Having that nearly-annual moment...

Where we realize that the Jays are not going to be at home over the Canada Day weekend.

(Mind you, they were at home last year, and there were plenty of photos of RickRo in his Canada Day duds to prove it. But we settled on the image above because of the gratuitous presence of Ed Sprague. We thought it proved our point.)

Okay, this is probably where we turn into a big sooky-baby spoiled kid in the mall parking lot, wailing at not being spoiled enough and blowing angry snot bubbles out of our nose. But is it too much for MLB to just do the Jays a solid and maybe let them play at home every July 1? The team is stuck in the perpetual Group of Death year after year, so the least you can do is give us one day to attract some extra proud Canadians down to the ballyard to hear some Trooper blasted over the loudspeakers and have some fireworks set off in the Dome.

We complain to avoid the real problems...
If Ricky Romero were to throw a perfect game, it could end up being one of those 10-hour long deals, because the Jays bats seem to go somnombulent when he is on the mound. Watching Aaron Hill whiff at Jake Westbrook's slider last night like he was channeling the Retro Handsome Alex Gonzalez made us wonder if the boys don't just breeze past the scouting reports when the good pitchers are on the mound.

When is a 4.50 ERA impressive?
It's impressive when you think that the pitcher still has a number somewhere in the mid 6.00's, until you realize that Brandon Morrow, tonight's starter against the Cleveland Racially- Insensitives, has given up a grand total of five earned runs in his last 34 innings of work, dropping his ERA down to respectability.

There's a part of us that wants to think that Morrow can become a younger, cheaper version of A.J. Burnett, with less douchebaggery and fewer excuses attached. Over the past month, Morrow's certainly been the far better pitcher of the two.

Happy Canada Day to a depressed Blue Jay Nation

A couple of lifeless games against an AL East opponent has us wondering: How bad could this season get? The surprising hot start that saw the Blue Jays in contention in the first two months of the season is becoming increasingly faint in the rearview mirror, and the reality that the Jays are 10 games below .500 since May 19 has started to sink in.

Now, as we turn over the calendar page and look ahead to a brutal month of July, the prospects for the rest of the season are starting to look dire for the rest of the 2009 season. Moreover, we can't even remember the last "Pennant!!!1" or "Playoffs!!!1" in the comment section.

Nothing is ever easy in the AL East, and now that the Jays have squandered away their early season advantage, they'll have a rough time climbing back over that mountain.

Cripes. We need a vacation.

Say, that reminds us...
We're taking a vacation. We'll be off in the wilds of Northern Ontario for a few weeks without access to the interwebs or Twitter or (gasp!) television. So the most we can hope for is to catch some games on the radio, provided we can find a signal that reaches that far.

Otherwise, we'll be keeping abreast of Blue Jays news via the boxscores. Which could actually be fun.

This is actually the longest that we're going to be away from the blog since we started it, so we're not sure how long we'll be able to make it before running away from the in-laws and hitch hiking to the nearest internet café. We give ourselves at least a couple of hours.

The Ack, fresh off his recent trip to Toronto, will be stepping in to pick up the slack and keep the bloggage flowing until we're back on July 12. Treat him well, and enjoy the respite from our pedantic daily rantings, and we promise to come back refreshed and renewed and ready to face down the dog days of the season.

Cito's lineup madness continues...for the better?
The National Post's John Lott is reporting this morning that Vernon Wells will sport his spiffy Canada Day gear whilst riding the pines this afternoon. More impressively, Adam Lind in moving into the third spot in the order and Lyle Overbay will hit fifth. We wouldn't have guessed this in April, but Lind-Rolen-Overbay is the best looking heart of the order we've seen all year. Bring it on!

After hearing Jerry Crasnick note on the Drunk Jays Fans podcast that Wells got a shot in his wrist during spring training, it has us wondering if the struggling slugger is (for the second time in three years) playing like ten pound of shit in a five pound bag because he's trying to play through injuries.

If Vernon is hurt, then seriously, sit the man down. For a week. Or two. Whatever it takes.

On that subject, Fangraphs' Canadian connection Marc Hulet made the point yesterday that Cito is running his players into the ground, leading to diminished returns in recent weeks. While the numbers he presents most compellingly make the case that Marco Scutaro and Alex Rios might be wearing down, it's not totally clear that the same case can be made across the board.

But again: We defer to the guys who know the numbers, because we're much better with words. We were born to be a sophist.

Canada Day with the 1996 Blue Jays
Via Maclean's Jaime Weinman, here's a weird nugget: the Blue Jays lip-synching to a Canadianized version of "This Land is Your Land". Enjoy, and we'll see you back here soon.

Beautiful Lazy Sorta Long Weekend

We hope to god that most of you have had the good sense to make a long weekend out of this Canada Day tomfoolery. What sort of idiot would be at work on an utterly beautiful day such as today? (Well, aside from us?)

Celebrating our Confederation...in Seattle?
Seriously, this whole business of keeping the Jays out of Toronto on holidays (Victoria Day and Canada Day in particular) has gotten out of hand. Who do we have to blow in order to get ourselves a home series for the Jays over the weekend of our national holiday? Maybe Paul Godfrey didn't want to ask for such frivolities as he was angling for the All-Star Game (and settling for the World Baseball Classic, or Festival, or Jamboree or whatever the hell they are calling it.) Still, we miss the days when the Jays came out in sweet red caps and jerseys with "Canada" on the back.

Maybe we didn't appreciate the last Canada Day home game because on that day, the Jays wore quite possibly the ugliest uni's ever sported by the Toronto nine.

There's always next year, we suppose. Regardless, we fully expect that the Jays fans in beautiful British Columbia will make their way down to Safeco this week to represent. And possibly strip to the waist and make really bad puns on player's names. (This is what too many hours in front of collegehumor.com has done to our youth.)

Make us proud, left coast Canadians.

Happy Canada Day

Too bad MLB wouldn't see fit to let Canada's only team play at home on Canada Day more than once every few years.

(July 2 Update: Paul Lukas picks up the fight at UniWatch.)