He's theirs, now

I joked around about it in the comments today (y'know, I may have added a little dash of melodrama for your entertainment....it's kind of what I do), but in all sincerity, I really wasn't looking forward to this. Roy Halladay taking the mound to face the Toronto Blue Jays.

Even on paper, that looks gross. I shuddered at the thought of how it would look in the flesh. Then a funny thing happened when the Doc settled in to face his old teammates (Freddy Lewis leading off notwithstanding):

I was strangely unaffected by it all.

Oh sure, a part of me waxed nostalgic watching Halladay completely disembowel the Jays through 7 vintage Doc innings. But you know.... he's not our guy anymore. He's Philadelphia's guy. Has been since the winter. And that's OK. I'm not so foolish or arrogant to say we don't need him or wouldn't take him back.....but we've got our own guys, man.

We've got Shaun Marcum playing the role of staff leader. We've got Ricky Romero and his emerging ace-dom. We've got Brandon Morrow emerging into far more than Mariners fans ever dreamed he'd be. Brett Cecil will shake off a few rough starts and solidify his spot as one of "our guys". Sometime soon, Kyle Drabek will be our guy too.

(And Jesse...oh Jesse....we'd like you to be our guy, but, um, let's just wait and see.)

Point is, Roy Halladay has moved on. Turns out I have too.

Weekend MiLB update

Not that I want to turn this corner of the blogosphere into a regular "running features" page or anything, but for those too disinterested in perusing the minor league boxscores, here are a few names making noise on the farm.

(Then again, if MiLB boxscores aren't of interest, you probably aren't reading anymore anyway. So frig off already.)

GCL Blue Jays (Rookie): Blog favorite and 2009 Jays 3rd rounder Jake Marisnick belted his first professional homer in just his 5th pro game. Boo-ya.

Auburn Doubledays (Class-A short season): Arencibia, Jeroloman, and D'Arnaud get the ink (for now), but not yet 20 year old Carlos Perez is drawing raves. Trade John Buck! OK, maybe not yet.

Lansing Lugnuts (Class A): sorry Lansing, I'm just not feeling it.

Dunedin Jays (Class A): ....but don't worry, Travis. I've still got (baseball) eyes for you. If nothing else, it keeps me off Hechavarria's player page. Ugh. No, I will not link to it.

New Hampshire Fisher Cats (Class AA): Don't look now, but Zach Stewart's coming around. It has to be tough, being known as the guy traded for the GBOAT. Is it selfish of me to want to see the Jays just convert him into the closer in waiting already?

Las Vegas 51's (Class AAA): Can Chris Lubanski be our new Dopirak, who was our new Ruiz? Everyone OK with that?

Awkward angry meetings with our exes

We've already wasted too much energy and too much digital ink waxing poetic, philosophic and nostalgic over Roy Halladay. So, on this, the first meeting in which our side faces its former ace in game action, we have one simple thought:

Fuck Doc.

Seriously. Fuck him, and fuck his "30 win season", and his postseason aspirations, and his perfunctory full page ads in the Sun. You wanna wear another team's laundry, then fine...but we hope our guys hammer you all over their borrowed "home field" tonight.

In this post-Halladay era, the supposedly hapless Jays sit at 39-34, four and a half games back in the AL East and the AL Wild Card race. Meanwhile, the unstoppable force that is the 138 million-dollar Phillies, armed to the teeth with Doc and an incomparable offense, sit at 38-32, mid-pack in the NL East. Behind the Mets. We're pretty sure that's the way that you all figured it was going to play out.

Look: We respect all that guy did for our team while he was in Toronto, so we don't wish anything painful or catastrophic upon him. We just want to watch his neck get sore as he's watching moonshots lofted into the Philadelphia skyline tonight.

Friday Rock Out - Sad Bastard Country Ballad Edition
In honour of our continued attempts to put our former ace out of our mind, we offer the greatest of all sad bastard country ballads, captured live on Canada's own Ronnie Prophet Show.

Movin' on (A.D.)

We're an original bunch, aren't we? We all wrote the same melodramatic posts bemoaning our fates, cursing the baseball gods that took Roy Halladay from us. Here now in the aftermath of the deal, we're all writing the post-mortems. I wouldn't blame you if you tuned out right about now, but I do have a point to make.

I'm a bigger fan of the Toronto Blue Jays today than I was a week ago.

Whaaaa? I'm a bigger fan of the Doc-less Jays than of the team fronted by the biggest fucking ace in major league baseball? Well, in a manner of speaking, yeah. I guess I am.

Seems impossible, but it's true. Hell, I probably led the brigade dreading the inevitable transaction - where do you think the "I don't know what I'm gonna do if the Jays trade Doc" tag came from? And that tag is like, a season and a half old. I've been sweating this forever, man. But here we are, on the other side of Armageddon, and I'm OK. We're all OK. And if you're not - kindly feel free to jump the fuck off the train.

This is my team. This is our team. This is the team we all want to see return to glory. It was never going to be easy - with or without Doc. I'm starting to believe in The Plan. When it comes right down to it, we really have no choice but to believe, or risk turning into an even more cynical group of miserable pricks. But no, really, I'm starting to come around. I think I just might be buying what Anthopoulos is selling. Building. Adding to the core. Young players growing - and staying - together.

70 wins in 2010 or not, sign me up for a plate of that. It beats the shit out of 80 wins with Mencherson (God bless 'em) and Millar.

101 Reasons for Offseason Optimism: Vernon Wells. That's right.
Vernon Wells. You heard me.

Look (sorry HTV), forget about the goddamned contract. Wrap all of your thoughts on that matter into a tidy little ball and toss it in the G. It's not going anywhere, he's never going to exercise the opt-out (so save your booing), and it is what it is.

I think Vernon is going to bounce back. Our boy eyebleaf bankrolls that cheerleading brigade, and friends, I'm down. I had originally planned an entire post around this, but, uh, on further investigation, I don't really have a tonne of substance to back my belief. It's just a feeling I have.

Do I think we'll see a monster season, like the one the Jays based his contract on (you would have signed it too, so just stop)? No. Do I think we'll see a reasonable facsimile - a definite improvement over last season's debacle (too strong?)? Yeah, I do. Think .280/.340/.470. An OPS just north of .800. Is that worth $20M per? No, probably not, but Vern seems like a proud guy. He'll bounce back.

Building!