If we keep Googling like this, we're going to go blind

After our morning bloviations, we kinda thought we should tone down on the righteous indignation (just a smidge) and bring it all back to something we can all enjoy together.

Namely, the recently acquired David Dellucci's fiancee, Price is Right model Rachel Reynolds.

Enjoy the photo. And as you enjoy it, remind yourself that if you'd been a couple of inches taller and raised somewhere other than the arctic tundra, you too may have been a replacement-level major leaguer and scored yourself a smokin' hot game show model.

And while we're at it, how about a thought on Dellucci's role?
Ultimately, the Dellucci signing is a low-risk move, so we don't have any idea why we're getting so worked up about it. And yet, it makes us wonder about what this does for those players who suddenly slide beneath him on the organizational depth chart.

Is this really the end of Joe Inglett? (We'll never bet against him, but he's hardly shone in his call up.) Does this relegate Travis Snider in Las Vegas until September? Will Snider become the latest lefty bat to get given the shaft by Cito? Will we ever see Buck "Skin" Coats back in Toronto? (FREE BUCK COATS!)

You always hear that you can never have too many arms, but is it possible to have too many middling bats?

Media League Three-Pitch Softball! (with the Las Vegas Sun's Ryan Greene)

Hey kids! This is the first in yet another special series of posts, in which we lob in three soft and easy questions at a member of the traditional mainstream media and see if they respond. In this edition, we tossed a couple of easy ones in the general direction of the Las Vegas Sun's Ryan Greene.

Greene is covering the Las Vegas 51's this season and has penned a couple of interesting profiles on the recently sent-down Jays prospects, including last week's story on Brett Cecil, and a new story in today's edition on The (once and future) Great Big Giant Pasty White Hope^TM, Travis Snider. Also, he's a fan of Buck Coats, which makes him alright in our books. Greene answered our three nice and easy questions via email.

Have you noticed any significant differences since the 51's affiliation switched from the Dodgers to the Jays?

If anything, I think the local support for the club has taken a minor hit. People still show up because it's affordable entertainment and it's baseball. Plus, $1 beers on Thursdays bring in tons of fans (and college students). The thing is that the Jays had the misfortune of following the Dodgers in terms of affiliation. A lot of Dodgers fans live in Las Vegas, and therefore went to watch the Triple-A club. Unfortunately, there aren't too many maple leafed flags flying out and about in the desert ... which I find to be a damn shame.

We're a little concerned about our young impressionable prospects being in Sin City. Tell us which is the biggest hazard to a young ball player: The gambling palaces, the nightlife, or the cheap buffets?

You know, it's hard to get a read on that. For the most part, I think these guys are pretty responsible while out here. There's enough established veterans, such as Jason Lane, Randy Ruiz and Brett Harper, who keep them in check. I mean, obviously a lot of Triple-A ballplayers don't make a ton of dough, so going out clubbing, chugging watered-down $12 drinks and gambling until 5 a.m. is not only ill-advised, but maybe not even affordable. But for some of the younger guys (Cecil, Snider, Arencibia, etc.) and especially guys on the 40-man, I'm sure they get out there and have their fun. But, thankfully, none have turned up in the police blotter. And if any of them are sinning a bit excessively, I'm sure their manager -- Mike Basso -- puts them in place. He comes across as a no-nonsense guy. I know I'd hate to show up to the ballpark hungover and have to deal with his potential wrath.

So aside from the obvious prospects and the "AAAA" veterans, which of the younger 51's have impressed you so far this year?

Well, I know he's one of the Jays' top prospects, but he doesn't get much pub. That said, I really like catcher J.P. Arencibia. His being in Triple-A this season is mostly for defensive purposes, and that was made clear before the season. He knows how to hit, and has proven it at each level this season. So far, he's only hitting .236, but he has 8 homers and 30 RBI and when he gets hot, he's tough for pitchers to work. Defensively, handling a veteran staff is doing wonders for him this year, I think. He's also shown good speed, I think, for a catcher. Kind of in the Russell Martin mold.

In the lineup, Kyle Phillips and Buck Coats have also stuck out to me. Phillips, a steady third base prospect, is hitting .330 since his promotion from New Hampshire and is aggressive in terms of just getting contact. He's 25, and Coats is just about to turn 27. Coats is no pup, and has major league experience, but I've fallen in love with his game. He's pretty solid defensively in center, and I love watching aggressive leadoff hitters, which he certainly is. He can hit ropes into the gaps, and he's done it regularly. He's hitting .322 with 22 RBI and 14 stolen bases. He's tied for second on the team behind Arencibia with 14 doubles.

On the staff, I think the organization, got a great steal in Fabio Castro, who they acquired late last season from Philly for Matt Stairs. He's 2-1 in 7 starts since his promotion, with a solid 2.30 ERA. Plus he's a lefty. What's impressed me the most is his ability to work out of jams. It doesn't appear to faze him. He had a scoreless inning streak of 24 right after getting the call-up, and worked out of several pickles in maintaining it. He's kinda smallish in terms of stature, but his stuff is legit.

For more from Ryan Greene, please have a gander at - Mature beyond his years, Snider transitioning back to minors, Las Vegas Sun

Hey Everybody! Let's Rush Travis Snider to the Bigs Just For the Hell of It!!

So now that we're a man down in the outfield, idle minds have turned to The Great Big Giant Pasty White Hope^TM Travis Snider. The Jays should think about calling up the top prospect says the Sun's Mike Rutsey. Why not bring him up? asks the Globe's Robert McLeod (who, it should be noted, has doubled back to fix his erroneous info in the first version of that article which stated that Snider was hitting .286 in Syracuse when he is actually hitting .268 with New Hampshire FC.)

Even the Oracle of Jarvis Street Mike Wilner has raised the prospect of raising the prospect to the Majors.

To be honest, we'd love to see him there, but then again, we'd love to a lot of things just for kicks. Thankfully, our sense of reason and judgment steps in and sets us straight.

Essentially, there are three reasons that we don't want the Jays to call Snider up.

Reason the first: Because it will start his clock in terms of Major League service time. We'd rather have that year tacked on at the end when he'll be 27 and hopefully leading the powerhouse Jays to another playoff berth as opposed to now, when he'll be thrown to the sharks in a meaningless season.

Reason the second: Because while he is showing some power and ability to produce runs in Double-A, he still has a sub-.800 OPS in the Eastern League (.794). We don't anticipate that he would up that number against big league pitching.

Reason the third: Because there are other options. Notably, Buck Coats or Kevin Mench, who are already on the 40-man roster, and who could step in and park their asses on the bench to watch the ongoing adventures of Wilkerson in Whifferland.

Hey man, we're just like you. It's a shite state of affairs in a shite season, and maybe we just want a little joy to help us forget about all the pain. Maybe we just want a sniff of something new and young and vibrant to help put a spring in our step. But sometimes, you gotta push those feelings way back in your mind, because that way leads to oblivion.

Or so we hear.

(Photo: Dean Lima/HardballWarriors.com)

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.

Friday Morning Briefs

Out amongst the walking wounded: We spent most of the off-season lighting candles and tossing pennies in fountains, praying and wishing for good health for the 2008 Blue Jays. Fat lot of good that did. The word (via Blair at the Globe) is that Scott Rolen and his busted digit are optimistically gone for five weeks. Add to that Matt Stairs' old man hip troubles and the extra time that it will take for B.J. Ryan to right himself, and 2008 is starting to look a lot like 2007's Bhutan Bataan DL March.

Beej to return deep in the heart of Texas: Maybe. There's some brave talk from pitching coach Brad Arnsberg (to MLBastian) that Ryan could be back in time for the April 11-13 series versus the Texas Rangers. Seeing as how Ryan had his surgery last May, we'd be inclined to stick with Accardo and the rest of the bullpen for at least a few more weeks, if only to assuage our fears that the Jays are tempting fate by sending him out for real game action within 12 months of his Tommy John procedure. (And 12 months is an arbitrary number, but we find comfort in the most arbitrary things.)

Gimme some Skin: After getting the call back to the big club, Buck "Skin" Coats homered, made an outstanding catch over the wall in center, fed a puppy, gave CPR to an ailing high-waisted snowbird, and whipped up a healthy and delicious soufflé in the Jays final fake game in Florida. Actually, we just read the boxscore, so the only thing we can confirm for certain in the list above is the homer. We just imagine that Buck "Skin" Coats can do whatever he wants. (And a hat tip to Will who came up with the nickname in yesterday's comments. We're now going to beat it into the ground.)

The Drunk Jays Fans are on the air: As if we weren't already jealous enough of the Drunk Jays Fans' site traffic and the vast number of comments they receive on even the most perfunctory posts, now comes the news that they'll be on Sun TV's The Grill Room with poncey fruit tart Gareth Wheeler on Wednesday, April 2. Moreover, the boys were approached by Sony to hand out swag (MLB 08 The Show for PS3) as part of their Opening Day Live Blog. We're happy for the DJF's success (better them than that dull old thing that rhymes with Matter's Mox)...but we've got to stop comparing ourselves to them before our self-esteem goes totally in the toilet.

Buck Coats makes the grade

(You see what we did there? Because those are buckskin coats...never mind.)

There's joy in Snowville, as the mighty Buck Coats has received the call to go north with the Blue Jays to start the season. Coats has been a favorite of the blog ever since the Jays acquired him and his awesomely porntastic name in the offseason. It remains to be seen if he sticks with the team, or if he is this year's Jason Smith/Simon Pond/Gabe Gross.

One more thing to love about Buck Coats: He is listed as an OF-IF. Dude can do anything. If he straps on the catching gear this spring, we might just lose our mind.

Also getting the call is Randy David Wells, who fulfills the team's ongoing need for two Wells on the roster.

We should probably temper our enthusiasm with the knowledge that neither of these guys sticks if the Beej and number Firty-Free are around to start the season.

Fake games don't mean shit, but...
Jesse Litsch pinkly/roundly/efficiently threw seven strong against a major league lineup, and Frank Thomas hit a moonshot to center in yesterday's 6-3 win over the Reds.

Real games start for the Jays on Monday. And not a moment too soon.

The kids get sent down

It's hardly a surprise that these guys are being reassigned to Syracuse, but the timing of the Jays sending down five guys who had at least remote chances of making the big club caught us off guard. We suppose this means that Gibby is going to take the next two weeks to work on setting up his regular lineup.

Blog favorites Robinson Diaz, Adam Lind and the otherworldly Buck Coats have all been handed the for rent section of the Syracuse Post-Standard and sent on their way. Also optioned: Joe Inglett and Curtis Thigpen. Who, if we're being completely honest, are not our favorites. Sorry! (Wow. We've been watching way too much American Idol for our own good.)

Emotional yo-yoing on the pitching staff
When Casey Janssen went down, we were all cool-like, stating that we weren't worried at all. The Jays were totally set as far as their pitching staff is concerned, right? But seeing Shaun Marcum get his "ears pinned back" (as Wilner so eloquently put it) in yesterday's loss to Cleveland reminds us that the number four and five slots in the rotation are hardly in a set-it-and-forget-it state. We were also a bit discouraged by putative bullpen saviour John Parrish's performance yesterday (3 hits, 2 walks, 2 earned in 2.1 innings). Yeah, we got worries.

Blair sings O Canada
Not-at-all grumpy Globester Jeff Blair has a nice piece on Team Canada, who he notes are not scrappy or gritty, but rather, are talented.

Watching moving pictures...what a concept!

It's amazing how much more you can glean from watching game action as opposed to reading boxscores or watching Kathryn Humphries' attempts at humour. Not that seeing a handful of innings gives a fulsome view of the progress of the team, but it was certainly revelatory to see our boys on the field.

A few thoughts:

Chacin is a Machine in need of serious repair: As ugly as the line score was, it didn't nearly do justice to just how messed up Gustavo Chacin is at this point. His arm slot has dropped noticeably, with two major repercussions. First, he's not able to hide the ball nearly as well as when he came over the top, meaning that batters are getting a really good long look at the pitch before he delivers it. Second, he has absolutely no velocity. Not that he was a flame thrower before, but now his delivery is much more suited to tossing a bean bag through a clown's nose at the county fair than it is to getting big league hitters out. This guy is toast.

Shannon Stewart is not as gimpy as we thought: Stewart worked the count well in his at bats, and looked good legging out a double. Also, we were reminded of the fact that while he has a pop gun arm, he compensates by getting good jumps on the ball as he did when he made a nice catch in foul ground.

How can we not love Buck Coats? Coats crashed into the wall in the 8th inning to make a sweet over the shoulder catch off of Jorge Posada. Also, dude is seriously lanky. Like, Bargnani lanky.

Aaron Hill is in mid-season form: Hill went deep into the count in a couple of at bats, fouling off pitches and hanging in there long enough to stroke a solid run-scoring double late in the game.

Purcey brings heat: David Purcey's control isn't all there yet, but he was dealing in his inning of work. He did get tagged for a Jason Lane homer, but dude definitely has an arm. (Or maybe anything looks fast after watching two innings of Chacin.) He's not ready for prime time, but he's almost there.

Michael Kay is a douchebag: The YES booth of Kay, David Cone and John Flaherty spent close to two innings picking apart a J.P. Ricciardi quote on the strength of the AL East which ended with the words "we just need a little more." We took the quote to mean that the Jays need a little more out of their personnel, but Kay was dismissive, assuming that he was asking for some sort of handout from the league. Flaherty assumed that they were looking for more revenue sharing, while Cone assumed that it meant that they need more fan support. Seriously, two innings spent on a throwaway sentence which probably didn't mean all that much at all.

Buck Coats is the dark horse

We're trying hard to resist jumping the gun here, but it's early in the spring, and our defenses are down.

In the midst of all the Reed vs. Stew talk, Buck Coats might just come up the middle and steal the job away from both of them. Coats put a sweet home run swing on a Mike Stanton pitch on Sunday afternoon against the Reds, and has driven in three runs so far in the Spring Training.

The Jays brass apparently loves this guy (but who don't they love at this point?), and as an added bonus, Coats can play all three outfield positions.

We're pulling for this guy, and not just because of his pornstastic name. Then again, we thought that it was an outrage when the Jays sent Gabe Gross to Syracuse after his Mantlesque spring a few years back.