Not So Far Behind

Yeah, so I didn't write the blogs for the last couple days. Sue me.

Anyway, while I was gone (and by gone I mean right here, just too Goddamn lazy to write up some blogs) the Jays went and swept the Mariners off their feet-- they landed on their asses. Oh, poor Mariners, their ninth loss in a row; sound familiar? I feel bad for them, considering all games were pretty close (7-5, 2-1 and 6-4) and the Jays got some lucky runs and some lucky outs in each and every game. I can really put myself in the M's fans' shoes considering when we decided to go nine straight winless games, a lot of them were close which made it all the worse.

In today's game, to complete the sweep, it was A.J. Burnett burning the Mariners away one-by-one with his high heat (See what I did there?). Constantly reaching 96 MPH on the radar gun at the Centre, Burnett looked phenomenal in his first three innings, not allowing a baserunner until hitting Jose Vidro in the third. Not only that, but he struck out five in the first two, including the ever-so-hard-to-K Ichiro. But in all honesty, the air-show must confuse such tiny-brained adolescents. Not like Ichiro is stupid, he's just small-brained-- only natural from the three foot tall Gold-Glove centre fielder.

Jeff Weaver was a different story, giving up two-run dingers to Gregg Zaun in the second and Matt Stairs in the third, along with a good old fashion batted-in run to give him five earnies on the night in just three very pathetic innings of work. In the fourth, after he already put two runners on in the inning, with M's manager MacLaren on the mound, Mariners' starter Jeff Weaver mouthed off to the manager, who took over as manager for Mike Hargrove on July 1st. I thought it would be another Lilly-Gibbons type fight like last year, but (un)fortunately not.

On a different note, I was near the dugout looking for players to sign my hat like I do sometimes (today Jesse Litsch, Curtis Thigpen and Blue-Jay great Jesse Barfield signed it) I saw J.P. going into the dugout so I yelled out, "Hey J.P., throw me a ball!" The only baseballs even close to him were out of his way, so it was kind of a stupid question, but nonetheless he blurted out, "But I don't have any balls!" Oh, good fun.

Not So Far Behind

Burnett's win today puts the Jays only 5.5 back of the Wild Card leaders, The New York Yankees. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up, because it isn't very likely, but the Jays actually do have a shot at winnings the wild card for a playoff berth. Here are the numbers:

• We have 26 games left on the regular season.
• That includes twelve home games and fourteen road games.
  
• We face the Yankees seven times, three times at home.
• We have nine series' left.
  
• Four of those series' are versus sub-.500 teams.
  

With the Yankees' pitchers dropping like flies of the zipping variety, and their offense winding down, their remaining 25 games will probably be a struggle; they only have ten more home games, too.

Hypothetically, if the Yankees play .500 ball from now to the rest of the season (+1 win because it's an odd number), the Jays would need a 19-7 record to tie them and get any hopes of a playoff berth. That's not too impossible is it? If we keep sweeping teams we'll have a not-so-terrible chance.