At least they lead the league in something

After hitting into three more tonight, your Toronto Blue Jays have pulled away from the competition and now solidly lead the league in grounding into double plays with a magnificent 58. Oh, and they probably lead the league in hitting into triple plays as well.

A note of caution about this stat: Yeah, it's as frustrating as all get out when you see the Jays snuff out another rally in this manner, but at the same time, the mighty BoSox and their unstoppable offense rank second in this category, so we're not even sure if it means anything.

A few other random thoughts:

You can't pitch around Vlad
Didja see the pitch that he hit for the three-run bomb in the third? Yeah, sure, we got to see him hit those on the occasional Expos game that was briadcast back in the day, but it's still pretty stunning to see him go that far inside and hit it like it was a fastball grooved down the middle of the plate.

When is an RBI not a cause for celebration?
When you see Alex Rios drive in a run (finally), but he looks very much like he did in his rookie year, when he was pretty much a soft singles hitter. And of course, when he does put a ride into a ball tonight, he gets robbed by Sarge Junior. Somedays, we hate this stupid game.

JaysTalk listeners: LISTEN UP TO THIS, IDIOTS
For the last goddamn time...this is Major League MickeyFicking Baseball. This isn't your glory days on the crushed gravel Little League diamonds of Buttfuck, Wherever. This is the Big Leagues, so STOP TALKING ABOUT BUNTING! We get that you're a frickin' Mosquito League coach who teaches fundamentals to all of the ADD cases that get pawned off on you, and we're sure that you're the Sparky Anderson or Casey Stengel of Barrie or North Bay or whatever. But laying down a bunt and hoping that the fielders working their way through their awkward phase throw it over the chain link back stop and into the swamp behind doesn't work at this level.

Seriously. Stop extrapolating your experience in adolescent scrub leagues onto the players who are infinitely more capable than you or your inbred demon spawn.

Much obliged.

Double your misery

It's not just that they Jays are displaying an historic ineptitude in hitting with runners in scoring position this season. They're also wiping themselves out of innings by hitting into more double plays than any other team so far this season.

Worse still, it is the guys in the middle of the lineup that are doing most of the work producing outs for the other team rather than runs for their own. Vernon "Whipping Boy" Wells and Lyle Overbay have both ground into five twin killings apiece, while Shannon Stewart, Matt Stairs and Scrappy-Doo Eckstein have each grounded into four.

And just for good measure, Frank Thomas ground into three while he was still here.

It's one thing to get guys on base - the Jays are still posting a respectable .342 OBP, fourth in the AL - but seriously, and for fuck's sake, they've gotta stop with this, or we might just go batty.