Let's try not to Denbo this thing up

Greetings, friends of the Tao. It's your new pal The Ack here, acting as your freshly-minted weekend editor. I know, I know - a bit of a head-scratching decision by ToS, isn't it? Seems to be a lot like the Brevin Mencherson experiment, while a perfectly healthy Adam Lind is killing the ball down on the farm. Pretty wild gamble, if you ask me. Reckless, even.

I have my theories.....perhaps the Tao wants you to appreciate his posts for the genius they are by bringing in a total rube for contrast. Or, perhaps the Tao was just sick of me shittying up his comments section on a daily basis. Either way, much like Brevin, who am I to say "no" to the opportunity? The hope here is that like "young Adam Lind" (to steal one of Campbell's patented descriptors), who after a sluggish start to the season now leads the team in CLUTCH, I'll round into form.

(You see what I just did there? I bought myself a month or two of terrible. See how I did that? Slick.)

Oh yeah, about the name....I really shouldn't have to go in-depth about the legend of famed middle reliever Jim Acker, should I? No, I didn't think so.


So, about Adam Lind
He's raking, big time. He probably should have been up weeks before he finally was recalled, and he should probably be hitting higher than the 7-spot right now. But I'm not going to get on JP/Gibby/Cito for either of those things, and here's why:

In his first stint up this season, Lind went 1 for 19, and not one of those Aaron-Hill-hitting-the-ball-hard-but-it's-just-not-dropping-for-him 1 for 19's.....he looked lost. Soft stuff down and away, strike 3. Let's face it, at the time of his demotion, the Jays were still in "we gotta win games now" mode, and a young player with declining confidence wasn't doing the team (or Lind) any good. So down he went - and yeah, maybe he was down too long - but the stay in central New York obviously didn't hurt him. To the contrary, maybe, just maybe, the extended stint in the 'Cuse did Lind more good than we are giving JP/Gibby credit for?

As far as hitting 7th, again - confidence. Give Cito props for giving Lind the everyday job in left and slowly moving him up the order. Baby steps, people. Remember, he started out hitting 9. If he continues at even a healthy fraction of this pace, I'm sure he'll settle in somewhere 2-6 by mid-August.


Weekend series against the sub-Mariners
If the Jays are to hit Cito's stated goal of 10 games over .500 by season's end, these are the types of home series you need to think about sweeping. Unfortunately, the big-2 of the rotation - Doc and a suddenly frisky AJ Burnett - won't see the mound, so I'll settle for a Meatloaf.

Looking to keep his rotation spot (although, who's going to replace him now? Davis Romero? Bill Murphy?), John Parrish (1-0) throws Friday with Miguel Batista (4-11) countering for Seattle. Let's hope the ex-Jay finds a spot at the end of the bench nice and early, allowing him time to work on his latest prose, "Ode to a Shitty Pitcher". Hey Miguel, there's no point in throwing 8 different pitches if they're all fat and juicy.