Now that's an ass-whuppin'

Thoughts on last night's 11-3 annihilation of the Orioles:

Signs that it is time to give up baseball and pick up a nice hobby: Listening to the radiocast, Jerry and Alan went on at length about the difference in speeds between Steve Trachsel's fastball (which was hitting around 82-84 MPH) and his changeup (which was hovering around 77-80 MPH). It was right about this time that Traschsel mixed in a curve to Aaron Hill, and boom went the dynamite, a three-run blast. We're thinking Trachsel should probably take his deliberate pitching routine, pack it up in a duffel bag and head out on a cruise to Tahiti, where he can put people to sleep with his shuffleboard skills.

Was that really necessary? We get that Marty Pevey is supposed to be more aggressive as the third base coach, but did he really need to send Gregg Zaun on what was going to be a close play at the plate and the Jays up 10-3? It might have been bad form, although we'd like to think that Pevey wasn't thinking about the Orioles' feelings on the play. It might have just been a matter of Pevey seeing the play and reacting to it. Or maybe Zaunie had to get to the dugout to write a blog post. In any case, we're not opposed to watching our guys run up the score.

Oh, and Shaun Marcum rocks: Marcum gave up a couple of big flies, but was rock steady for the rest of the night (6.2 IP, 4 hits, 2 runs). We'll confess that the one guy in the rotation that we were apprehensive about in this off season was Marcum, as we weren't sure that he'd be able to replicate last year's exceptional performance. However, watching the ease of Marcum's delivery and the way that he stays calm on the mound, we're really coming to appreciate anew the gem that we've got in this guy. If that's our fourth starter, we can deal.

Frank Thomas is sleepy: Frank Thomas drove in just one run since leaving the friendly confines of the Rogers SkyDome. While he did get hits in all three games of the Baltimore series, his average has slipped below the Mendoza line. So let's not get overly excited about him having a better start to this season quite yet.

Apparitions: We were caught off guard last night by seeing Guillermo Quiroz, the Ghost of Catchers of the Future, er, Past. And just as we were snapping our head around to see Alex Rios' old running mate, dude waved at a ball that slipped past him like he was a matador. Nice to see you again, Q.