon Rauch Blows

Curse you, Robinson Chirinos.

So, OK, Brett Cecil couldn't quite hold onto the early 2-0 to which he was staked yesterday, and that is hard to get upset about, because who among us has not, will not, or would not allow a three-run home run to Evan Longoria? Few, I would argue. Jose Bautista tied it up in the eighth with his MLB-leading 33rd home run of the year, and had me thinking good thoughts as we headed into extras, but the tenth was kind of appalling: J. P. Arencibia walked, bless him, and Rajai Davis was brought on as a pinch runner, only to be picked off after he had safely made his way back to the bag on a pick-off attempt. How is that possible? He went back too far.  This wasn't Kent Hrbek wrestling a dude off the bag; this was a guy who just kind of stumbled off the base. Play-by-play man Alan Ashby's earthly body was transmuted into a living sigh as he recounted this incredible, saddening feat. That the Blue Jays still managed to push the go-ahead run across on an Escobar walk and a Rasmus double gave me hope, but, as is so often the case, hope proved to be both wrong and dumb.


Jon Rauch wasted absolutely no time blowing it in the bottom half of the inning. His second pitch to Desmond Jennings landed in the seats in left, and I should have just turned the game off. But instead I was there for Jose Molina's stand-up triple in the eleventh that plated both E5 and Travis Snider (if you're wondering how Travis Snider could have possibly reached base, it was on a fielder's choice). How improbable is that? A two-RBI triple -- a stand-up two-RBI triple -- from not just a catcher, not just a fat catcher, but a notoriously fat catcher. But that still wasn't enough, because there's Jon Rauch running back out there in the twelfth, getting ready to blow the whole damn thing again. Ashby, still audibly shaken from what had happened an inning before, was like, "Jon Rauch . . . Jon Rauch might blow this thing twice." And then he totally did. I know Shawn Camp got tagged with the second blown save of the day, and also the loss, but morally, if not statistically, Jon Rauch blew that game twice. That is absolutely what happened. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise, least of all Jon Rauch. 


NEWS AND NOTES OTHER THAN THAT I DON'T WANT JON RAUCH TO EVER PITCH AGAIN FOR THE TORONTO BLUE JAYS THANK YOU FOR YOUR PROMPT ATTENTION TO THIS MOST PRESSING MATTERS YOURS KS:


Brett Lawrie has finally been called up, which means Jose Bautista is back to right field, which means there too many outfielders up, except no it doesn't, because Travis Snider got himself demoted. Alex Anthopolous was on the radio after the game yesterday, and he explained that this isn't the kind of demotion where they're like, Travis Snider needs to go down and get his head straight, or Travis Snider needs to go down and work on the following things in regards to his swing or his approach; this is instead the kind of demotion where he's just not playing well enough to stick, and in fact has been outplayed by Eric Thames, who is quite rightly staying up. Snider is still young enough that it would be misguided to abandon all hope, or to decide, as the loathsome Gregg Zaun already has, that Snider is a AAAA player, but is sure not a guy I want to see playing in Toronto right now, and that is saying something, because my standards are honestly not that high in that regard.


ALSO: Alex Rios is totally at it again. Read all about it at Fangraphs/Notgraphs: "Awful Alex Rios is Awful in So Many Ways" . On yesterday's Baseball Today Podcast, Eric Karabell said he was stunned that Alex Rios didn't hustle after a ball he misplayed in the most egregious possible way, and Keith Law, without elaborating at all and with no venom in his voice, said, "I'm not." And it was devastating. Fun fact: J. P. Ricciardi signed this guy to an incredibly lucrative long-term deal and the White Sox were literally the only team dumb enough to take it on. After this season, the White Sox are on the hook for another $38 million to a player who this year has been worth -1.8 Wins Above Replacement. That is wild stuff. 


KS

Blue Jays 5, Rangers 2: Corey Patterson Dropped an RBI Bunt Single To Win It in The Ninth, No Big Deal

Bautista hit by a fastball from Pedro Strop, hater.

Had Adam Lind not crushed a two-run shot to right, had Brandon Morrow not gone six strong, had the bullpen not shut the door the rest of the way, had Jose Bautista not kept things even with a diving catch down the right field line in the eighth, in fact had but one of these awesome things not happened, Corey Patterson would not have been in a position to bring the go-ahead run across in the top of the ninth with a bunt single on a safety squeeze. But they totally did happen, and so Patterson dropped one down like it was scarcely a thing. If you enjoy such small ballery, you should totally watch the highlights, and, while you're there, why not also have a look at the weirdest play ever?


Here's what happened: bases loaded, two out in the top of the ninth, ground ball to Adrian Beltre at third. Beltre is awesome, so this ought to be it for the inning, right? But the ball kicks off the heel of his glove for his first error of the season, which is in and of itself a strange thing. But it got much stranger a moment later when Jose Bautista, who is so awesome that he can't help but be awesome even when he is mistaken, breaks for third after he apparently (and, again, mistakenly) thinks the base is open. It is not: there is totally a baserunner there. It's Corey Patterson. But Bautista, I guess, was so focused on Beltre's inattention and off-the-bagness that he was like I have such an awesome idea and just took off. He realizes his mistake before he gets to third, but he's way way way off second, so he draws a throw from Beltre, but the throw gets away from second and dribbles into the outfield, allowing Patterson to score. What?


But all of that zaniness has been overshadowed, at least among the Blue Jays blognoscenti, by the post-game demotion of Travis Snider to Triple-A Las Vegas. I am not as perturbed by this as many, because Snider has been not just horribly unproductive thus far (.181/.276/.264) -- he's also been taking awful, off-balance, truly wretched swings over, around, and through breaking balls with alarming regularity. Like, as bad as that slash line is, he's looked worse, if you can believe it. He's only 23, and thus far from a lost cause, but the idea was that this year he'd be given a full season with the big club to figure it out. This is what has angered many of my blogging betters. But I don't really care, because I don't want to watch this guy out there just sucking every day. I really don't. Does this make me short-sighted and wrong? Possibly. But fuck it.


KS 

Blue Jays 6, Twins 1 on Hardcore HomO Day

The second game of the season is the toughest sell all year. Pretty much any normal person with a reasonable and appropriate amount of interest in baseball has just been to Opening Day, and there isn't necessarily all that much interest in making it two days in a row. I could always get a dozen or so people up for Opening Day; the next day, not so much. This is understandable, and probably also, like, correct. So on day two, you really start to get the lay of the land, start to see what it's going to be like not on those rare forty-thousand-plus nights, but what it will look like when the Royals are in on a Tuesday night: oh OK, cool, there are only going to be about a dozen other people in my preferred section of the 500s; my nemesis, the really fat guy who is always getting his Mr. Sub all over himself and yells these really, really long things at the players -- "Hey Chone Figgins you suck today just like the last time you were in town which was an overcast day in July but before that you played well the previous series but I still didn't like you and I yelled something at least this long at you then oh shit I just got my Mr. Sub all over me and my promotional Mr. Sub sportsbag just a second" -- will again be joining me in the cheap seats this year; and oh hey, there's Maureen the cheerleading usher: "When I say [x], you say hit! [x]! Hit! [x]! Hit! [x]! Hit! Hit! Hit!"  

What I am saying here is that the day after Opening Day is opening day for the most dedicated fans, the true hardcores.  It is Opening Day for Hardcores.  It is Hardcore Opening Day.  It is the Hardcore Home Opener. It is Hardcore HomO Day.  

MLB actually kind of nailed it, though, by opening up on Thursday/Friday this year instead of a Monday, so the second game of the season falls on a day where someone other than my nemesis and I might want to take in a ballgame. So instead of the usual twelve thousand or so, there were 27,194 at the game yesterday watching Kyle Drabek throw smoke.  (Morrow was supposed to get the start, but is missing at least one with arm trouble that is in absolutely in no way serious at all so I don't need to worry, right?)  Drabek took a no-hitter into the sixth, struck out seven (including three of the first four), walked three, and allowed only one-hit over seven innings, and it was an inside-out kind of thing.  Nobody really hit him all that hard all day -- that little opposite field bloop was pretty much the only thing that got out of the infield. It . . . it was awesome.

In the end, the solo home runs from Jayson Nix and Jose Molina (any offensive production you get out of a Molina is of course "gravy" [lol they are heavyset]) were all that was needed, but what I was more excited about on the offensive side was that Adam Lind totally got a hit off a lefty! And he drove another pitch to the wall. If Lind does anything at all against lefties this year, there is hope for him. Travis Snider hit a rad pinch-hit two-RBI double, powered by this astoundingly shitty mustache:

Don't hate me because I am shitty looking.

That picture is actually from Opening Day, but trust me when I tell you it didn't get any less shitty on day two.

I will leave you for now with the following exchange between Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby, who really summed up the day perfectly:

JH: Well, Kyle Drabek, congratulations, young man! You're 23, the world is your oyster! And you have just won your first major league game, and what do you do to earn it? Seven innings, you give up one run on one hit, and win it 6-1, wow!

AA: You got me hungry for oysters right now, and some good baseball, which I think is coming our way with these Jays.

Exactly.

KS