Sunday, September 7, 2008

This is how I want to remember him

I was pretty hard on Greggg Zaun when he made his "trade me to a contender who wants me" comments as the trade deadline approached. "Fuck you, Zaunie", I said. "Sit down and accept your role as a backup on an also-ran", I thought.

Sometimes you forget these guys are human (except Doc - total cyborg) - with pride, envy, anger, and all the other human emotion bullshit. But the deadline passed with Zaun still a Blue Jay, now relegated to a start or maybe two per week, and I found myself starting to feel a little bad for the guy. Here's an old pro who thought he had earned the right to start for the team he'd spent the past five seasons with, and now he's a dead man walking backup with a suddenly uncertain future.

So for the last month, I've really been pulling for ol' Zaunie to do well and earn himself one more big league contract next season, wherever he may end up. The month of August had a different plan for triple-G Greggg, however, and bitch-slapped him with an 0-fer (19).

Fast forward to late Saturday afternoon, and all is well in the world again.

But enough with the literary prose and melodrama......holy fucking shit! A walk-off granny! Seven in a row! Fuck Joe Maddon!

Did I mention that was Seven in a row?
I think I did, but....seven? When was the last time this club has gone a week+ without losing? And yes, Tampa/Boston/New York fans, I know it's borderline pathetic to be so excited about a fairly modest win streak in the month of September with my team out of it. But you know what? Fuck off. I'm trying to make this a fun little month of baseball here.

Special thanks to BJ for nailing it
What do you mean, BJ Ryan almost blew the game? How boring would a three run victory have been? Way more boring than a grand slam walk-off victory in the 13th inning, that's for damn sure.

But seriously, that's a couple reeeeeaaaaal shaky outings in a row now for BJ. In his defense, Cito has been, let's say, unafraid to go to BJ lately, to the point where he probably could use a breather. I still say Ryan is a monster next season.

Truth be told, I'm a little more worried about Scotty Downs the stretch (lame pun intended). Maybe all this talk of moving him into the rotation is fucking with his head. Thankfully, the Jays are blessed with a bullpen including Nails League and Nails Carlson to hold down the fort while the big two work it out.

3 comments:

  1. fuck man, what a clutch hit by zaunie. you're absolutely right, this is how i want to remember him. i was pissed at zaun too, but we have to remember that zaun's a fighter. he's been fightin for a spot, for a chance to play, his whole career. it's all he knows. above all else, he wants to win, and i respect that about him. he just wants to contribute, and you could see on his face as he approached home plate how happy he was to finally do just that.

    fuckin zaunie.

    great ball game. exactly how we drew it up.

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  2. Isn't Downs about 33 years-old? I think we should put the starter-conversion thoughts to bed. Just because JP said they've discussed it, it's got traction. I'm sure they discuss everything and just because this little nugget of insight into the world of Jays management got past JP's ever so porous filter, it shouldn't lead us to think there's a snowball's chance in hell of it happening. As the Ack said, he's pitched all of 60 innings this year. How's he going to hold up over 200?

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  3. that might be the greatest picture of Zaun, ever. i love it.

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