Nothing but blue skies

It's ridiculously frigging beautiful out this weekend. The dome is open, and we've got our first sunburn of the season. And we're a bit hammered.

Hope everyone enjoyed B.J. Ryan's excellent outing this afternoon, and hope you're all drinking on a patio at some point this weekend.

Incidentally, seeing Beej striking out elite hitters without all of his velocity back was incredibly heartening to us. We're not sure that he's all the way back, but he's looking good in these initial outings.

Summer's coming. Fuck yeah!

The wit and wisdom of talk radio callers

We'd rather not discuss last night's 4-1 loss to the Rangers, in which the Blue Jays were asleep at the plate and Doc Halladay sacked up and went the distance to preserve the bullpen for the weekend series. (For whatever that moral victory is worth.)

Instead, we'd like to focus on the Jays Talk callers, and specifically, David from Toronto.

The old philosopher Dave, who sounded like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys and seemed about as lucid. His comment for Wilner after last night's game has to rate amongst the all-time headslappers.

Dave was of the considered opinion that the Jays need "to bring up some rookies to get those guys around." We're presuming that Ranger rookie David Murphy's 3 for 4 night had something to do with this, but when Wilner tried to inject a little sanity into the situation by noting that maybe veterans with experience would do as good if not a better job at "bringing those guys around", Dave made clear that the rookies "want to prove themselves."

Also, Dave assured us that Gibby was an idiot for how he used the bullpen in Wednesday's 14 inning game. "Any good manager's always got plan for a 14 inning game!" Dave informed us. Wilner offered that the Jays might have a couple of those sorts of games per year, our baseball savant wasn't having any of it.

"This is the AL East! Come on!"

It's hard to argue with logic like that.

Pitching staff merry-go-round

So here's the newest latest and the band of brothers in the bullpen:

Randy Wells gets sent back to Chicago: Thanks for your time, but you're just not what we're looking for.

Brian Wolfe goes to the DL: Somehow, you had to figure that one arm was going to get mangled in the first month of the season, and after pitching three times in four days, Wolfe blew his tricep.

But most importantly, David Purcey gets the call!!: We know we shouldn't get overly excited about a few early season Triple-A stats, but still, a 1.89 ERA and a 21/6 K to BB ratio in 19 innings is nothing to sneeze at. The baldfaced speculation has Purcey taking the mound on Friday, with last night's late night losing pitcher Dougie Burnett* getting moved to Saturday.

Now the only question is who gets to carry the Dora the Explorer bag o' treats out to the bullpen.

(*NB: We think we might start calling A.J. Burnett "Dougie" or "Gord", because we believe it will make him a more relatable, cuddly figure to Canadian sports fans.)

Happy belated birthday to us

We can't believe we missed this, but yesterday marked one full year of the Tao of Stieb.

And from such modest beginnings, we have grown from a time waster for one lonely Blue Jays fan to a full blown movement which helps to kill the productivity levels of hundreds of Blue Jays fans everyday. It's a modest achievement, but one that we're proud of.

We've got to admit that when we started the blog, we figured that we'd fart about with it for a few weeks and then get bored and move on to something else. But here we are, 367 days later, and we're still finding minutiae to kvetch about.

Mostly, we keep on keepin' on because you keep coming back to read our crayon scribblings every day, and for that, we thank you immensely.

Also, thanks and praise to all of you who have linked to our blog over the past year, and who have sent folks in our direction. There's a whole wide world of weblogs out there, but we are grateful to belong to a community of Blue Jays bloggers who bring their unique and distinct views and talents to help push the level of discourse on our beloved team upwards. We thank all of you for your contributions.

We'd especially like to thank Neate Sager at Out of Left Field, who was an early champion of our blog and who continues to grace us with links and his witty repartee in the comments section.

Praise and thanks also goes to all of the Drunk Jays Fans, who prove everyday that they are smarter, funnier, and way more drunk than we are. You gentlemen are the gold standard, and we strive everyday to keep pace with you.

Thanks also to Will at Deadspin for the link early on last year that helped put us on the map; to Art Martone of the Providence Journal's Sox Blog for sending members of the Red Sox Nation in our direction so that we can heap scorn upon them; to 'Duk of Yahoo's Big League Stew for the link and the opportunity to peddle our wares on his blog; to our co-conspirator Shortwaveboy, whose contributions to the blog are greater than the sum of his blog posts; to Blairsy, Globe Junior, Cathal, Bastian and Wilner for giving us something to chew on every day; and to the men who put on the uniform every day, because what you do is infinitely more challenging than any of us give you credit for.

And last but not least, to Mrs. Tao, for not only tolerating our blogging pursuits, but for encouraging us along the way.

God bless you all for your continued patronage.

After a game like that, the snooze button is your friend

Extra innings can be fun. On a summer afternoon, with the lid open, free baseball is just the ticket.

But on a school night, with myriad projects to work on and a pressing need for sleep, last night's 14 inning, 7-5 loss to the Rangers was a bit of a shit sandwich. After seeing an A.J. Burnett sinking stinkball skitter between Gregg Zaun's wickets in the top of the 14th, we rolled over and told Mrs. Tao to wake us up if they managed to come back.

Unfortunately for us, the only thing that woke us up was the demonic squeal of the alarm clock.

Random thinkings

Gregg Zaun continues to like small ball, breakfast: When the Zaunbie King took second on a barely passed ball in the 12th, we were almost ready to concede that this whole small-ball, tempting fate running the bases like a maniac thing might just be working. Almost.

Joe Inglett is the saviour is a bum: Zaun's baserunning might have meant a little more if Joe Inglett could have done something more (or maybe more to the point, something less) with Franklyn German's splitters in the dirt.

Don't be fooled by Brian Tallet's ERA: Sure, it's sitting at a sweet 2.00, but Tallet's two walks and a hit in two-thirds of an inning was a flaming bag of poo left on Jesse Litsch's doorstep.

Now that's an ass-whuppin'

Thoughts on last night's 11-3 annihilation of the Orioles:

Signs that it is time to give up baseball and pick up a nice hobby: Listening to the radiocast, Jerry and Alan went on at length about the difference in speeds between Steve Trachsel's fastball (which was hitting around 82-84 MPH) and his changeup (which was hovering around 77-80 MPH). It was right about this time that Traschsel mixed in a curve to Aaron Hill, and boom went the dynamite, a three-run blast. We're thinking Trachsel should probably take his deliberate pitching routine, pack it up in a duffel bag and head out on a cruise to Tahiti, where he can put people to sleep with his shuffleboard skills.

Was that really necessary? We get that Marty Pevey is supposed to be more aggressive as the third base coach, but did he really need to send Gregg Zaun on what was going to be a close play at the plate and the Jays up 10-3? It might have been bad form, although we'd like to think that Pevey wasn't thinking about the Orioles' feelings on the play. It might have just been a matter of Pevey seeing the play and reacting to it. Or maybe Zaunie had to get to the dugout to write a blog post. In any case, we're not opposed to watching our guys run up the score.

Oh, and Shaun Marcum rocks: Marcum gave up a couple of big flies, but was rock steady for the rest of the night (6.2 IP, 4 hits, 2 runs). We'll confess that the one guy in the rotation that we were apprehensive about in this off season was Marcum, as we weren't sure that he'd be able to replicate last year's exceptional performance. However, watching the ease of Marcum's delivery and the way that he stays calm on the mound, we're really coming to appreciate anew the gem that we've got in this guy. If that's our fourth starter, we can deal.

Frank Thomas is sleepy: Frank Thomas drove in just one run since leaving the friendly confines of the Rogers SkyDome. While he did get hits in all three games of the Baltimore series, his average has slipped below the Mendoza line. So let's not get overly excited about him having a better start to this season quite yet.

Apparitions: We were caught off guard last night by seeing Guillermo Quiroz, the Ghost of Catchers of the Future, er, Past. And just as we were snapping our head around to see Alex Rios' old running mate, dude waved at a ball that slipped past him like he was a matador. Nice to see you again, Q.

Eckstein just dropped down a sac bunt

Fourth inning, none out and Scutaro on second, Little X drops down the sac bunt to move Scoots to third.

Any chance that you small-ball loving jackasses might pour yourselves a nice steaming cup of shut the fuck up, at least for a few nights?

Much obliged.

Blue Jays go do-do against the O's

We'll confess to having checked out last night before Alex Rios' futile ninth inning homer last night (because we needed to maintain peace on the homefront), but the Blue Jays' offensive performance in last night's 4-3 loss to Baltimore was a tad sleepy.

Mind you, the Orioles didn't roll over and let the Jays scratch their belly in the same way that the Rangers did all weekend, and with only friends and family on hand at faux-retro Camden Yards, one can understand how they might have slipped off into a slumber.

Oh, Gibby: It's probably not worth busting out the Fire Gibbons tag just yet, but his decision in the eighth to stick with Matt Stairs against the left-handed Jamie Walker while Alex Rios sat on the bench was a little...um...perplexing.

The Battle for AL East Supremacy Begins

Sure, it's only two weeks into the season, but the Jays and Orioles sit a half game ahead of the Red Sox atop the AL East. We hope that O's fans are relishing this moment.

We really shouldn't gloat over what we anticipate will be a precipitous fall from grace for the Baltimoreans, seeing as how last year's team (which pretty much sucked as much as we anticipate this year's will) went 8-10 against the Jays.

Tonight's pitching matchup features Dustin McGowan and his Lambchops of Vengeance versus Matt Albers (1-0, 0.00 ERA).

Tomorrow night, it's Shaun Marcum versus the Human Rain Delay, Steve Trachsel. For those of you planning to PVR the game, please remember to add an extra hour or two.

Jon Hale is our Pitch F/X Pool Boy: Hale is supposed to be on vacation, but he's taken time out to affirm that we were correct when we stated that Laz Diaz was giving Halladay some pitches off the plate on Saturday. Of course, Diaz is know to have a pretty consistently wide strike zone, so it's not as though Halladay was getting away with anything. Also of interest on the Mockingbird is a breakdown of Beej's return.

Jim Lang loves Whitey Herzog, in theory: Jim Lang, a man whose tenure on Canada's airwaves defies explanation, went off on a "I hate Moneyball" rant on his Sportsnet.ca blog last week. Of course, being a Canadian sports anchor, Jim's areas of expertise tend to fall more in the area of junior hockey and scrub-league football. (Yeah, we're looking your way, CFL.) So you'll have to forgive Jimmer if he kinda muffed up his facts. Lang's notion that the Jays should give up lots of outs to get one run doesn't exactly square with, you know, reality. Or the fact that Whitey's teams were OBP machines.

Fire Joe Morgan, who took time out of their busy day to give Lang the bidness, must be wondering about the crappy state of baseball commentary in Canada. This marks the second time in as many weeks that they've had to take a Toronto sports media goon to the shed, after last week's Professor Griff takedown.

Welcome back, Beej!

He gave up a triple to the first batter he faced, and he never looked particularly overpowering, but who gives a flippin' fadoo when B.J. Ryan comes back and nails down the save in a 5-4 extra inning win to seal a series sweep against the Rangers.

It might not mean much, but the looks of excitement on the faces of the Jays as they shook hands after the game was pretty priceless. We saw Roy Halladay crack a smile for the second time in as many days...which is a little creepy, but seems like a good thing.

Also of note: Joe Inglett suddenly turned into Mike Schmidt. How'd that happen?

Congrats to Doc for making it out of Texas with his shin intact

Watching Roy Halladay pitch masterfully in the Jays' 4-1 win in Arlington last night, we couldn't shake the image of seeing Doc writhing on the ground after taking a Kevin Mench liner to his leg a couple of years back. Yikes.

This was Halladay's best start of the year by far, perhaps aided and abetted by a generously wide strike zone by home plate umpire Laz Diaz. (As always, we defer to Hale to confirm whether if our eyes were lying to us.)

Incidentally, to all of the baseball scribes who have referred to Halladay as "brittle" or "injury-prone", we'd like to point out that he has missed time primarily because of that freaky line drive off the leg and his uppity appendix last year (which he ripped out with his bare hands, then returned to pitch three weeks later). So, no: Not so brittle, not so much.

Please re-embark on the bandwagon in an orderly manner

Thoughts on last night's 8-5 win over the stumbly Rangers:

You know it's a trend when Gregg Zaun steals home: It wasn't your Mondesi-Hill variety straight steal of home for Zaun, but kudos to the veteran for taking advantage of the poor judgement and worse throw by his Texas counterpart, Gerald Laird. Incredibly, with the four bags swiped last night, the Blue Jays lead the Major Leagues in stolen bases with 13, while they have been caught four times. Credit goes to the Jays' coaching staff for forcing the issue with other teams on the basepaths while still being smart about when and how they send runners this year.

Please give it up for your AL RsBI Leader, Vernon Wells: So where are all of those voices questioning Wells' lucrative extension now? With two more driven in last night in his hometown, Vernon shares the league lead with Rays Carlos Pena (who's huge performance last year may not be as much of a mirage as we thought.)

News from the Pink/Round/Efficient File: It is easy to forget that Jesse Litsch just turned 23 last month. Nothing about him seems overwhelming, but you can't argue with his performance. He won his second game of the season last night, striking out five (versus two walks), and made a great play on a Josh Hamilton screamer back through the box in the first.

Good luck, Buck: Our favorite new Blue Jay Buck Coats got the start in left field last night, only to be given the bum's rush down to Syracuse following the game. Not that this is a reason for his demotion, by Coats goofed up defensively last night by allowing David Eckstein to call him off a play that the diminutive scrappy gamer grittily dropped. The Jays recalled Joe Inglett, who is off to a torrid start to the season (1.121 OPS, 17 total bases in 8 games), but who will be hard-pressed to find playing with amongst Little X, Scutaro, and McDonald. We liked how the Jays used Coats as a late inning defensive replacement for Matt Stairs and Shannon Stewart, and we're not sure that we like the idea of either of them patrolling the outfield in a close game.

Finding new favorites: It's hard for us not to like Jesse Carlson. Any relief pitcher with a goofy delivery hits us in our soft spot. Our first favorite baseball player was Kent Tekulve, and all these years later, we can't have a catch with our buddies without tossing at least one with our Mark Eichorn delivery. (Which usually bounces up to their feet, but we weren't making any claims to our athletic prowess.) Carlson pitched on back-to-back nights, and has held down the fort nicely (no runs, no hits, 2 Ks in 2 innings), unlike...

John Gibbons' mancrush, Brian Wolfe: Wolfe made his fifth appearance of the season, and gave up a home run to Josh Hamilton that may still be traveling through Oklahoma at this point.

An open letter to douchebag 500-level drunken brawlers

Dear douchebags,

Fuck off.

No seriously. Fuck right off.

What do you think? That by starting scraps in the stands and on GO Train platforms that you're gonna prove to all of your pathetic friends what a man you are? That you're gonna show the world how no one should fuck with you after a couple of $10 beers? That you're at the game to drink some beer and kick some ass?

You know what you are? You're not a scrappy drinker with heart who's out to show how tough you are. You're not a tough guy.

You are pathetic.

You are the scum of the fucking earth. The lowest of the low.

Why is it that when there's something that is good (like cheap seats to Jays games for those who aren't made of money), idiots like you want to come along and smear yourselves all over it? So now there will be no beer sales for anyone in the 500s during those games, including those that can handle it. Everyone is going to get patted down, and it's going to take forever to get into the building because we're going to get felt up and patted down by security every game.

Do you realize that the rest of the world is laughing at us because you stupid fucking idiots? They're not saying "Hey man, don't mess with Toronto fans! They're tough!" They are saying "Toronto fans can't hold their liquor." They are mocking you.

Are you happy? Are you pleased with yourselves? Do you get a big boner when you watch yourselves on shakey YouTube videos? Do you fancy yourselves as some Tyler Durden type of primal manly man because you let your drunken adrenaline get the best of you? What's wrong with you? What is your fucking purpose?

If you want to get drunk and pick fights, then stay at Hooters and get charged up on chicken wings and pitchers, and then spill out onto John Street and fight amongst yourselves.

Stay away from our team. We'd rather be mocked by other baseball fans for not being able to fill our seats than to be mocked for being a bunch of lightweight hooligans.

(Thanks to the Drunk Jays Fans, Neate's guest Andy Grabia and others for their thoughts.)

The Farm Fresh Report

After an ugly series like the one that just finished against Oakland, it's time to cast our eyes to the next generation of Jays, if only to keep ourselves from doing something rash. Like tossing ourselves out the window. (Then again, since we are like all bloggers and writing this from our parents' basement, throwing defenestrating ourselves out and up onto street level isn't a very effective way to deal with our frustrations.)

First, allow us to introduce the experts
You may have seen this posted elsewhere, but we'd be remiss if we didn't tip our retro caps to Dave Rouleau and Marc Hulet for the bang-up job that they are doing with their new electronic magazine Behind the Dish. Blogging for shits and giggles is fun, but the BTD dudes are doing an excellent job of taking on real reportage on the Blue Jays' farm system. You can find the first two issues here, and they are worth your time, especially as we try to determine who is going to get the call to salvage our hopes and dreams for a playoff season. We highly recommend it.

Adam Lind makes his case
Obviously, these are early days, but Adam Lind is flat out raking in the first week-plus of the season. With two homers, nine RsBI and a gaudy 1.259 OPS over the first eight games of the season, one has to wonder how long the Jays can keep him in the 'Cuse.

David Purcey might be a good pitcher
Making the case that he should be the first hurler to get the call when the inevitable pitching staff DL stint arrives, David Purcey has been stellar through his first two starts in Triple-A. In 12 innings, he's struck out 14 (against four walks), allowed two earned runs (for a 1.50 ERA) and is rocking a 1.00 WHIP.

On the other hand
There's that other left hander, Ricky Romero. Sigh. Yeah, sure, it was one bad game at Double-A, but still. Sigh.

Travis Snider can still hit
Three doubles and two homers (and a stolen base!) so far for our Great White Hope.

How are things on the farm?

• Syracuse: 3-5, taking on Rochester and Buffalo next week.
• New Hampshire: 0-6 (yikes), taking on Connecticut and New Britain.
• Dunedin: 6-2 (first place in their division!), taking on Tampa and Clearwater.
• Lansing: 6-1 (first place in their division too!), taking on Cedar Rapids and Burlington.
  

We're in the middle of a big bike race

With no time to comment on possible three-game losing streaks. At least not tonight.

But jiminy christmas, do ya think this team can put away one win this week?