Unearned v.2.0

Today's game kind of reminded me of the expansion Tampa Bay D-Rays... it's pitiful. We really should've won that game-- three unearned runs? Are you fuckin' kidding me? I don't know what it is with Rojo, but the team must have something against him when they play defense. Now in back-to-back starts he's given up three unearned runs because his defence let him down. What the fuck guys?! We're supposed to be some amazing defensive team, not the holder of the fourth most errors in the AL with 79.

Overbay's defense is way down. Hill's defense is way down. Wells' defense is way down. Fuck guys, do you have daddy issues or something? Overbay's usually a great defender but he's made two errors in two games, fuck. Hill's defense is way down, which I'm really starting to think is because of his knee that was hurting in the all-star break for unknown reasons.

I love the Jays, honest I do, but the way they've been playing defensively I can honestly say they don't love me back. What good is effective pitching if the defense is standing there with their fingers in their mouths?

Anyway, enough ragging on the Jays, it makes me feel bad.

The Good

I love these little offensive explosions that we keep having, it gets my hopes up...

We did manage to get another two doubles, so that keeps the streak going, 25 straight games with a double.

Yet another bonerific play from Johnny Mac The Wizard when he blocked the baserunner from sliding into second base with his knee so he could apply the tag. Paint that shit gold.

Matt Stairs got a homerun, now he's tied with Troy Glaus with 15...

The Bad

Matt Stairs got a homerun, now he's tied with Troy Glaus with 15... what the fuck! Troy Glaus get your head out of your ass and hit some slobberknockers, as Jim Lang of Sportsnet would say.

Our gloves are still faulty, fuck.

The Ugly

Our defense, obviously, was pretty damn ugly. Renee Zellweger ugly-- and that's pretty damn ugly. In fact, I'm too pissed off to write any more.

Big Hurtin

Damn we're lookin' good on the mound. A.J. turned in his second quality start in a row since coming off the DL, and even got some run support off the bat of the Big Hurt. Before rookie left-hander Garrett Olson could even record an out in the 3rd he'd already given up 5 runs in the inning, three of which came off the bat of Frank Thomas in his 19th homerun of the season. Burnett was great again, going 6.1 IP only allowing two runs. In my oppinion, what he did best was keep the first two batters off the basepaths, Brian Roberts and Gary Patterson, so they couldn't steal any bases. Although, Roberts did get a solo-homerun in the fifth...

All-in-all though the Jays weren't that great for a winning team. Only hitting 3-for-17 with RISP? Un-fucking-acceptable. I find it ridiculous that at this point in the season I'm still ragging on the Jays' offense-- Mickey Brantley, you should be fired. J.P. Ricciardi does frequently hint that Brantley's job is in jeopardy, but in reality we all know that Brantley's going to keep his job; afterall, as J.P. would say, nobody knows the hitters as well as Brantley does. Fuck that. Jesse Barfield or George Bell, at least an ex-Blue Jay, should take his job in the offseason... or earlier.

Big Pimpin

Alex Rios, you are such a fucking pimp. Look at these pictures:


Good work buddy.

The Good

Frank Thomas went deep, the first homerun in 49 innings. What the fuck?!?! And we call ourselves a power-hitting club, pfft-- we're a doubles hitting club.

That's the 6th straight quality start from Blue Jays starters, and A.J. Burnett's still doing great coming off the DL, 2-0 with a 1.98 ERA. Damn our starters are kick-ass...

Johnson and Rios got doubles, meaning that's 24 straight games with at least one double; holy crap.

The Bad

Only 3-for-17 with RISP? Are you fucking with me? Damn... we're so lucky we won.

We left 13 runners on too! Fucking ridiculous.

Curtis Thigpen, or Thiggy as I like to call him, left 4 runners on and went hitless... but he's still cooler than Zaun.

The Ugly

Thiggy's defence was pretty shaky, I must admit. But he's never caught Burnett and that curveball would be un-fucking-believably hard to catch. I guess it just wasn't his day.

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...

My Nails Are Bitten Already!

Yet another nail-biter-of-a-win for the Blue Jays, a 2-1 win over the Angels. Wow, that was really close. If it weren't for some key defensive plays from Gregg Zaun, John McDonald, Casey Janssen and Lyle Overbay (I'll get to that later) we might've lost-- it would've definitely been tied at least. Shaun Marcum was fantastic, like usual, only allowing one earnie on four hits and one walk in 7+ innings. He also struck out 6 innings and oh, he made the Angels his bitch.

The first great play came when Gregg Zaun threw out Chone Figgins, who stole 33 bases already. That the second time he threw out a runner in two nights! The great play wasn't just Zaun's throw, though, it was also John McDonald's tag-- another boner-inducing play from the glove of The Wizard Johnny Mac. Directly afterward, Orlando Cabrera singled to left. If Zaun didn't throw Figgins out, it would have been a tie ballgame.

Once Marcum was pulled in the 8th after walking the first batter, Angels' SS Erick Aybar, Casey Janssen came in and threw a strike to Lyle Overbay, who tagged Aybar out for the pickoff; another fine play from the Blue Jays...

The next great play came in the 9th. With nobody out and a runner at first, this is when it qualified as a nail-biter. But, Gary Matthews, Jr. then hit a linedrive directly into the glove of Overbay, who non-shalantly stepped on first base to double up the runner and just like that, there were two out. If that ball skips by Lyle, the runner probably would have scored; like the Beetles say, "All you need is glove..." Oh, so punny.

The Good

Shaun Marcum was excellent once again, improving his record to 10-4 and his ERA to 3.31, eighth best in the AL.

Alex Rios picked up yet another multi-hit game going 3-for-4. Its his fourth straight and seventh in nine games. His average is a very impressive .314 now.

Gregg Zaun did manage to throw out Chone Figgins, one of the best base stealers in the business.

The Bad

The Jays managed to get only one run in the second inning, although they were in a bases loaded with none out situation. Gregg Zaun happened to ground into a weakly-hit double play, and John McDonald couldn't score Troy Glaus from third.

The Ugly

Sometimes I feel like punching fellow Jays fans in the face. In the eighth when Casey Janssen walked a batter, fans in right field started booing him! What the fuck? Are these confused individuals so utterly incompetent that they fail to understand who they're cheering for, or can they just not grasp the fact that pitchers don't always get a batter out, and they're not completely perfect.

Aaron Hill made another error, which makes me wonder what happened to his defence? I don't know if I'm the first to think this, but has his defence been down since the all-star break? Maybe it's that knee injury he never got placed on the DL for...

Damnit, That Game Took FOREVER

Well, it's another disappointing outing from the Jays' worst pitcher, Roy Halladay. Not only was he horrible, like usual, but he was also so slow. God Halladay, get your act together... you don't even have a complete game yet!

In all seriousness, Halladay was great like usual, throwing the full 9 innings, only throwing 99 pitches and it all took less than 2 hours. In his 5th complete game of the year, he allowed only 5 hits and one run, dipping his ERA below 4.00. Oddly, he only struck out 2 batters, but that really just kept his pitch-count down. The offense wasn't bad, either, although they only had 8 hits and two runs, they kept the line moving as well as possible. The Angels' defence definitely helped, though, having commited 4 errors. Rios had 3 singles and a run-- oh, and was caught stealing.

In other news, Troy Glaus was out of the lineup for a second straight day with a hurting foot. Why does God hate the Jays? Right when he starting coming out of his slump his foot starts hurting and he can't play. Why?!?! Now Hector Luna, the equivalent to the 2006 Russ Adams, is playing third base; how humiliating.

Chone Shakur

Chone Figgins looks like Tupac, that's all I'm sayin'...


The Good

We won versus a great AL West team, which we don't do that well.

Roy Halladay was excellent, showing that he's still capable of winning awards for his pitching; what a cool guy. He got his league-leading 5th complete game as well.

The defence was a complete turn-around; it was pretty damn good compared to the 3-error game last night against the Royals.

Rios went 3-for-4 and is batting .636 (7-for-11) in his last 3 games. He hasn't gone two straight games without a hit since July 15th in Boston.

The Bad

There wasn't much, except that we didn't score past the first inning... we really didn't need to though.

The Ugly

Nada.

Unearned

You have to be shitting me! Did the teams switch around or something 'cause this is outrageous! Not only did the Royals tack on more runs on Litsch than everybody's favourite blue birds put on a 5.87 ERA starter in Perez, but the Royals played good defence, and the Jays looked like kids!

I'm sure everybody remembers that movie that doesn't exist where two personalities just switch in a matter of minutes, and everythings just fucked up... oh yeah, that movie does exist! Freaky Friday! But this game was different in the fact that I didn't watch it for the sole purpose of seeing Lohan's huge tits.

I can't even remember the last time I got angry at the Jays' defence, but today was a different story. One error, I can handle-- hell, even two! Three or more is un-fuckin-acceptable. Not only did two great defenders in Aaron Hill and Lyle Overbay make errors, but Hector "look-at-me, I'm-a-useless-motherfuck" Luna made one too, making me dispise him even more than I already do.

We have a hell of a lot of infield prospects, why did we bother picking him up? It cost us Howie Clark, who was really great defensively, and he hasn't contributed one bit. I just can't wait until September when Sergio Santos has the opportunity to play in the bigs, show his stuff. The First-round pick belted 17 homeruns this year in AA and is expected to be called up in September for a cup of coffee along with catcher Robinzon Diaz.

Anyway, in a different matter, Josh Towers is being sought after by many clubs including the Colorado Rockies. On Sunday, the Rockies sent RHP Tim Harikkala to work versus the Cubs because they couldn't trade for a starter in time. Reports say that they're looking at trading for either Towers or Orioles' veteran right-hander Steve Trachsel as they both have cleared waivers. Towers could be traded in the next several days. Although, the Jays probably won't get much in return so don't get too excited. Remember that Towers is just a mediocre pitcher and is only signed through this year, so the Rockies won't be willing to give up much for him, maybe a semi-promising prospect.

On the note of trading players, let me get this clear as many people have talked to me about this recently. All the time I hear from so many people that A.J. Burnett should be traded, and I'm really hoping that after yesterday's near flawless effort those people might come to their senses and shut the fuck up. A.J. Burnett will stay in Toronto, period. He's a great pitcher when healthy, and it's a shame he isn't healthy more often. But, for that same reason, we can't trade him. Think about it, teams won't trade much for a pitcher that might be on the DL for 75% of the season. Also, with Toronto's luck, the year he leaves he won't go on the DL once and win the Cy Young with flying colours, it's bound to happen.

The SOBAs

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

Frank Thomas, almost unanimously. The Big Hurt had 4 AB, in one of them he got a double, fantastic. In the other three, however, he left runners in scoring position with two out, including once striking out with the bases loaded, and two out. Plus, I'm sure if he wasn't a DH he'd have an error too...

Just Sayin'...

I know I'm not the first to be pissed off that Aaron Hill wasn't in the All-Star game, even though it was so long ago, but I just wanted to note that Hanley Ramirez and Eric Byrnes, the only two players with at least 15 homeruns and 30 stolen bases, weren't in the all-star game either-- Hanley's also an MVP candidate. So don't feel too bad that Hill didn't make it.

The Good

Well, despite losing, Litsch pitched a pretty good ballgame. He did allow 5 runs, but only two were earned because he really didn't get any help from his defence.

There were actually a few good defensive plays; one by Alex Rios in the first when he pretended to be running slowly to the ball so that David DeJesus would try to stretch and single into a double, but then he sped up and threw a strike to Johnald McDonald to tag him out by a mile. What a ninja. The second good defensive play was by, who else? The Wizard! He dove for a ball and threw out the runner from his knees. Paint that shit gold.

The Bad

Not only did we lose but we lost to the Royals! We needed to take at-least 3-of-4 and we didn't, what a bitch, eh?

Frank Thomas couldn't come up in the clutch, at all. He came up three times with two outs and runners in scoring position and still couldn't produce. The team as whole, though, couldn't produce with RISP, like always on the road.

Vernon missed yet another ball he would've gotten last year, and it ended up being a 2-run triple in the favour of Ross Gload.

The Ugly

Our defence, as a whole, was awful. Hector Luna and Lyle Overbay made errors on very easy plays, and they both were very costly. Aaron Hill's error wasn't as bad, the ball was hit sharply and Hill just couldn't catch it on the short-hop. If we didn't make any errors, we would have gone into extra innings in theory. That really just kicks you in the ass.

Welcome Back Burney

After his second stint on the DL, Burnett finally returned and became victorious over the Royals. Through 7.1 innings Burnett only allowed one earnie, a homerun to up-and-coming third baseman Alex Gordon. Burnett was so pissed off because of it too, haha. A.J. only threw 90 pitches however, which is outstanding for 7.1 IP-- it was probably better on his shoulder too.

Glaus continued to come out of his slump going 2-for-4, Overbay also continued to come out going 3-for-5 with 2 doubles and 2 RBIs. Thomas, however, seems to be cooling down, considering he was 0-for his last 8 AB, two games.

Oh yeah, and we won 4-1

Big Bad Wolfe

Damnit, how can you not love this guy? He has the lowest ERA among all relievers, and he totally owns righties, holding them to a .128 average.

Other than that one blip where he surrendered a game-winning homerun to a wristless Carl Crawford, he's been really reliable, and we got him for practically nothing! Only Corey Koskie, which is just about worthless anyway.