Bad News and Worse News

It was another nail-biter for the Jays today-- unfortunately we were on the losing end of it, a 4-3 loss to the Angels. McGowan pitched well enough to win, but the offense really couldn't solve the Angels' Kelvim Escobar. There were a couple opportunities where players made small mistakes that cost them runs, like in the first; Reed Johnson lead off with a single, and with an aggressive mindset decided to steal second. On the second pitch, with Johnson going, Overbay took the the other way into shallow left-centre field. Johnson, meanwhile, didn't hesitate to run all the way to third. Stupid move, Reed. The ball was too close to advance all the way to third, ya should've stayed at second. He was thrown out by a mile.

Anyway, overall the Jays played pretty well for a losing team. They hit the ball hard and even managed to rally a couple times, including in the bottom of the ninth to qualify this game as yet another nail-biter. Oh Jesus, if I bit my nails, they would be no more. These last few games have been close and crazy, n'est-ce pas? (I hope my French was spot-on) Anyway, after Rios struck out to start the bottom of the ninth, V-Dub hit a triple into the right-centre field gap (for the record, as he rounded second I was like, "No you idiot! Vlad has a crazy arm!" but V-Dub being the daredevil he is took it the extra mile, er... 90 feet for the triple) and that's when the rally began. All in all, the Jays scored 2 runs before, with Glaus at third, Matt Stairs lined out to centre to end it.

The SOBAs

The "It's-All-Your-Fault-You-Son-Of-a-Bitch" Award goes to...

...both Lyle Overbay and Alex Rios. Yes, Lyle did go 2-4 but he also killed us with his error in the seventh. Krotchman or however you spell it grounded a ball right to Lyle's left, a simple play. Unfortunately Lyle chose the wrong time to give us his impression of Billy Buckner and fuck it all up. It went under his glove and into right field, with Matthews running to second. Then, Krotchman ran to second base, and Matthews ran to third. Rios threw it back to Overbay, and he still couldn't catch it, so Matthews jogged home so non-chalantly I wanted to smack him. The next batter, Maicer Izturis then singled Krotchman home. If Lyle could've caught the ball once, we could've prevented the runs.

Rios, on the other hand is handed a SOBA because of his lack of production at the plate and he technically did make an error, even though Lyle Overbay should've caught the damn ball. He went 0-for-4 and didn't get on base once, the first time since July 31st. He also left 3 batters on base, and struck out twice, the first time he struck out since August 8th.

The Worse News

It looks as if everybody's favourite bald kid's season is over, and maybe his career with the Blue Jays. Still experiencing trouble with his left shoulder, it looks as if Gustavo Chacin will undergo exploratory surgery ending the season, and possibly his career with the Jays. With the emergence of young'ns like Jesse Litsch, Shaun Marcum and Dustin McGowan, along with relievers Casey Janssen, Scott Downs, Jeremy Accardo and the Big Bad Wolfe, it seems Gustavo might be used as trade bait in the offseason if necessary. Retardo had this to say about Chacin:

"We're trying to find out if we need to have exploratory surgery in his shoulder, he's probably going down that road. We've done everything we possibly can do and we're getting to a different stage now, we just need to take a different course. When you exhaust all the things you're supposed to do and it doesn't work out, you've got to try to find another [option].

Tip of the Night: don't drink warm Heineken, it tastes like yak piss. Just sayin'...

Towers Still With the Jays

Speaking of yak piss, it seems Josh Towers will remain a Jay until the end of the season, what a shame. The Rockies looked interested in him, but they instead made a deal with the Twins for Ramon Ortiz in exchange for a minor leaguer by the name of Matt Macri.

This almost definitely means that there's no chance of seeing Towers in a Colorado jersey. Fuck. Just a thought, wouldn't it have been great if the last time Towers pitched for the Jays was when he hit A-Roids?



The Good

Well, we almost won it. We rallied in the end but came up short, not bad versus one of the best relievers in the game...

Mic pitched well tonight, his sixth quality start in a row, and thirteenth of the season. Unfortunately it was also his second straight loss because of a lack of run support...

The Big Bad Wolfe pitched out of a jam in the seventh to save Dustin from allowing another run-- it was mostly Maicer Izturis' idiocy that saved it, though. When someobdy (I forget, shut up) showed bunt, and popped it straight up and into Gregg Zaun's glove, Izturis ran like a dumbass and got doubled up at second base for the double play. Wolfe pitched another inning as well, lowering his ERA to a sexy sexy 1.82.

Also, after the game we optioned down Hector Luna after he sucked ass this whole time. Mind you, there's only one person that's in the position to be brought up now, which brings me to the bad...

The Bad

Russ Adams was called up from AAA. Why God why?!

The Jays couldn't hit with runners in scoring position and really didn't seize the opportunities they were offered, it's like they're on the road all over again!

Errors from Lyle Overbay and Alex Rios (technically his error, but Lyle shouldn't have cut it off, he ran infront of it... nobody was going to move anyway, Lyle) opened doors for two add-on runs right after we cut the lead in half.

The Ugly

Overbay's fucking glove was pretty ugly, God-damnit. That really cost us the game, Lyle...