Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Sunshine, lollipops and...

...John McDonald home runs. All things that make the kids happy, and make life seem a little brighter.

Of course, in the unbridled elation that follows such a rare occurence, it's easy to find yourself wondering if maybe - just maybe - the Jays shouldn't look to bring back the lovable lug, and let him have a chance to play.

The question that you have to ask yourself when you start to go down that road is: Do you want the Jays to win? Or do you just want to be mildly entertained in the coming year?

It's been fun watching John McDonald and his Prime Minister of Defense routine for the past few years. We hate scrapitude and grittenacity, and we don't often find ourselves rooting for an underdog nearly as much as we have with Johnny Mac. Then again, we can probably appreciate McDonald's work with the glove because it is not the result of intense intangibility, but rather, it is a skill nurtured and developed to the point of excellence. And how can you argue with excellence?

Still, the number of runs that Johnny Mac may have been able to save with his defense over 162 games over what Marco Scutaro saved with his season would not nearly be enough to rationalize having him take up a roster spot going forward.

Then again, we're beyond the point where we can even begin to comprehend what the hell the Jays front is thinking these days.

Statistical curiosities
With his monster 3-for-4 evening, Johnny Mac's OPS has slingshotted ahead of Kevin Millar's. McDonald started the night with a .603 OPS, but with his two-bloops-and-a-blast performance, it now sits at a sterling .679. Meanwhile, Millar keeps plugging away and eroding our will to live with a .654 OPS for the season.

With numbers like that, we fully expect to see McDonald get a few cuts in as the cleanup hitter before that week's end.

8 comments:

Navin Vaswani (@eyebleaf) said...

grittenacity

Amazing.

Johnny Mac has to walk. It's been a pleasure. And he can take Millar with him.

Drew said...

Two things:

we can probably appreciate McDonald's work with the glove because it is not the result of intense intangibility, but rather, it is a skill nurtured and developed to the point of excellence. And how can you argue with excellence?

congrats. You said in two sentances what I've been trying to say for two years. I'm shutting my place down.

2) let's get the ball rolling and put the bug in Rogers ear now: Johnny Mac, color commentator for 2011 and beyond?

QJays said...

Millar seems like a very nice guy, and I have nothing against nice guys. (Read his chat on mlb.com). He says he likes Toronto, so he may even be more fondly remembered than Rolen. It'd be nice if Cito gave him some extra time off to go check out that safari thingy.

Mattt said...

Exactly what I was thinking watching the game last night-PMoD in the four spot...

Tao of Stieb said...

@Drew

If you're going to close up shop, can I have your spot on the Walkoff Walk podcast?

Seriously, the whole purpose of this blog over the past year has been to glean the occasional compliment from Lloyd T. Barber. So thanks. I feel better today.

Anonymous said...

I threw up in my mouth.

Anonymous said...

Seriously though, Tao and Barber - can't be beat on a daily basis in Jays blogdom.

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