A.J. tosses BP

To be kind, it was a less-than-stellar showing by A.J. Burnett in last night's 9-8 loss to the A's. Burnett, who gave up 10 hits and six earned in less than five innings of work, didn't seem to have it working for him at all. We always defer to the Mighty Hale on the location, speed and movement of pitches, but it looked like A.J. threw a lot of fastballs after Mike Sweeney hammered a hanging curve ball for a double in the first.

It's funny that Hale drops a Nuke Laloosh reference in the title of his post, because that's exactly what we thought of when watching the A's crush pitch after pitch in the five-run second.

Other than Brian Wolfe's inning and a third, none of the Jays pitchers looked especially sharp last night.

Looking for the silver lining
Credit the Jays' offense for not rolling over at any point. Aaron Hill continues to impress, going 4-4 with a homer and two RsBI, while Vernon Wells' swing looks scary good, and Frank Thomas seems to have awakened from his spring slumber. One of the many big "ifs" this season revolved around the offense's ability to return to form, but so far (acknowledging the standard caveat that these are early days in a long season), it looks like this lineup could be as potent as we had hoped.

Blue Jays Blog Roundup

Saddle up, little doggies. We're gonna rustle us up some links from around the Jays' blogosphere.

• The Mockingbird: Chacin still sucks, but Cuban defectors rock.
• Drunk Jays Fans: A Brattainesque look forward at the week ahead. Best Regards, boys.
• The Southpaw: A wrap up on the first week of the Blue Jays Bloggers' Fantasy League. (We're too humble to mention who's leading the league thus far.)
• Hum and Chuck: Calling out Blairsy for going all Snappy the Turtle about the sweep of the Sox.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Rios: Where's Brandon League?
  
• Ghostrunner on First: Thoughts on the opening weekend.
• Maldonado Over Everything: Please withhold your PMoD cream. Thank you.
• Bottom of the Order: The standings just don't make no sense.
  

Phil Cuzzi is still a douchebag

Phil Cuzzi is at it again. The douchebag umpire, who gets off on calling ball and strikes like Ronnie Milsap after a six-week bender, tossed Ozzie Guillen after blowing a call on a high strike in the third inning of yesterday's game between the White Sox and the Twins.

It was Cuzzi, you may remember, who gave Roy Halladay the heave-ho for hitting Rocco Baldelli with a pitch in his second-to-last start of the season in 2003, at a time when there were significant implications for Doc's Cy Young aspirations and a number of Blue Jays team records on the line.

He also put himself front and center in the 2005 NLCS when he tossed Jim Edmonds for asking where a called strike was.

Cuzzi likes to present himself as a story of faith, family and determination, as evidenced by the fact that he was shit-canned by the league in 1993, but managed to sneak in the back door to the Majors again in 1999 when a slew of the umpires resigned as part of Richie Phillips' ill-advised labour negotiation tactics.

We can't wait to see Cuzzi umpire a Jays game this season.

We're in the Stew

It seems like everybody loves the powder blues, including Kevin Kaduk, the Grand Poobah of Yahoo's excellent baseball blog, Big League Stew.

When 'Duk asked us to pass along our two cents worth on the sublime awesomeness of the new retro unis, we couldn't possibly refuse the opportunity to sing their praises to the whole of the Interwebs.

(Thanks 'Duk!)

A smashing start to the season

So that wasn't scary at all, was it?

The joint was still buzzing on Sunday from the Prime Minister of Defense's jaw-dropping play to throw out Dustin Pedroia from his stomach. (It looked to us like Pedroia was safe but who are we to question the umpire when he makes a call in favour of our team?)

And then, moments later, we see our Gold Glove calibre shortstop and our Gold Glove winning centerfielder colliding while laying out at top speed to snag a Kevin Youkilis blooper. While the two lay motionless on the turf for what seemed like an eternity, visions of Vernon's prolonged absence from the lineup flashed through our mind like a fever dream. Thankfully, both stayed in the game and appear to be fine.

And from this moment of panic came a moment of levity in the ninth. After a similar pop-up was hit to just about the same area, and the entire stadium collectively held its breath as McDonald furiously waved everyone off to make the catch, the big screen showed Vernon and the PMoD sharing a laugh at the fact that they had managed to avoid a demolition derby in the outfield this time.

We're glad they could laugh, because we're going to be on edge about injuries all freakin' season.

How we learned to stop worrying and lov...er, appreciate Red Sox Nation

We were ready to go nuts about the invasion of Rogers Centre by Red Sox Nation this weekend, and were in a bit of a Costanzaesque rage about all of the goofballs strutting into the stadium in their Red Sox regalia.

But a funny thing happened in the midst of this weekend's home opening weekend: the Red Sox fans made it better.

Don't get us wrong. We're not going to turncoat on our team, nor do we let Paul Godfrey and Kevin Elster's dumber brother off the hook for the arrogant and short sighted way that they went about selling tickets to Red Sox fans before their own. In the long run, this franchise will be judged not for merely putting bums in the seats, but for reigniting the passion and interest in the game within their own community.

If there massive amount of powder blue and retro gear around the stadium this weekend was any indication, there are a lot of people who are hungering for those glory days to return. Unfortunately for the Blue Jays front office, you can only sell nostalgia for so long.

But back to the Red Sox and their fans. There are two essential reason that we observed and that we can't deny about why it was good to host Red Sox Nation this weekend.

The first was that in spite of all that we had heard and had expected, they were by and large respectful. Most of them that we encountered at the stadium and around town were polite, and their worst crime committed (so far as we know) was cheering for their team.

Which brings us to second reason it was good to have them there. Whenever Red Sox fans cheered, Blue Jays fans cheered louder. When the applause would rise for Papi or Manny or Youuuk, the boo-birds would drown them out. And when big moments occurred, the crowd this weekend was as loud and engaged as we have heard in a long time. If it takes having a few thousand of the other team's fans in the house to offend our sensibilities and get Toronto baseball spectators off their god damned hands for minute or two, then we're for it. (With reservations.)

Then again, if the Red Sox had swept the Jays and we had to spend all weekend hearing about it, we might have a different feeling tonight.

SWEEEEEEP!

The Jays pounded the world travelling BoSox to sweep the three game series. More to come.

Eckstein and Scutaro show value early and often

John McDonald represents most of us --- low key, underrated, flawed but ready to show that we are good at something if only given half a chance. After last season, the empathetic amongst us felt good (ie. validated) about JP Riccardi rewarding Johnny Mac with some real money. Not me. I don't want someone like me playing shortstop for the Jays. I want a guy who excels at all facets of the game and wants to win on every play and every at bat. McDonald is an excellent defender but, apart from a brief stretch of horseshoe up the anus offensive surge last year, is a liability at the plate (career .240 avg and --- ugh --- .279 obp).

After a week of play, it's clear that the Jays have a couple of new guys who, although they lack the superior genes of Derek Jeter, have the ability to play both ends of an inning:

David Eckstein - He doesn't flash the leather like McDonald, but he's no slouch at short. Offensively Eckstein is a creative and effective player. Other than yesterday, I can't remember ever seeing a player dash to first base on ball four. Eckstein has only one mode --- intense --- which puts pressure on opponents on every play. A career .286 hitter (.351 obp), Eckstein turned it up a notch last year and hit .306. Anything close to that will help keep the Jays competitive.

Marco Scutaro - From what I've seen so far, Scutaro will give McDonald a serious run for highlight reel grabs this year. Combine that with the fact that his career obp percentage is 40 points higher than McDonald's and that he's stolen 3 bases already, the glove has been slapped and the competition for premier Jays utility guy is on. Tao's mancrush Jeff Blair even suggests that he may be a better offensive option than either David Eckstein or John McDonald. We'll see about that.

McDonald gets his first start of the season today a bigger underdog than he's been as a Jay.

UPDATE: McDonald turned in several dazzling plays, almost put Vernon Wells out of commission, walked once and struck out three times. Eckstein watched the game from the bench...with intensity.

Boston, beatdowns and boobs

We're not sure what was in the drinks being served in sections 516 and 517 at tonight's home opener, but it looked like Hell Night at Lake Havasu over there.

We can't be sure what precipitated the nasty scraps in that section, but the pasty shirtless ginger dude certainly looked like a Masshole.

(Then again, there were more than a few douchebag Jays fans in attendance. To the dude in our section who wore his sunglasses all night inside the dome and chanted "U-S-A!" every five minutes, you are the exact opposite of cool. You are early 90's Corey Feldman-stlye ridiculous.)

There was also the girl in the same section flashing her lady pillows, to much applause from the Jerry Springer crowd around her. Although this being Toronto, even the rowdy douchey drunks were polite enough not to yell "show your tits" more than once.

To top it off, there was the couple who decided to strip to the waist and run on the field with two out in the ninth and Accardo.If only they had as much brains as Miss Fluffy Fragrance had boobs. We hope they enjoy their night in the drunk tank together.

And above all, Jays win. A bonerific night for all.

In Yankee Stadium, it can go all wrong so quickly

Various and sundry ponderings on Game #3:

Cold hands aren't soft hands: Alan Ashby went on at length on the radiocast last night about the poor fielding by the Jays (especially by Aaron Hill), and how the cold temperatures might be contributing to their inability to field the ball cleanly. We're not sure if that explains Scott Downs' Riverdance routine fielding Johnny Damon's sacrifice bunt eighth, which would lead to the Yankees scoring the winning run. But we're hopeful that someone shovels some coal in the furnace at the Rogers Centre and gets those hands warm, toasty and reliable in time for this weekend's series against the Red Sox.

David Eckstein is grittily and scrapily trying to make us love him: Little X, who Blair notes will have his work cut out for him in winning over the Blue Jays faithful, got the engine of the Love Train started with a 2-for-4 night with a run scored and one driven in. Which is good and all, but we'll still be among those at the former SkyDome hooting and cheering for John McDonald when he's introduced as part of the starting lineup tonight.

Frank Thomas shouldn't SHOULD be losing his shit over that: We'd need for Jon Hale to rev up the Pitch F/Xulator 3500 to confirm it, but it looked to us like the three borderline pitches that Thomas took in his at bat last night were all strikes, so he shouldn't be breathing fire from his nostrils because home plate ump Bill Miller finally got the call right. (UPDATE: Scratch that: Hale is already on it, and he shows that called third strike as being almost half a foot inside. Yikes.)

Powder Blues! Tonight!: Shaun Marcum cinches up the retro gear and squares off against aging knuckler Tim Wakefield. Wakefield's always pitched well against the Jays (15-10 lifetime, 3.86 ERA and 3-2 in 2007 with a 3.86). Last April, he pitched a gem in April under the dome, although to be fair, Jason Phillips was hitting seventh that day, which says something about the state of the team's lineup at that point.

Bring on the Massholes!: We're totally ready to rumble this weekend. Which is why it's good that we read the Drunk Jays Fans' Guide to Home Openers, specifically the bit about avoiding physical confrontation. We wouldn't want to descend to the level of your typical Red Sox fan, although we're secretly hoping that there are a few of them that get rowdy and obnoxious, if only because we'd like to catch it on video and share it with y'all.

Chalk one up for the the good guys

Random thoughts on Game #2:

That butterflies-in-the-belly feeling is back: After a seemingly endless off-season and six weeks of fake games, it's easy to forget how intensely enveloped you can get in the final outs of a ballgame. Last night's nervous ninth was a treat to watch, with Jeremy Accardo pitching out of a two-on, none-out jam by striking out A-Rod and inducing pop ups out of Giambi and Cano. The strikeout was particularly satisfying, not only because it was A-Rod (who posed and pranced like a Miss Fitness America pageant contestant after his homer earlier in the game) , but also because of how well Accardo worked at setting him up before finishing him off with heat that painted the outside corner.

A.J. looked wicked awesome, but...: Did anyone else get a nauseous feeling when A.J. Burnett came up lame after misfielding a ball and firing it off Derek Jeter into right field? From the looks of the replay, it's possible that he might have twisted himself a bit awkwardly, but come on! Does that really necessitate a visit from the trainer and extra warm up pitches to make sure that his knee wasn't too hurty to go on? Why do we get this gnawing feeling that last night wasn't the last time this season that we see A.J. pull this hobbling, walking wounded routine?

Speaking of that play: Sure, you can give Rios grief about his baserunning brain fart in the first inning of Tuesday's game. But last night, he was El Hombre Gigante when he backed up first base, snagged A.J.'s errant throw and fired the ball to second to get Jeter by a couple of steps. It's as if he wanted to rationalize the creative direction of that Young-Alex-tossing-pebbles-at- the-15th- floor-window commercial. Hola Alex!

Grounding into double plays isn't cool: As Jeff Blair notes, David Eckstein has yet to hit the ball out of the infield, and hit into two double plays last night. Yeah, it's too early to hit the panic button and start campaigning for the Prime Minister of Defense, but Little X gets no points from this corner for hustling down the line when he's erasing scoring opportunities in nearly every at bat.

Gareth Wheeler can rest easy...there's a "glimmer of hope" for V-Dub: We get the fact that the host of SunTV's the Grill Room wants to elicit some sort of discussion. But starting off the discussion with Mike Wilner, the Drunk Jays Fans' Stoeten and some random Sun writer by asking them "Is there a glimmer of hope for Vernon Wells?" exactly one game into the season was a little much. It was even funnier to see this conversation after the game, in which Wells went 3-for-4 with a homer, 2 RsBI and two runs scored. Is it just us, or does Gareth have all of the feral nervous energy of a ferret backed into a corner? Kudos go out to Stoeten for locking down the gig, and for resisting the impulse to reach across the table and shake some sense into the host, who trotted out just about every tired Toronto hockey-centric media cliché about the Jays and especially J.P..

Up next: 7:05 @ Yankee Stadium: The Great Yankee Hype Machine's Player of the Moment Phillip Hughes takes the mound versus Dustin McGowan, supposing that his flu-like symptoms have subsided. Otherwise, we're probably looking at Marcum, with Lambchops getting the nod in the home opener.

HOME OPENER TOMORROW!!: Fuck yeah!

The Enemies List grows: Mike Mussina

Let's just get this out of the way, first and foremost. Mike Mussina sucks moose dong.

Aside from that, there are numerous reasons for us to add the Yankees has-been to our list. Most of which were more eloquently summarized by the commenters in this morning's post. But we'll summarize the summarizations.

-He showed up Cito: In the 1993 All Star Game in Camden Yards, Mussina got up in the bullpen in the late innings like a petulant teenager, trying to force Cito Gaston into playing him. This, of course, elicited wild applause from crack-smoking Bodymore, Murderland crowd. (Green House Gas is hot! Get it! Greehouse Gas!) Cito had no intention of putting him in (why would he, with Duane Ward on the mound?), but Mussina's presumptuous act resulted in years worth of hostility towards Cito from the Orioles' faithful (stupid bastards). Mussina repaid the team's loyalty by signing with the Yankees.

-He whined about the inconvenience of a ceremony honouring Tom Cheek: Sorry you got thrown off your routine, there, doucheboy. It was only a brief ceremony to honour one of the most important figures in the history of baseball in Canada, and a man who had fallen ill. So sorry that you had to soft toss for a few extra minutes in the bullpen. Your routine should really take precedence over giving a man of humble greatness the recognition he deserves.

-He's a Yankee: And all Yankees are inherently douchebags. (Yes, Derek Jeter included.) Also, we'd like to point out that the Yankees have won exactly ZERO World Series since Mussina arrived. Coincidence?

-He was in an overly precious documentary about doing crosswords: Yeah, this one. It was actually really pretty dull, and Mussina was the dullest part of the whole thing. But we're so pround of your linguistic skills, Mikey. You're super smart. We bet you could kick Johnny Damon's ass at Boggle. Smart guy.

-We hate his teeth: Nice chompers.

-He's tonight's starting pitcher: That's kind of the short view. Still, it's relevant to us.

For all of these dubious achievements and more, we welcome to the Mike Mussina to the Tao of Stieb's Enemies List. Guard your grill, jackass.

Sloppy grit doesn't equal wins

A few random thoughts on Game 1:

There's your running game for ya: Given all of the criticism the Jays received last year for not being the 1985 Cardinals, it's worth noting that the three bags that they swiped and the one runner that Zaunie cut down (Derek Jeter, no less) didn't automatically add up to a W. It's only one game, but the Jays' inability to cash in the runners that they put in scoring position with timely and effective hitting remains a problem. You have to feel for Marco Scutaro, who hit a laser the other way at a drawn in Jason Giambi, who miraculously came up with the grab.

Aaron Hill is frickin' wicked: Hill made Melky Cabrera work in centre field last night, and might have had three doubles instead of one if Johnny Damon were patrolling that position. Dude is dialed in, and we're guessing that he's hitting regularly in the two, five or six spot in the lineup by the end of the month. (And by the way, one of those Melky catches was a Jim Edmonds fake-hustle special, where he dove after the ball was in his glove. Poncey bastrich.)

Doc is an intense, angry man: Roy Halladay pitched last night as though it were Game 1 of the World Series. When things go wrong for Doc, we usually get the sense that he's swearing at himself on the mound. Last night, though, he glared in at home plate umpire Gary Darling (who was ridiculously awful), swore at the bogus dimensions of Yankee Stadium (314 feet my ass), and generally looked as though he was about to scale the outside of the Empire State Building and swat away at fighter planes.

David Eckstein can make poor decisions with scrappy heart: Little X didn't win us over with his dopey decision to try for the most arduous route to a double play rather than just tagging out Giambi and keeping the double play in order. He did make a nice play up the middle earlier, for whatever that's worth.

Up next: A.J. versus Mike Mussina, who we still hate from the 1993 All Star Game when he got up in the bullpen to embarass Cito Gaston. Yeah, we can carry a grudge for 15 years.

Enough with the monkeyshines! Let's play some frickin' baseball!

How many Opening Days can we handle before we lose our goddamned mind?

Globe Junior MacLeod says that the weather is promising, but he didn't really say what it was promising. The Weather Channel (not to be mistaken for our own Weather Network, the former home of the Sportsnet anchorthingy Martine Gaillard) is calling for wicked gusts of wind and a chance of lightning.

Given the Blue Jays' luck over the past year, we're not sure that we want to see Alex Rios patrolling the outfield in a lightning storm, lest he end up like this guy.


Drunken Sloppy Livebloggage
The Drunk Jays Fans have reassembled to give the liveblogging another try tonight. God help them if tonight's game gets washed out, because even their herculean livers are going to start breaking down if they do three consecutive nights of considerable imbibing and considered blogging.

Reason # 42,145 that we've grown to hate hockey

We fastidiously stay away from talking hockey, mostly because there is more than enough puckheads out there who can and do blather on about it 12 months out of the year. Plus, talking about hockey with hockey fans is a bit like talking about fire with cavemen: You can tell it's important to them, but they have a hard time expressing themselves in anything but grunts and howls.

But our ire was raised this week when we read the comments of Canadian Press and Sportsnet.ca columnist Pierre LeBrun, who waxed oh-so-eloquently about the Roy Family Debacle in the Quebec League playoffs last week.

"When did the tree huggers take over this bloody country? When did we all become such bleeding hearts that a junior hockey brawl shocked our collective senses so badly we became outraged?

Cripes, if anyone should be criticized it should be Chicoutimi goalie Bobby Nadeau for standing there like a Nancy Boy and not trying to defend himself when Roy came after him?"

So if we're understanding this correctly, LeBrun is saying that he's disappointed at the fact that the country doesn't share his creepy desire to watch teenage boys beat each other up. That this 19 year-old kid from Chicoutimi, who makes a paltry $50 per week, is a coward for not fighting the rampaging lunatic kid who was being egged on by his father (who has a reputation for domestic abuse that includes calls to the Denver police and ripping doors off their hinges, presumably in front of said same kid).

And why should this young man fight? Why should he, when he has his entire life in front of him, and one that probably doesn't include hockey beyond the next couple of years? Why should he tempt fate to see if he's the first person to die in a hockey fight?

Because some creepy, goateed, corpulent middle aged white guy wants his blood lust to be satiated by watching boys beat each other up.

Yeah. Hockey's not fucked at all.