Come Back Down To Earth

With the Jays off to a torrid start, kicking the hell out of the AL Central and West, winning our franchise high six straight series, most of the pundits and nay-sayers have been quick to point out that this is all just meaningless because the Blue Jays have yet to face the Beasts of the East in their own league, and that will quickly return the Jays to the expected preseason predicted performance.

There’s already been a lot of discussion in the Jays blogosphere about the fact that the Jays are a fundamentally sound ball club, and that a regression like 2008 is very unlikely. But that’s about applying logic to looking at a ball club, as opposed to fantasy style statistical minutiae. I’m surprised that no one has considered another big reason why the Blue Jays aren’t likely to simply flameout against their Eastern rivals; their previous season records.

In the last three years, the Toronto Blue Jays record against the East is:

2008: 37 – 35
2007: 36 – 36
2006: 43 – 31

What has killed the Blue Jays every year has not been the big matchups against Boston and New York, although Tampa Bay even when weak proved a troublesome competitor. It was the weak teams in the Central and West like the A’s, the Rangers and the Royals that we’d be swept by, ultimately costing us that margin of victory for the Wild Card or first place.

If the Jays can bring a winning record against the AL East in May, historically, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t stand. Even just looking at the teams, none of the East have rotations that they should feel comfortable with, and are dealing with key injuries and troubles.

So enjoy the ride. There’s every reason to believe that it’s not going to end as abruptly as the pundits may think.

Tallet Magnums the Sox

Brian Tallet has called on the power of his Magnum PI styled facial hair, digging down deep into the hairy machismo mojo to dominate a powerful Chicago lineup by giving up only four hits and no runs over 5.2 innings pitched. Tallet was sharp on the mound, getting out of several tight situations with strikeouts, and having some defensive excellence from Snider and Rolen to back him up.

Tallet's WHIP of 1.03 shows a lot of confidence in challenging hitters, and using both location and changing speeds to throw them off balance and get key outs. Not that anyone needs to be all that good when spotted with 14 runs.

Tallet was also helped by the fact that Chicago's defense was essentially a sieve tonight, capped by Alexei Ramirez utter inability to make any kind of effective play from short. Ramirez' imitation of a puppet with his strings cut helped the Jays to three runs in the first, and several other key opportunities to act as the Jays tenth man in the lineup against Gavin Floyd.

Considering the state of the Jays rotation, the ability of the Jays young pitchers to get outs and eat up innings is beyond what could have been expected. Even with Litsch and Purcey's first two starts being so weak, the Jays have still battled back and made their record as an all over effort by the team.

And Tom Selleck's mustache.

Two Weeks Of Hope

To the amazement of all, the Toronto Blue Jays have come out of the gates with a big club swinging, and have ground up the elite collection of shitballers that the Tigers, Indians, and Twins call their starting rotations. Granted that they aren't exactly facing a cast of Cy Young contenders (except for Cliff Lee, who is doing everything possible to prove right the nay-sayers from last year who pointed out that his numbers were inflated by playing the bulk of his games against crappy hitting lineups), it is still nice to watch the kind of offense that was expected last year from the Jays finally catch up with them.

The Jays offense ranks first or second in the AL in seven offensive categories, powered by efforts up and down the lineup. Aaron Hill has come back from his shortened 2008 season to monster his way through the first ten games, while his Bosox counterpart and AL MVP Dustin Pedoria is hitting a ferocious OPS+ of 36. Lind came out of the gate with a big showing, racking up 12 RBIs and tying a Jays record, while Travis Snider, Scott Rolan, and Vernon Wells have been playing long ball against the AL Central.

Our pitching hasn't exactly been as stellar, now losing Jesse Litsch for at least four to six weeks. However, Ricky Romaro has put forward two excellent outings, Richmond made up for a walk filled disaster against the Indians by shutting the Twins down in his second start, only giving up a single earned run. Halladay is classically Halladay, save for one bad inning during Opening Day. Purcey has been touched, and has struggled with his control, but has also been punching out batters at the clip he's been expected to make. While the bullpen will certainly regress some this year, it has been relatively stable, and taking advantage of the offensive riches to work out the kinks.

After ten games, the Jays sit in first in the AL East. Hardly likely that they'll stay there, but cracks have been appearing the monsters of the East that may give us some hope. The Yankees are watching age finally start to cripple their favourite stars, and Nady is likely out for the season. It's sad when Nick Swisher is the reason to hope for a win for your ballclub. The Bosox have been similarly struck, with Mike Lowell and David Ortiz starting very slowly at the plate.

The general theme around Toronto is that this is unsustainable. Well, sure, an .800 winning percentage isn't likely to be carried into September, but I think people are missing the point when they are assuming that unsustainable means the Jays will regress back to 2008. As virtually every Jays blog has pointed out, and Mike Wilner seems ready to tattoo on the forehead of the next hockey douche that calls in with some ignorant rant, the Jays in 2008, even following Gaston's return, still hugely underperformed offensively from what should have been even average production. The Jays were so far below their career averages from virtually the entire team that you had to expect them to be stronger offensively just out of basic numbers. Unless the team as a whole went sharply into decline, we were due better hitting.

So certainly the Jays won't sustain this streak, but that doesn't mean they are going to suddenly start dropping series after series on the road. If anything has been proven in the first two weeks, it's that the celebrated big teams of the AL East are mortal, and that rather than looking at the Jays lineup in terms of talent, everyone who consigned them to 5th place focused on their performance in 2008 alone. As shaky as the Jays rotation is, most of their competition isn't looking particularly stable either. With our average offense, we should still be able to stay in games, even if it involves working the bullpen more. That will be what decides all those one run games that we lost last year in the future.

Reasons to Support Cito

“Well, I wouldn’t doubt that,” Gaston said. “He’s an asshole himself. A complete asshole. I will say that out loud, right in his face. It’s all about him. Nobody else but him. I wouldn’t doubt that at all.”

***

Gaston heard of Clemens’ complaint about Hentgen second-hand. Had Clemens voiced his complaint directly, Gaston vows “one of us would have had a whooping that day. It might have been me, but he would have known I was there.”

I would like to point out that I would pay good money to watch Cito fuck up Clemens fat, out of shape, douchebag body at a Flashback Friday. I'd even come early for the bobblehead of it happening.