9-10

8-10

Eat it, Rockies

POOOOUUUUNNNCCEEEE

Troy Tulowitzki entered the series against the Giants batting .364. He is currently batting .323 after going 0 for 8 in the first two games. He demonstrated a knack for sulking, refusing to run on a passed-ball third strike, staring at Buster Posey and taking his batting gloves off determinedly while waiting at home plate to be tagged out. I hope he and Albert Pujols are thrown into the same slump-pit to rot for the rest of 2011.

The Rockies are suddenly figuring out that their best-record-in-baseball, haven't-lost-consecutive-games hot start looks a lot less impressive when you're not playing the Diamondbacks, Mets, or Cubs any more. By contrast, the Giants are suddenly figuring out that they are THE DEFENDING WORLD CHAMPIONS, that their offense is light-years better than it was in the first half of 2010, and coincidentally, clubhouse manager Mike Murphy just found a big box in the attic marked "SWAGGER" that he meant to take down after the team returned from the Cactus League. Better late than never, Murph!

Historically, the Giants avoid the sweep today. Matt Cain is pitching, Sandoval injured himself at BP an hour ago, and Cody Ross returns. It's going to be a fun one. Let's play...just the one. Travel day tomorrow. Two would be silly.

Blue Jays 6, Yankees 5 (F/10): YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

Travis Snider and Ricky Romero share . . . A Moment.

When both Yunel Escobar and Travis Snider struck out with the bases loaded in the sixth inning, I was of the opinion that this game sucked. Snider seemed to agree, too, as he indicated by snapping his bat over his knee à la mode de Bo.  But we were both wrong, as it turned out, because we had failed to allow for a triumphant comeback in the bottom of the ninth against Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer in the history of baseball, no big deal. 


Down by two, Escobar led off the ninth with a ringing double, and after a Snider ground-out moved him to third, he scored on a wild pitch as the Yankees did their best to pitch around Jose Bautista (they were right to want no part of him after his earlier rocket of a home run to left in a decisive blow against the haters, as I see it). Bautista went first to third on an Adam Lind single, setting the stage for a squeeze play to tie it in the bottom of the ninth against Mariano Rivera. It was at least as cool as that sounds, too: John MacDonald managed a perfect bunt down the line towards first on a tricky high pitch, and Bautista darted home on the safety squeeze, beating the tag after Texeira's fine play and flip to home. 


Jon Rauch wasn't all that hot in the top of the tenth, walking two, but no real damage was done, so who am I to complain? Rivera understandably did not come back out to work the tenth -- he was lucky Eric Chavez was able to go 5-3 for a slick double play to end the ninth -- so it was Ivan Nova who gave up the leadoff single to E5, the selfsame E5 who, two outs later, would race home on a Travis Snider shot to the wall to win it.  Full game highlights are here, and you really should click them, on account of the extent to which they own (that extent, for the record, is  so hard).


An almost perfect night! Did Kyle Drabek throw smoke? Alas, he did not. Did A. J. Burnett fail utterly? Tragically, no. But those few shortcomings aside, this was a hell of a game. 


KS

Red Sox 9, Blue Jays 1: That road trip was the worst.

Dice-K is 7-1 against the Blue Jays in his career. Which is just great.

Do not mistake my lack of a timely post on yesterday afternoon's game for a lack of hating it. In truth, I only caught a couple innings, and so my misery was shorter lived than that of the Blue Jays themselves, who were made to look foolish against a pitcher who, for several seasons now, hasn't beaten any teams other than the Blue Jays. Why bother? Just pace yourself against everybody else, Daisuke, get your work in, and then just let it rip against the Blue Jays and pitch seven innings of one-hitter. I see no problem with this approach other than that it is the worst. This whole road trip was a debacle, every bit the debacle implied by the 3-7 record. But at least we're only three games back of the Yankees, who are town for a quick two-game set, and tonight there is the very real possibility that Kyle Drabek will throw smoke, which I am very much looking forward to. And if we sweep, we're only a game back! 


Hey also, did you notice that with Frank Francisco coming back from the DL, it was Jesse Litsch that got sent down, not Jo-Jo? Isn't that wild? 


KS

What a Lovely Turn of Events

I should write negative BF previews more often. Just hours after posting my fears about the historically unkind bouncy-house known as Coors Field, the Giants went absolutely bonkers. Lincecum took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, while Nate Schierholtz (a notoriously light-hitting leftie whose only home run at the short-porched AT&T Park was an inside-the-parker) launched a ludicrous third-deck shot, one of three Giants taters on the evening. The good guys won by a final of 8-1, Tulowitzki went hitless, and Kung Fu Panda took three walks.

Pat Burrell picked up his fifth home run in nine hits, but his first non-solo homer of the season. It's always a blast watching Burrell launch his moon shots, because he has that humongous, goofy swing. He just goes WHAM, watches the ball only until he's sure it's not hooking foul, then stares at the ground and trots around the bases. He's so ashamed of his flashy displays of dingertry.

Looks like Cody Ross will be activated and Brandon Belt sent down today, which is fine. Let the bears pay the bear tax, I say. Here's hoping the Giants keep it up in "The Buckeye State," Colorado.

8-9

Indeed.

Buckle Up

The Giants managed to avoid sweeping the Diamondbacks yesterday, thanks to Michael Tejada and others. Thankfully, they looked real good taking two of three in the desert. Aubrey Huff got his first home run of the year out of the way, and Posey and Kung Fu Panda are looking amazing. Sandoval is, at-bat by at-bat, erasing the horrid memory of his performance last season. The defense is looking less clanktastic with every outing, with the exception of the aforementioned Tejada. The hottest hitter on the Giants is -- you guessed it -- Aaron "Frank Stallone" Rowand.

The bad news is that this afternoon, the Giants open a series in Colorado. Historically, whenever the Giants visit Bland Humidor Stadium, the Rockies take turns eating the Giants' lunch and cleaning the Giants' clocks in a brisk, workmanlike fashion. Troy Tulowitzki will hit a minimum six home runs over the next three games. That's carved in stone.

The other bad news is the Giants 6-7-8 hitters. Burrell is hitting .190 with 8 hits, 4 HR and 4 RBI (yep). Brandon Belt has entrenched himself at the Mendoza line, and unless he explodes out of it in the next few days, he's the only player it makes sense to send down when Cody Ross returns. And then there's the six million dollar man, Mike Tejader.

Meanwhile, back at the "the Giants don't have a backup starter if one of their rotation gets injured," Barry Zito injured himself. After throwing two innings of exceedingly Barry Zito pitching, Zito dove ("collapsed" would be a better descriptor) for a bunted pop-up and his foot exploded. The upside is that the Giants bullpen has been playing out-of-their-minds good lately, notably Guillermo Mota, Sergio Romo, and Ramon Ramirez. (Not Jeremy Affeldt.) The Giants bought the contract of prodigal son Ryan Vogelsong, who had been overachieving in Fresno thus far this season. Best-case scenario: Dr. Sam Beckett has leaped into Vogelsong's body and can't leap again until the Giants release Zito and/or win the World Series again. Worst-case scenario: it can't possibly be worse than last year's Wellemeyer experiment.

Tim Lincecum is pitching today. Cause for hope and joy in the most fearful and jaded of men. Please also note that last year in Colorado, he suggested the Rockies were trying to slip him a juiced ball. Will there be a fight? Who knows! Let's play some home run derby!

- Bill

Red Sox 8, Blue Jays 1: I used to be like, "Cut Juan Rivera some slack," but now I am like, "Cut Juan Rivera."

Don't let this awesome picture fool you: Juan Rivera is not awesome.

I am pretty much fine with the Blue Jays getting pounded 8-1 yesterday. Jon Lester was really good, and Jesse Litsch got touched up early and often. OK, fine. The lone Blue Jays run came on a pretty cool play, at least: with Juan Rivera on first and Aaron Hill on third with two outs, Rivera broke for second with the pitch, and on the throw to second Hill broke for home and scored while the Sox trapped Rivera in a rundown to end the inning. Strategically, it was almost like a sac fly with two outs, and kind of neat. There wasn't anything else to cheer about yesterday, but that's alright: Ricky Romero takes the mound today, and the Blue Jays can still salvage the series with a win today to get the split. But there is nothing Juan Rivera can do to salvage not being an asshole.


It has nothing to do with his part in the play I have described above. That was solid. But remember in the Seattle series, when Rivera grounded to short and just kind of ambled out of the box, only to see a moment later that the shortstop was having serious trouble with it, so Rivera picked up the pace, but was still thrown out by a step anyway, because he sucks? Yesterday, the fielding equivalent of that shit show occurred in the bottom of the second, when Jed Lowrie flared one into left that Rivera, using his incredible baseball sense and instincts, was pretty sure was going to land foul, so he just sort of jogged towards the general area just so you couldn't say he didn't. Then it fell fair for a hit, and Jesse Litsch had this oh COME ON look about him, and rightly so, because that was nonsense in the first degree.


I want Juan Rivera gone. Because I hate him.


KS

7-9

7-8

Red Sox 4, Blue Jays 1: Somehow, Josh Beckett managed to outduel Jo-Jo Reyes

A balmy 45 degrees (7 Celsius) here at lovely Fenway Park

Well, with Brandon Morrow making his final rehab start in the minors tomorrow, and with an off day coming up this Thursday, this was probably Jo-Jo Reyes last bid to keep his spot on the Blue Jays major league roster. It did not go well for Jo-Jo. It took him ninety-four pitches to get through three innings, miraculously allowing only four runs on his seven hits and five walks. The 4-1 final score makes this game look a lot closer than it ever really was, because while Jo-Jo struggled, Josh Beckett struck out nine over seven innings and looked alarmingly like Josh Beckett out there. He even had that "OK cool there is no way that pitch is anywhere near . . . ZOMG CURVEBALL" curve working. What are you going to do? Precious, precious little.


Notably, though, Aaron Hill and Travis Snider each stole their fifth base of the season, giving Toronto a league-high seventeen. How about that! That, a couple of nifty plays by John MacDonald at third, and three solid innings out of the pen for Carlos Villanueva are really all we had today. I'm making it sound way bleaker than it was, though: it was all totally fine. You don't go into a Josh Beckett vs. Jo-Jo Reyes contest and expect a win. This was fine. Totally fine. 


KS

7-7

Blue Jays 7, Red Sox 6: Joined in Progress

Bautista knocks in the go-ahead run. (Pictured in background: haters.)

I tuned in late, and so I missed Brett Cecil allowing only two hits over six innings (but both for home runs -- whoops!). I also missed the Blue Jays scratching their way back into it on Corey Patterson's two-run triple in the fifth and Travis Snider's RBI-double in the sixth. But I checked in just in time to catch Red Sox reliever Bobby Jenks get charged with four runs in a third of an inning's work, which was pleasant enough. The Blue Jays stole three bases in the inning, including a Bautista/Lind double steal that made the heart soar. It was nice to see the Jays' newfound aggressiveness on the basepaths pay off, because it hasn't exactly been smooth sailing on that front so far. I am all for running all over the place if you can do it at a rate that is a net benefit in accordance with the sabermetric principles I hold dear and cherish like a baby squirrel I have found and nurtured to a spirited adolescence after overcoming the initial shock of having found it in the first place and then secondarily not having any idea what to do.  (I have in fact never found a baby squirrel; that was all metaphor -- thank you for flying the viewless wings of poesy; please return your mind to its previously unblown position.) This is all to say, if the Blue Jays can run without running into too many outs, this is going to be great. But if they can't, I will feel aggrieved that they ever tried.


Jason Frasor had a nice inning of relief, which was unfortunately followed by the worst Rzepcynski outing of this young season: three runs in two thirds of an inning. Not cool. But Janssen got out of eighth and Jon Rauch did a great job getting the top of the order in the bottom of the ninth. Good stuff! 


Can I just say in closing, though: JUST PITCH ALREADY PAPELBON JESUS CHRIST COME ON. I know I'm not the first person who has noticed that he works a little bit slower than most. But just pitch already, Papelbon. Jesus Christ.  Come on.  


KS

BF GIS HoF: MANNY RAMIREZ

Had I mentioned previously that Carlos Delgado is my favourite baseball player?

Carlos Delgado, my favourite baseball player, retired yesterday. You might find upon reflection that even though you are an obsessive and devoted baseball fan, you don't really have a favourite baseball player, exactly, and really haven't since you were twelve, and that would be reasonable and fine. But on a cold winter day not long ago -- the Saturday after the Vernon Wells trade, I believe it was, a time when I was (baseball) feeling particularly reflective -- I was asked who my favourite baseball player was, and I took the question pretty seriously. I have no doubt that we can all name, like, a dozen or so players we're really very fond of, and if pressed we could all probably cut that number in half and say, "OK, here are the best guys, seriously; I love these guys." But if you had to narrow it all the way down, and say definitively who your favourite baseball player is, that's tough, unless you've already thought it through and correctly determined that Carlos Delgado is the best, and thus totally your favourite baseball player.    


That this period of reflection came in the wake of the Vernon Wells trade was no accident: Vernon, as I no doubt mentioned in any number of posts at the time, was truly my last remaining dude, the last of the Blue Jays from the period when I was at the ballpark almost everyday for a few years (Jason Frasor doesn't count). Those Blue Jays teams weren't good, but I had never before been and will never again be that close to baseball on a day-to-day, who's-pitching-tomorrow, let's-go-down-early-and-watch-BP way, and so it's pretty likely that I will never feel a closer connection to a baseball team than I did to those generally pretty bad teams. I mean, I can tell you absolutely everything you need to know about the 1992 and 1993 Toronto Blue Jays -- of course I can -- but I can also tell you absolutely everything you need to know about the 2002, 2003, and 2004 Toronto Blue Jays, which is way different, I think, in that there is absolutely nothing anybody ever needs to know about any of those teams. But they are totally my teams. The 2003 Toronto Blue Jays are, oddly enough, my favourite baseball team. It is much less odd, I think, that Carlos Delgado is my favourite baseball player.


It's worth noting that since Delgado announced his retirement on Wednesday, almost nobody has been a jerk about it -- and this, of course, is the internet. Somebody tried for a minute to be a dick about Carlos in a thread on Baseball Primer, but he was quickly shouted down (I'd link, but that place is just kind of smug most of the time. I don't know why I still go). Delgado is almost universally admired, and rightly so, as he is the best. Stephen Brunt has a nice piece in the Globe and Mail talking about how Carlos came up (as a catcher, you will recall) just at the tail end of the Blue Jays long run of being awesome, and while Carlos himself went on to be awesome, the Blue Jays sort of did not. David Schoenfield has "Ten Random Thoughts on Carlos Delgado" at espn.com, and that's worth your time, too. Even the straight-up AP story is really good. 


What I have been most struck by, though, was Keith Law's response to a listener email on the Baseball Today podcast yesterday. Law, who worked in the Blue Jays front office from 2002 through 2006, and who as you know is generally unencumbered by any human emotion other than disdain, responded thusly when asked whether or not Carlos Delgado should be in the Hall of Fame:

Because I know Carlos, and saw that 2003 season when he nearly won the MVP, he hit the four home runs -- I actually saw a four-home run game, because of Carlos Delgado -- I would love to say yes. But I do think he falls just short, and I don't think he's going to get a lot of support from voters, unfortunately. He was -- is -- a great guy, and he was tremendously fun to watch in addition to being really productive. 

Law then goes on to talk about the enormously high offensive standards that exist for players on that end of the defensive spectrum, and says that Delgado has to be considered just behind Fred McGriff, who the voters have already decided is not a Hall of Famer, and so there's probably not much of a discussion to be had here. But again, what I think is significant here is not the analysis (which is spot-on), but the fact that Keith Law, whose response you could very well have expected to have been "lol no," instead goes with an apologetic "I would love to say yes." The only explanation that would account for that oddly out-of-place note of humanity in Law's voice is that Carlos is awesome.  


I could go on -- and will, a little -- but such is the extent of my baseball feelings on the subject of Carlos Delgado that they legitimately threaten to sprawl across an endless series of incoherent posts that mostly involve rendering his name in all-caps and with way too many o's, but I will try to reign that impulse in, and focus on a few essentials.


THE FOLLOWING THINGS ARE TRUE ABOUT CARLOS DELGADO AND I DON'T CARE IF SCHOENFIELD BASICALLY STRUCTURED HIS ARTICLE LIKE THIS I AM GOING TO DO IT TOO BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY CARLOS MEANS AS MUCH TO DAVE SCHOENFIELD AS HE DOES TO ME:


(i) Law mentions that four-homer game. Let's start there.  


It was so awesome.


It was actually also a pretty good game, with the lead see-sawing back and forth until the Blue Jays tied it and went ahead for good in the eighth. I had uncharacteristically OK seats that game, and so instead of the upper deck I was sitting in the 100s in left-centre, which gave me a really good sense of the truly ridiculous speed with which home runs number one and four left the park and struck the restaurant in centre field. The first of the four was the 300th of Delgado's career, a three-run shot with which he broke his own team RBI record (he'd finish the year with 145). The second was a scraper; the third had a little more on it than that, but holy cow did he ever get a hold of that fourth one. Just a blast. Delgado hit the ball as hard as anyone I've ever seen. 


I think my favourite thing about the four-homer game is actually something that happened the next night: a standing ovation for his first AB, a great buzz in the crowd as he ripped a couple of balls foul, and then another big ovation when he struck out. It was great.

(ii) In the last few days, much has rightly been made of Delgado's class and dignity, and quite rightly, because, I mean, yeah, absolutely, Carlos Delgado is a classy and dignified guy. And just, like, sensible, you know? “There comes a moment when you have to have the dignity and the sense to recognize that something is not functioning," he said at his retirement speech. Dignity and Sense: The Carlos Delgado Story. 


But one of my preferred Carlos moments came in a momentary lapse in class and dignity and sense, sort of: July 15, 2002, with the Blue Jays leading the Yankees in the seventh. Orlando Hernandez had already been dinged for six runs, and was clearly not loving that. His first pitch to Delgado in the seventh actually went behind Carlos, and Carlos -- who never makes a big show when he gets pitched inside -- started yelling at Hernandez in Spanish so loudly and so clearly and so awesomely that I could hear him from my seat in 540, so we're talking upper deck, left field, 328 feet from home plate with the roof open and 25 371 people in the building (I have a scorekeeping book!), and I can hear Carlos getting heated up from all the way up there. It was totally out of character. The managers came out of the dugout, but everybody else stayed cool, until El Duque hit him with the 3-1 pitch and got tossed. 

(iii) Unfortunately I might not get the exact details of this right, but one day one of the giveaways at the park was what I believe to have been sets of Blue Jays bookmarks that had a bunch of information about different players, not stats, but the kind of information it is assumed kids will like: you know, hobbies, what they had wanted to be when they grew up, and things like that. They might not have been bookmarks, but whatever, they definitely would have marked your place in a book if that's what you were after, and they were definitely for the kids. Anyway, all the information was pretty standard, really, pretty much what you'd expect when you ask a bunch of questions like that to a bunch of ballplayers. It was all completely unremarkable. But for whatever reason, I distinctly remember that Eric Hinske listed "X-Box" as his hobby, and Carlos listed Cien años de soledad as his favourite novel, and it kind of confirmed what should already have been totally clear to anybody who'd been paying attention: Carlos Delgado was an adult surrounded by a bunch of idiot kids.

(iv) It's actually quite a feat to have played the bulk of your career in Toronto during the height of what we have apparently all agreed to call The Steroids Era and to have somehow managed to keep your name entirely, faultlessly intact. If you have perused the Mitchell Report -- and every time it comes up, I know I urge you to do just that, and I really mean it -- you will be familiar with the extent to which the Blue Jays locker room circa 1997-1998 was basically where that guy had sex with the monkey in terms of the spread of steroid use, if you follow me. OK, no: Oakland, but Toronto was right up there. And not once ever, not even in a sly kind of way, has Carlos Delgado's name every been associated with any of that. Maybe if Carlos were a slightly more serious Hall of Fame candidate, people would Jeff Bagwell him, and assume because he was a big power hitter playing in that era, there's no way he was clean (I may have mentioned before that I find this unfair to Jeff Bagwell?). But Carlos kept his name out of all of that, either by legitimately being clean, which is honestly what I think, or else by some serious Smiley/Karla-level subterfuge, and either way, you've got to respect that. The case has been made that we should look at Carlos' numbers and almost kind of adjust for the fact that he was a clean player playing in a dirty league and approach his numbers accordingly, but that's kind of crazy. Interestingly, when later asked how he felt about losing out the 2003 AL MVP to Alex Rodriguez, who of course admitted to using performance enhancing drugs that season, Delgado's answer was basically that it sucked a little.    


(v) About that 2003 near-MVP season: Carlos was an absolute beast, putting up a .302/.426/.593 with 42 home runs, but it wasn't even his best year. In 2000, the only other year he so much as made an All-Star team (isn't that weird?), he put up a .344/.470/.664 with 41 home runs and a total of 99 extra base hits. That's just so many extra base hits, man. To return unartfully to the 2003, though, one of my preferred Carlos moments is the grand slam he hit on the last day of the season. It was just, like, go Carlos.

(vi) The silent protest against the observance of "God Bless America" is something that tends to get some people riled up, and I get that. But also, you should settle down. First of all, let me say that while I am in many ways your standard issue Canadian socialist, I generally lack the knee-jerk anti-Americanism that is usually part of the package deal, so that is not where any of this is coming from. But the mandated playing of "God Bless America" at baseball games in Canada got pretty old pretty quickly, especially at a time where, you know, some pretty divisive wars totally got going. Delgado's protest was initially about bomb testing in his native Puerto Rico, but it didn't help when he went on the record calling the Iraq war "the stupidest war ever." But it was a silent protest until the Toronto Star did that big story on it; it's not like he was making a spectacle of himself. And when he eventually got to the Mets, and was directly asked to stand for the playing of the song, he did, so again I say settle down about that.


(vii) Of all the many things for which I will never forgive J. P. Ricciardi, failing to make even a reasonable effort to resign Carlos Delgado after the 2004 season is without question at the very top of that hateful list. Carlos signed with Florida for a pittance, tore a strip off the ball, and then had three solid years in New York. Why would we have wanted to see any of that in Toronto? I mean, shit, we had Eric Hinske to fall back on, so we were good, right? The one consolation here -- and it is pretty minor, but it is kind of at least something, almost -- is that we all got to see Carlos perform in the playoffs, and he was awesome in 2006, to the point that the Cardinals wanted nothing to do with him, and walked him three times in game seven.


Believe it or not, there is still much I haven't said, but this is already completely out of hand, and I don't want to keep you. But as you can see, I have a lot of things to say about my favourite player, Carlos Delgado, on this, the occasion of his retirement. I would have loved to see him stay healthy long enough to get to five-hundred home runs, but alas. I'm sure there'll be a nice ceremony for Carlos Delgado at the Skydome before too long, and you can be fairly certain I will have remembered other vital things that need saying/feeling by then.

KS


(many of those photos are from a Toronto Star photo gallery you can find here)

6-7

Phil Coke and the boys, gettin' down on a Thursday night.

Tommy Johns in the House

Last year Jordan Zimmermann was recovering from his Tommy Johnson surgical implants and was having control issues with a lackluster fastball, in the process of re-learning his shit, so to speak, like a stroke victim but about the pitcher's arm instead of the half of brain. Last week, he had a strong showing in punking out the Mets on their opening night, to piss on their field and declare that, "No, we Nats are not the bottom feeder in this NL East motherfucker no more."
Last night against the Phillies though, Zimmermann took it to the next level. Holmes pitched five perfect innings, not allowing a single punk ass Phillie bitch on base, and gave up a homer in the sixth but made it through 7 solid innings with only that one earned run. On top of that, after the game, Cliff Lee remarked that Zimmermann's fastball was one of the nastiest ones he'd seen. Coming from Cliff Lee, that's high praise. Of course being stoked that a star pitcher lavishes praise upon one of your starting Ps kinda goes against that whole "not the bottom feeder in this NL East" mindset. But hey, we take what we can as Nats fans.
Some important excitements and calmnesses to take from this are, it looks Tommy Johnson Surgery can be recovered from, as we all hold our collective stupid breaths looking at the $300 million dollar Kid Strasburg. But the recovery process is longer than just getting back on the mount. Even if Kid Strasburg is back this year by the fall, he's gonna be going through what Zimmermann did last year - relearning how to do what it is he does. Zimmermann got his speed back but took a while longer to get control of that again. Hopefully Kid Strasburg can do the same.
Man, looking at the stupid Phillies pitching line-up a few days in a row is ridiculous. Even if Zimmermann ends up a solid as fuck starter for more than a few months of a few seasons, and Kid Strasburg returns as great as his potential promised, that still pales in comparison to the Phillies. What the fuck man? What the fuck?

5-7

I'm pretty sure Josh Hamilton is buried in there somewhere. And there is little Darren Oliver, in baby form, about to get spiked by the mighty Brandon Inge.

Blue Jays 8, Mariners 3: It's About Damn Time

Jose Bautista (left) seconds before being hellaciously bagtagged by Yunel Escobar (right)

After seven innings of making Jason Vargas look like Cy Young, the Blue Jays totally got a hold of the Mariners bullpen in a bat-around eighth that put six runs on the board, three of them coming by way of a Jose Bautista home run that owned particularly hard. (Strangely, for all that Bautista has been a beast thus far [1.125 OPS, haters], he'd only knocked in two runs, both on solo home runs, before the three-run shot today.) 


The Blue Jays went with their B roster today, really, but pretty much everybody ended up with at least a hit, except for John MacDonald, who we do not ask or expect to hit, and Juan Rivera, who can't be gotten rid of quickly enough to suit me. Top of the sixth, he grounds to short, and  he just kind of lopes out of the box until the short stop bobbles it, and so he gets his oh shit run on, and then the throw still beats him by a step. Which is all utter nonsense. I totally get that it's a 162-game season, and it's a grind, and there are going to be times in August when you're hurt and it's hot and you're playing a day game after a night game and they've started testing for amphetamines now and there's just no way you're going to be able to bust it down the line on every single routine play. I get all of that. But today, it's April, and god damn it, you're Juan Rivera, which is to say you've earned nothing. You are the fourth outfielder on a third-place team at best. My wife has never heard of you, bro. Run, Juan. Run.  


Unfortunately for Kyle Drabek, all of this happened too late to get him the win, but he had another solid start, giving up two earned runs in five and two-thirds. He picked Ryan Langerhans off first, too, which was pretty tight. 


And so farewell for now, Seattle: I admire your beautiful ballpark, and have long felt a fondness for you in your capacity as the Blue Jays' 1977 expansion cousins. Also it was awesome how Ken Griffey Jr. played for you, because that guy was amazing. But I kind of can't believe we dropped two of three to you just now, because this year you are an awful, awful baseball team.

Only five-and-a-half months to go, bro, stay strong.

KS

Mariners 3, Blue Jays 2: This Road Trip is Largely Nonsense

You're still cool, though, Ricky Romero.

At 6'7" and 260 lbs, Mariner's rookie starter Michael Pineda is pretty much the biggest dude you have ever seen. There's been a lot of buzz about this guy, and unfortunately I am here to tell you that at least some of that is warranted, because he made the Blue Jays look pretty lame last night. Corey Patterson and the DHing E5 had a couple of hits each, and Bautista got one through, too, but other than that: not cool, Blue Jays, not cool. Adam Lind is now 0 for his last nine at-bats, for those of you keeping track (it can't be just me). Ricky Romero only allowed two earned runs on five hits in the eight innings he pitched, but the unearned run (the result of an Edwin Encarnacion from the arm of Jayson Nix, if you follow) was, alas, the difference.

So a pretty dreadful 1-4 west-coast road trip so far, but if the Blue Jays can salvage today's getaway game -- and then beat up on Boston before coming home to crush the Yankees, obviously -- all will be forgiven.

KS 

PANIC jk it's all good

Well, the first four innings of tonight's Giants game sure looked like it was time to ratchet up the hopelessness machine. Tim Lincecum wasn't getting strikeouts, Aaron ".134 BA" Rowand was batting leadoff, and the Giants were hacking at everything remotely ball-like that was thrown their way. Chad Billingsly gently rolled a ball across the plate and Brandon Belt closed his eyes and swung above his head as hard as he could, bless his heart.

BUT THEN Aaron Rowand of all people got a big hit. Pablo Sandoval swung at a pitch a half-inch above the dirt, heading down, and stroked a double down the right-field line. Brandon Belt got a bloop single. The Giants took the lead. Timmy locked it down and started looking like Tim Lincecum. The Freak even flashed leather and made a gigantic big-boy diving stop and last-second toss to first for a put-out.

BUT THEN reliever Jeremy Affeldt came in and gave up a first-pitch homer to Marcus "On The" Thames and ruined Timmy's hard-earned win. He loaded the bases with one out and Guillermo Mota came in...and threw LIGHTNING BOLTS to get the huge strikeout. A pop fly later and the Giants were back in the dugout...but it was a tie game.

BUT THEN Rowand hit a first-pitch triple off the wall in right-center and came home on a wild pitch. And the Giants won. Thanks to Aaron Rowand. Again. It ended up being a fantastic and wild game, risen from the ashes of yet another Dodger drubbing.

Make no mistake: Rowand is not a starting outfielder. He is even less of a leadoff man. Andres Torres and Cody Ross can't come back from the DL soon enough. When they get back, Belt should probably be sent down, returning Huff to first base and giving the Giants 2/3 of a mobile outfield again. But for tonight, at least, it is enjoyable hard-fought and well-earned victory for the Giants. Their three home wins this season have all been in exceedingly dramatic fashion, and they have an opportunity to take the series from the Dodgers in the rubber game tomorrow.

Let's get some more excitement.

Nationals 5-5, 1/16 of our way to Mighty Decent

(early development of gyroball)

I do not really remember baseball exists too well most of the time. I used to care, and was a Giants fan, but then the strike season and Barry Bonds kinda just crushed the care out of me. Baseball seems very American - not old school immigrant came to America to become millionaire America historical story, but today entitled as fuck to everything ever America, thus not really deserving of anything, and will probably suffer an agonizingly slow death. That's baseball, and that's America.
But I really want to try, ever since the Nats came to D.C. They haven't given me much outside of Future Promise up to this point, and even that has been clouded in mismanagement up until the last couple years. Anyways, we are already 1/16 of the way through their 2011 campaign, which I am deeming The Road to Five Hundred, meaning we will finally finish without flirting (or achieving) triple digit losses. (I do this in /16s fractions because I am mechanically inclined, and twist ratchets and sockets all day long, helping to rebuild America, futilely, one actual thing at a time. I use strange fractions because fuck metrics.)
Last Friday I had remembered, "Oh yeah... baseball. I should figure out how to listen to the games online because listening to baseball is a true pleasure, and nothing is more great than to zone out to a baseball game on the radio, letting it absorb into your mind through the soothing linguistical inflections of the play-by-play dudes." Where will these men come from in our internetted future, I wonder? But then my wife was out of town so I had all three kids, and thus forgot to listen to radio baseball. Oddly enough, I watched the original Karate Kid with my 12-year-old daughter that night, for a nice and pure father/daughter time together, and there was a drunk man on the beach wearing a Washington Nationals hat, who was belligerent until Miyagi karate chopped the top off of four beer bottles ALL AT ONCE! This was a moment of psychic clarity the universe was throwing at me. I must listen to baseball games on the radio.
I did read about the game and it was the home opener for the Mets, who lost, with our Zimmermann pitcher with the extra "n" at the end of his name successfully pitching a solid amount of pitches, nearing triple digit pitch count, for the first time since Tommy John surgery last year. This of course speaks to the Nats psyche not in terms of the actual Jordan Zimmermann who did this deed, but the Future Promise of our young Stevie Strasburg, who was to be the Ordained Nolan Ryan of His Generation, but was sidetracked by fucking himself up right out the gates, which means we think he will instead be the Ordained Greg Maddux of His Generation.
Of course I did not actually start listening to radio baseball, because psychic clarity is all too often out-buzzed by the next 37 sources of mindless entertainment shooting at me from seventeen different devices. But today at work, I was like, "You know what? I am an American bureaucrat, and I've worked hard for about four of the hours of bothered to be at work these first two days of the week. I'm gonna look up the baseballs inside the interwebs."
The most startling thing for me to come upon was the Nats starting line-up for this game last night against the dreaded Philadelphia Phillies, in D.C., which has been home-away-home for Philly, and was probably why the Nats signed Jayson Werth, so that the fans had somebody they could cheer for during every game. Batting clean-up and playing 1B was Matt Stairs. The Matt Stairs. Mr. Softball. Also of note was Livan Hernandez pitching a solid game again and continuing to be the most amazing freak in a lovable way left. He has become a Pedro Martinez-lite version for the 2011 baseball fan. And also Jerry Hairston was starting at 3B, who made me think of those terrible White Sox uniforms of like 1983 or so, and that just made me think of Greg Luzinski, and then I wondered what Greg Luzinski was doing nowadays. I figured probably bowling and living somewhere in the midwest where the white people actually still know what brand of white people from Europe they are, and middle-aged dudes with vibrant facial hairs will get into very serious pseudo-arguments about what is a better type of sausage or deli meat or something artisanly handcrafted from carcass in the old world traditions. For some reason this made me think about bowling, probably because those types of dudes always bowl, and really without them and their kind, duckpin bowling would probably be dead to the world by now.
But the Nats won, beating the dread Phillies, which put us at 5-5. Livan got his first win of the year, and Shaggy Werth knocked his second homer of the year against his old homies to seal a lead that he spark plugged in motion with a lead-off double in the 4th that ended in 3 runs and an INSURMOUNTABLE LEAD with that wacky and wily Cuban maestro on the mound. 5-5. That's all I ask, at least for now, until it comes time for that Future Promise to start paying some goddamned dividends.

4-7

Lazarus, get yo ass up!