Happy Canada Day to a depressed Blue Jay Nation

A couple of lifeless games against an AL East opponent has us wondering: How bad could this season get? The surprising hot start that saw the Blue Jays in contention in the first two months of the season is becoming increasingly faint in the rearview mirror, and the reality that the Jays are 10 games below .500 since May 19 has started to sink in.

Now, as we turn over the calendar page and look ahead to a brutal month of July, the prospects for the rest of the season are starting to look dire for the rest of the 2009 season. Moreover, we can't even remember the last "Pennant!!!1" or "Playoffs!!!1" in the comment section.

Nothing is ever easy in the AL East, and now that the Jays have squandered away their early season advantage, they'll have a rough time climbing back over that mountain.

Cripes. We need a vacation.

Say, that reminds us...
We're taking a vacation. We'll be off in the wilds of Northern Ontario for a few weeks without access to the interwebs or Twitter or (gasp!) television. So the most we can hope for is to catch some games on the radio, provided we can find a signal that reaches that far.

Otherwise, we'll be keeping abreast of Blue Jays news via the boxscores. Which could actually be fun.

This is actually the longest that we're going to be away from the blog since we started it, so we're not sure how long we'll be able to make it before running away from the in-laws and hitch hiking to the nearest internet café. We give ourselves at least a couple of hours.

The Ack, fresh off his recent trip to Toronto, will be stepping in to pick up the slack and keep the bloggage flowing until we're back on July 12. Treat him well, and enjoy the respite from our pedantic daily rantings, and we promise to come back refreshed and renewed and ready to face down the dog days of the season.

Cito's lineup madness continues...for the better?
The National Post's John Lott is reporting this morning that Vernon Wells will sport his spiffy Canada Day gear whilst riding the pines this afternoon. More impressively, Adam Lind in moving into the third spot in the order and Lyle Overbay will hit fifth. We wouldn't have guessed this in April, but Lind-Rolen-Overbay is the best looking heart of the order we've seen all year. Bring it on!

After hearing Jerry Crasnick note on the Drunk Jays Fans podcast that Wells got a shot in his wrist during spring training, it has us wondering if the struggling slugger is (for the second time in three years) playing like ten pound of shit in a five pound bag because he's trying to play through injuries.

If Vernon is hurt, then seriously, sit the man down. For a week. Or two. Whatever it takes.

On that subject, Fangraphs' Canadian connection Marc Hulet made the point yesterday that Cito is running his players into the ground, leading to diminished returns in recent weeks. While the numbers he presents most compellingly make the case that Marco Scutaro and Alex Rios might be wearing down, it's not totally clear that the same case can be made across the board.

But again: We defer to the guys who know the numbers, because we're much better with words. We were born to be a sophist.

Canada Day with the 1996 Blue Jays
Via Maclean's Jaime Weinman, here's a weird nugget: the Blue Jays lip-synching to a Canadianized version of "This Land is Your Land". Enjoy, and we'll see you back here soon.