Back to May 2008

Robert Ray, praying for it to end quickly and painlessly.

The Jays found themselves on the wrong end of a sweep tonight, at the hands of the Boston Red Sox. The most unfortunate part about it is, with their other series lost to New York, the mindless braying about the Blue Jays being unable to compete against the AL East is now extended likely all the way to the All-Star Break.

To be honest, in the series against the Bosox, the Jays looked snakebitten. Tallet pitched a gem against Boston, mostly shutting them down, only to have Wakefield have one of his on nights when his knuckleball is all but unhittable for any kind of power. Then the Jays drill Penny all over the park, but can't find the gaps or the fences, while Cecil has one of the most impressive pitching meltdowns since the good old days of Josh Towers. Finally, Lester get batted around, but in each inning, the Jays can't find a way to cash home baserunners, and we lose 5-1 with a not so good outing by Ray.

Not being able to hit once we have men in scoring position? It looked like a little trip on the wayback machine to May 2008.

In all honesty though, while the losses hurt, it's not as bad as it could be. The Jays were only blown out in one game, and the red Sox bullpen nearly gave it back up to us. Games one and three were games the Jays could (and argubly should) have won, but our hitting jammed up. It's possible that the pressure of the series had the Jays trying too hard, and in the case of both Cecil and Ray, they each had a bad inning that did them in.

The positive is that the Jays are still hitting, although the power wasn't there in Boston. It's quite a feat to put up 11 hits and only have a run to show for it. Or 14 the night before for only 3 runs. In fact, despite being outscored 15-5 on the series, the Jays outhit the Bosox 30-29. As much as I hit to say it, sometimes, you just have bad luck. It's a little worrisome about the lack of extrabase hits during the series, but the Jays are making good contact, and the Sox matched up a veteran knuckleballer, a legitimate number two starter, and their ace young lefty against a reliever, a AAA prospect, and a AA prospect. This does not fill me with dread for the future.

Lunchbox has been sent down to AAA, as expected, while the Jays roll into Atlanta for the utterly worthless spectacle of interleague play. I'm kind of excited about hearing Bobby Cox get interviewed by Jerry Howarth about the 80s Jays, but gamewise, I couldn't be more disinterested. There is noise that Russ Adams might be called up, for the left-handed bat and his strong performance so far in Las Vegas. My guess would be that Snider will be down mostly to correct his swing a bit, and give him a boost to come back up. You'd hope that would be in time for the series against Boston at home, assuming that he stops swinging at outside breaking balls. Over his last ten games, he's hit .269, with only one extra base hit and ten Ks, which is really scuffling at the plate.

It's very possible we'll see Ray or Cecil sent down soon, to make way for Janssen. Both pitchers have certainly impressed the Jays, but there's no point in chewing up service time when they're getting hit. Possibly Ray will have his start against Baltimore, and Cecil will need to have a second bad outing to head up going back down, but Janssen is a veteran presence, and his numbers are too good in AAA to bolster a rookie ahead of him.

The Yankees Are Coming

The showdown is finally happening. I don’t speak of the impending Halladay/Burnett matchup, or the first game against the New York Yankees this year. The matchup is between the Jays claims to legitimacy as a contenting team and their first game against a division opponent that the press takes seriously. Despite that only Tampa Bay has a lopsided record against the Blue Jays, the general opinion by the fans and the press is that Boston, Tampa Bay and New York represent truly legitimate contenders in the AL East, and Toronto will sink down into its tradition mire of slow starts to be scrabbling to stay above .500 at the All-Star Break.

Of course, there are those who believe that maybe this isn’t as cut and dried as one might think, and this series against New York will instead show baseball that Toronto isn’t going to be dragged behind the pack this year. Granted, it is us who will likely be disappointed at the end of the year, but to hell with it. Burying the Yankees with a sweep will cause blood to run from the eyes of New York fans, shredding the veneer of hope that their collection of mercenaries, prima donnas, douchebags and overhyped prospects will be a factor in September.

The Yankees will be trotting out their marquee lineup of pitchers for the series, whose combined salaries exceed the GNP of most African nations. A.J Burnett, Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia may only have one full first name between them, but they represent the only stable part of the Yankees rotation. Burnett started strong and has been waning recently, while Sabathia is the exact opposite, seemingly finding his groove with a four hit shut out of Baltimore last time up. Pettitte, their fifth starter, has been consistently mediocre, which has been considered a blessing in the wake of injuries and inconsistencies with Joba, Hughes and Wang.

The Jays will counter with the ever-intimidating Halladay, and if you believe the New York blogs, a pair of former hotel employees stuffed into uniforms and wheeled out to be crushed under the billion dollar bats of the Yankees. That works for me, since dismissing Richmond and Tallet is a wonderful way to set up a nastier fall. The Jays should handle Burnett well. They have a dangerous lineup against right handers with a ton of power, and the team knows AJ inside and out. Attempting to blast a fastball past Lind just because you’re pissed about the umpire’s last call is a good way to deposit it into the second deck.

While the return of A-Rod to the lineup will bolster the Yankees offense, Richmond has been death on righties this year, and his slider keeps the ball on the ground for his defense. The Yankees are a long ball team, a lot of free swingers which will hopefully play to Richmond’s strengths. Pettitte was 1-2 against the Jays last year, with an ERA of 5.13 and a WHIP of 1.29. As Wilner pointed out, if you subtract Tallet’s one bad start verses Kansas City, his line is 2-0, with an ERA of 1.80 and a WHIP of 0.92.

Now, you might say that subtracting that start is fiddling with the numbers for a positive result to make him look better matched against one of the mostly highed regarded pitchers in the game. Very true, but the point that has been made is that the Jays have been playing against weak teams. Thus, Tallet’s one loss to one of the worst offenses in the Majors should be considered an outlier, since it directly goes against the established wisdom of the season. Fun with numbers time, kids!

Ultimately, if the Jays are a fluke this year, it won’t be proved by getting crushed by the AL East. It will come from our tradition of matching up very well against our division rivals, and then getting killed in godawful roadtrips to Oakland, Kansas City, Minnesota, Chicago and Cleveland. Simply put, contending teams find ways to win series and avoiding stacking up losing streaks. Non-contending teams have good months, good roadtrips, and give the gains back the very next series against a team they should be overmatching. Right now, the latter describes the New York Yankees.

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.