For much of the season, Marco Scutaro has been a revelation. He's drawn walks, hit for some power, and fielded his position with the best of them. So maybe it isn't fair play to heap scorn on him at this point of a lost season.But how frustrating was it to see Scutaro botch two very makeable plays, handing a victory to the Tigers that the Jays should have had locked up? On both plays, it looked as though Scoots offered up about a half-measure of effort, playing the ball off to the side of his body rather than getting in front of it.
Maybe it doesn't matter at this point, seeing as how the manager can't be arsed to think about sending out his strongest lineup every night. Still, it's a kick in the crotch for the handful of Jays fans left to see a tiny flame of hope for a win and maybe a 75 win season snuffed out.
Maybe it has something to do with the ball that Marco took off his noggin a few weeks back, but he hasn't been the same player over the past month. Plays in the field aren't being made, and he's posted a .614 OPS for the month of September so far.
As Lloyd/Drew tweeted last night, we need for Scutaro to pull it together to reach Type A Free Agent status if we're going to get some compensatory draft picks out of him.
For those of you holding out hope...don't.
With last night's loss, the Jays are officially eliminated from the playoffs. So...2010!!!1(?)
A Cito excuse that doesn't fly
Here's what some of the kids say in defense of Cito Gaston and his asstastic craptacular lineups: "Well, what's he supposed to do with a crappy team like this?"
You know what? Fuck that. In the end, Cito's going to have a lineup with two 30 homer 100 RBI guys...and he hasn't even considered using them in a constructive manner until next year. If Cito had three 30 homer 100 RBI guys, he'd still screw it up.
14 comments:
Def. don't agree with the shitting upon of Scutaro. His first full season, the man is clearly running out of gas. And who can blame him? He's been everything and more at short, and at the top of the order. This is the guy who is going to break Tony Fernandez's record for reaching base safely in one season. I think we can find someone else to pick on.
Also: are two 30 HR, 100 RsBI guys supposed to make this team a playoff team? Look at all the black holes throughout the lineup. Even a third wouldn't make this team any closer.
Apologies in advance; I'm in a foul fucking mood.
The point is that we shouldn't be putting on the poor mouth about how crappy our team is and how powerless Cito is...
But then he bats Millar 4th, leaves Randy Ruiz (.889 OPS and 7 HRs) on the bench, bats Snider 9th, uses Jesse Carlson indiscriminately...
Come on.
The lineup management is fucked. I'm sorry. It hurts me to say it. Truly does.
But what the fuck with statements like "maybe next year we'll move Hill and Lind down a spot." Well, how about this year?
At least make the best with what you have. Not saying it will be a different result, but.....fuck, man.
Any ten year old playing MLB vids would put one of their 30/100 guys in the 4 hole.
It's plain silly at this point.
RIP - 2009 Blue Jays.
Can't wait to hear what kind of plan is going to be unveiled.
Nobody can justify Cito's lineups. They're insane. Tao, you've said it, and I've said it, too: there's no excuse for not putting the best lineup out there.
At the same time, I can understand leaving Hill and Lind alone. They've worked.
But I guess moving them down now, if they're going to moved next year, would make sense too.
Fuck everything.
The problem with moving them down is that you have to put some black hole in the number 2 spot. I'd rather keep Scutaro, Hill and Lind back-to-back-to-back and ignore the lack of a number four hitter than stick some hump in amongst them.
The point I'm trying to make is that Millar sucks.
i'd love to see if ruiz can keep up the hr every 10 or 11 at-bats rate. but, you know, i guess no one else does.
So, Tao, anything else in the baseball world catch your wandering eye when it's garbage time for the Jays?
The NL West/NL Wild Card is pretty interesting.
So when is the official unveiling of 'The Plan'?
See, this is the thing that is so fucking stupid. It's not the ACTUAL position in the lineup that matters as much as RELATIVE position.
So if you lead off Vernon (go with me here), have Scoots hit 2nd, Hill hit 3rd and Lind 4th, you have the three productive guys still hitting in the same relative spot in the lineup.
Unless anybody actually believes that having the actual 2nd spot in the lineup is really what has made Hill produce this year.
What a fucking mess.
Normally I'd be a little mad about Cito refusing to move Hill and Lind down in the lineup but there are way too many things lineup-related decisions that are far worse right now.
What's his rationale for keeping Ruiz on the bench? I'm not one of those people who thinks he's the second coming or anything, but he's done nothing but rake since he's been up here and he has a decade of fantastic minor league numbers to back him up, so why not let him play? If he starts to struggle then I can understand sitting him, but for goodness sakes, shouldn't we at least be taking a real look at this guy right now while we have the chance?
And Phillips hitting in front of Snider is just ridiculous. Cito's excuse for batting Snider 9th has always been that he's a rookie and he doesn't want to put too much pressure on him, which I guess kind of might possibly make a little bit of sense, until you bat him behind a guy making his major league debut. That just defies all the logic Cito's been using to justify his use of Snider so far this year, which means he must just REALLY hate the kid for whatever reason.
Fuck.
Is Ruiz hurt?
I can't understand why he's not in the line-up tonight, based on what he did last series in New York.
There has actually been numerous studies on the fact that the order of your lineup makes very very little impact over the course of a season.
Check out the comparison of AL East 2B on my blog! Where does Hill rank??
Well usually managers don't bat a pitcher cleanup, so it's hard to get a large sample size on the effect of doing it.
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