Wednesday, July 22, 2009

A bountiful buffet of baseball links

On the bright side, our profound depression this morning has little or nothing to do with Roy Halladay, so that's a start.

What's got us down this morning is that we're still recovering from watching Lyle Overbay throw last night's game way over Marco Scutaro's head and into left-centerfield (d'oh!), then swing weakly at the first pitch he faced in the ninth (d'oh!) and pop out. FML.

Also disturbing: We were watching the game fall apart while on the treadmill at our gym, which out of nowhere has become meathead central. The entire last three innings, we had to listen to a bunch of jarheaded rejects from the 1989 Oakland A's grunt and do that thing where they exhale through their teeth and create this disgusting vapor spray of spit all over the place. Again, FML.

So fuck it. Here are the links.

The Drunk Jays Typists: The DJF took the time to transcribe a big chunk of Keith Law's appearance on Michael Kay's show yesterday, and you should really read it. The KLaw was fully revved up over the tack taken by his former boss in recent years, and it's a pretty interesting and accurate take down of the Ricciardi years. (And doesn't it already feel like we're talking about them in the past tense?)

eyebleaf has grievances, and he knows how to post them: Sometimes it's great fun to see one of our fellow bloggers start to really lose their shit, and it looks like the Editor-in-Chief at Sports and the City has started to come unhinged.

Let's not rest our hopes on Shaun Marcum just yet: The recovering righthander had another rehab start at Double-A New Hampshire last night, in which he went just three innings, giving up five runs (one earned) while striking out four in a 9-2 loss to Trenton. And while there may be a knee-jerk inclination to forgive him for the four extra runs and call last night a success, the truth is that Marcum was asked to get one additional out because of a throwing error and ended up giving up an RBI single and a homer.

Travis Snider is on the mend: The Great Big Giant Pasty White HopeTM has been back in action for a couple of weeks now in Vegas, and has hit four homers since coming off the DL with back problems. He's also taking a few more walks, which help to offset his high strikeout rate.

Cowboy Down: It's a few days old now, but Ian at the Blue Jay Hunter has a good piece asking why the Jays are holding onto a replacement level veteran like Kevin Millar. With Randy Ruiz, Buck Coats and Snider waiting for the call in Vegas, it would seem like the Jays could take a shot on someone else rather than being content with Millar's tepidly evil .666 OPS.

There are things that Jeff Blair hates: Lots of them, actually. MMA. Fashion. Golf. Attractive women. The smell of freshly cut grass. David Shoalts' Hawaiian shirts. Brandon League's Canadian shirts. So plentiful are the things that make Blairsy grumpy that we've started to list them over on Twitter under the tag #ThingsGloBlairHates. Feel free to add your own.

17 comments:

Fangarello said...

Hi Tao,

Any idea where Adam Lind was last night? No word from the TSN broadcast crew on his whereabouts or his solid numbers against Cleveland this year.

Drew said...

Cliff Lee eats guys like Adam Lind for breakfast.

Because he's a tough lefty and a cannabalistic hillbilly, you see.

The Ack said...

^^ On the bench, having a rest against Clifford the shitty red dog Lee.

Apparently, Cito decided the rigours of DHing were taking it's toll on young Adam, and thus more AB's for sweet-swingin' Kevin Millar.

Oh, Cito.

Tao of Stieb said...

Hey man, don't be dissing Kevin Millar and his .751 OPS against lefties.

That dude is, you know, just about average against lefties.

(Of course, Lyle Overbay has sunk to a .611 against lefties, which is pretty much why Millar is still here.)

FREE RANDY RUIZ!

Joanna said...

Jeff Blair really likes Salma Hayek...so the attractive woman thing isn't true cause Senora is a fox.

Tao of Stieb said...

I don't know that "attractive" accurately captures just how caliente Salma is.

Mrrrooawwwr.

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

Tao, thanks for the link.

Regarding Law, and I posted this over at Hum and Chuck as well, what the fuck does it take in Mr. Law's eyes to be declared a "player development machine?" Look at the list of players drafted by Ricciardi, especially fucking pitchers, and tell me how he's not been very successful and developing talent? I'm sorry but I call bullshit on Law. He'll never get over the fact that Ricciardi canned his ass, and will never be able to report fairly on him for that reason.

The same "scrap heap" he chides Ricciardi on reaching into time and time again is where Tampa Bay found fucking Carlos Pena. They picked him up for nothing, on a minor league deal, and now he's a home run hitting machine, and an All-Star. So props to Tampa Bay for actually hitting gold on the scrap heap. Pena worked out. The guys Ricciardi's signed haven't. It's the nature of the scrap heap. It's luck.

Don't get me wrong, Tampa Bay's made some great trades - Huff for Zobrist, acquiring Garza and Bartlett, etc., but our man Ricciardi's made some decent trades as well - Scoots, Rolen.

As I've said before, Ricciardi's free agent contracts haven't worked out. And looky down in Tampa Bay, Pat Burrell's a piece of shit.

I'm not saying J.P. shouldn't be fired. Like Law says, he's been here a long time, but, fuck, he's done a lot of good while here, except get us to the playoffs. Perhaps it is time for a change, but the Ricciardi years have done more good than bad to the organization, in my humble opinion.

Ian Hunter said...

Ack, I love the new moniker for Cliff Lee. That one is priceless.

Whenever I see the name "Kevin Millar" marked as the Designated Hitter, I cringe. That .666 OPS is not sexy enough to warrant a title of "Designated Hitter".

A silver lining; how good has Bautista been in the outfield? That dude has a cannon of an arm. Put Rios and JoBau in centre and right field and the Jays have a dynamite outfield.

Anonymous said...

Yes. The Bautista Appreciation Society has arrived. He's made some great plays in the outfield this year.

ugly duckling said...

Why don't we trade for Milton Bradley. I'm sure that the Cubs would love to dump him and maybe some Cito-love is what he needs.

Wells +$40m?

Rios for Bradley and intriguing prospect?

Torgen said...

I thought it was pretty ridiculous that Peter Gammons had Millar in the list of guys we would trade if we traded Halladay.

Ian Hunter said...

Count me in for the Bautista Appreciation Society (BAS for short).

Fangarello said...

I'm down for the BAS. Is he to 2009 as Scutaro was to 2008?

Darren Priest said...

What is Keith Law's secret? From everything I've read, he just shits out the most caustic and negative ruminations on everything yet it gets lapped up like manna from baseball heaven.

He's got nothing on this Klaw.

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