Let's Talk About Deck Chairs

So John Farrell thinks the Jays' offense might need a "spark". Well la-di-fucking-duh. Thanks for tuning in, Skip. And don't worry: Once Interleague games are over, you can go right back to worrying about your overstocked bullpen. Maybe even use Mike McCoy as your backup catcher so that you can trim your bench down to a single body to maximize the arms available to you at any given moment.

Sorry...Does it sound like we might have pissed on the wrong side of our Cinnamon Toast Crunch this morning? It certainly feels that way.

Generally, we're the optimist when it comes to the Jays' fortunes, preaching patience and forbearance and the like as the rest of the internet calls for the immediate and swift beheading of anyone who's had a bad week. So we fancy ourselves as the voice of reason (an incredibly immodest stance to take, we realize.) But after the unmitigated shit show of the past few weeks, it's getting harder everyday to watch a team that fields two fourth outfielders as starters everyday, and who supplements that with a second baseman who's forgotten how to hit line drives (and that's how he made it to the big leagues in the first place, for Jimmy's sake!) and a third baseman who hits just slightly better than the pitchers might.

So, yeah. Maybe it's time to reconsider Corey Patterson's spot in the lineup.

(And is it just us, or does Patterson have some sort of charisma and charm that makes managers think of him as a gamer and a guy they have to get in the lineup, in spite of, you know, all the shittiness? "The speedster" gets thrown out six times trying to steal, and yet: "Get him in there! He's a waterbug! A sparkety-fucking-sparky-plug for the offense!")

Hey! Quick flashback, friends: Remember when this team was going to be the Go-Go Jays, running the bases with abandon and keeping pressure on the other pitchers? Well, one key problem with that approach is that you actually have to get on base to make it work. (We'd actually thought last night that a positive in recent weeks was that we hadn't seen the Jays make a lot of needless outs on the basepaths, until it occurred to us that most of the outs are being made at the plate anyways.)

But wait: Wasn't this the best offense in the game just a few short weeks ago? Why yes, it was, fellow traveller. But consider what's happened over that time: Since pounding around Royals pitching for a couple of nights this month, the Jays have posted a .194 team batting average - cut to Jayson Nix asking: "What's wrong with that?" - and a .254 OBP to add to a .326 SLG for a galactically shitteriffic .581 OPS. (Standard arbitrary endpoint caveats apply.)

And over those 13 games, the Jays are averaging 2.4 runs per outing. Also, they are striking out at a higher rate (7.9/game) then they are getting base hits (6.3/game).

We can play along and try to figure out where you slot Aaron Hill to minimize the impact of his popping pretty much everything up to the infield (and for god's sake, don't suggest that he go to the top of the lineup...just stop with all of that tomfoolery), but really, we're getting to a point where we've seen enough of this team to know that outside of Adam Lind and José Bautista, there's not much there.

A spark? That'd be a start.

The Bright Side of a Very Bad Trip

When the Jays left town for an 11-day road trip, things seemed pretty frickin' rosy. They'd won two of three games in their first two series, with the allegedly dreadful Mariners and the struggling Red Sox on the itinerary, it seems as though the Jays were ready to roll through the first month of the season.

But it hasn't even remotely played out that way. The roadtrip finished up 3-7, but has felt longer and more miserable than even that record would suggest.

And yet...

(For those of you who hate it when we go into apologist mode, you might want to skip ahead to the comments, where you can begin castigating us for our weak-kneed sycophancy.)

The Jays weren't that far off from coming home with an even 5-5 mark, if Bob Davidson's awful extra inning call doesn't go against them, and if they buckle down against the Mariners when they held their comfortable lead. Obviously, there's no spot in a team's record for hypotheticals, so this is all so much blather. And we'll cop to that.

Still, a team is going to have rough road trips in the run of a season, and given that this one saw them travel to the West Coast and back and facing a tough Red Sox team that was highly motivated to pull their bloated carcass off the mat, we can almost swallow the seven loses.

Almost.

Mind you, the team is going to have some issues to address, most notably a free-swinging offense that mustered up a grand total of three runs in the past three outings, and ran into outs (which we know some of you scrappy-doodle-dandies love, but it makes us nauseous. On the other side of the ball, there's a starting staff that pitches around the opposition, racking up strikeouts (yay!), high pitch counts (boo!) and early exits that tax the bullpen to the point where reinforcements need to be called in to bail out a 12-man staff (double boo!)

But aside from that...All's well!

One-Two Gut Punch of Outrageous Fortune
We hate to play the game of figuring out what is going on in the mind of the players. Still, we wonder if the meltdown against the Mariners and the blown call against the Angels didn't take some of the spring out of their step. (By the end of today's 9-1 drubbing, it was hard to pick out Juan Rivera from the pack of lifeless zombies shifting their weight around the dugout.)

Up Next - The Evil Empire
Because there's nothing quite like Mr. Steinbrenner's crazy collection of superstars coming to town to help a team out of their funk, the Jays get two games against the Bronx Bombers starting tomorrow.

But a win featuring a fine performance by Kyle Drabek and a manhandling of A.J. Burnett? That might just salve over the wounds of a lousy week.

Spinning the revolving door

After having sat through three of the worst Blue Jays games that we've seen all season, it's hard to muster up any energy to be angry or indignant or excited about the plethora of player personnel moves made over the last couple of days.

Rolen to the DL. Wells back from the DL. Litsch up, Parrish down. Shannon Stewart let loose on an ice flow floe.

Does any of this matter at this point?

The Jays had a great opportunity this weekend to make some hay and beat up on one of the weaker teams in the league in Cleveland, and they looked flat out awful at the plate the entire series. Sometime around the sixth inning of Sunday's game, we nearly pitched ourselves over the railing from the 500 section, which is reason enough for us never to sit there again.

We wish we could get jazzed about yesterday's win over the Tigers, but we're just a little too depressed to even care.

Matt Stairs walks between the raindrops

It seems as though this is a post that we've been ready to write for months now, but every time we're about to commit our thoughts to the blog, Matt Stairs hits a game-changing homer, and we feel like a chump for having thought it.

But really, there's no one on the Jays roster who has escaped criticism more than the man from Tay Creek, N.B.. We're sure that it doesn't hurt his cause that he's a good, hockey-lovin' Canadian boy who has heart and grit and is a leader in the locker room (as if any of us would know that), but Stairs' production as a DH/Corner outfielder has been subpar all year.

For the month of July, Stairs is hitting .121, with a .521 OPS, one homer and three RsBI in 11 games while striking out in 15 of his 40 plate appearances. That just ain't no good.

For a good chunk of the season, it was hard to call Stairs out because he was actually leading the team in homers. But given a bit more time in this season and a bit more perspective, it's hard to tip your cap to the man for being the best of an outrageously feeble bunch.

Stairs is roughly on pace for about 16 homers and 50-odd RsBI for the season. No matter how much we love the guy, those are just not the sort of numbers that you can carry in your lineup for any extended amount of time, especially from a guy who is hitting somewhere in the middle of the lineup.

Telling sad tales about the feeble offense
Stairs might be struggling this month, but check out the OPS for a few of the Jays this month if you really want to ruin your day:

Gregg Zaun: .386
Rod Barajas: .451
Brad Wilkerson: .484
Scott Rolen: .573
David Eckstein: .560

Five random yahoos who would lead the Jays in homers AND RsBI

• Jason Kubel, Twins - 10 HRs, 37 RsBI
• Jack Cust, A's - 11 HRs, 33 RsBI
• Aubrey Huff, Orioles - 11 HRs, 38 RsBI
• Melvin Mora, Orioles - 10 HRs, 37 RsBI
• Kevin Millar, Orioles - 11 HRs, 37 RsBI

Cowboy up, indeed.

U-G-L-Y

The Jays ain't got no alibi. That was ugly. Ugly ugly ugly.

There's nothing quite so demoralizing as seeing Craig Counsell (Craig Counsell!!!) hit a home run. Or seeing perpetual washout and strikeout master Russ Branyan knock one into orbit. Or to watch Ryan Braun knock the Jays pitchers around the park like they are tossing BP. (And speaking of BP...doesn't it look like the Jays could use a little extra, what with their measly four singles?)

Or seeing Benny the Bernie Brewer repeatedly slide down his slide into...wait, what happened to the beer he used to slide into? Not family-friendly enough? The team does recognize the fact that they are called "the Brewers", right?

We're doing our best to look on the bright side, and to not become another of the nattering nabobs of negativity burying this team. But after another washout like last night, we're wondering if this team is ever going to get it going.

Blue Jays teach school kids the meaning of "misery"

Also: "disappointment", "ineptitude" and "impotence". (Stash that last one away for a couple of decades kiddies.)

B.J. Ryan continued to hand out free trips to first base like he was Jonathan Carroll from iTravel2000.com (Call 1-866-WOW-DEAL! And get away for less!), walking Ichiro (oops) and Miguel Frickin' Cairo (double oops) in the ninth. And while it sounded as though he was being squeezed, maybe the Beej should have put on his big boy pants and stopped nibbling around the corners, looking for calls.

(Yeah, you read that right. We're down on the Beej now. Dude needs to stop arguing with umpires and start getting outs. And soon.)

Of course, all of that ninth inning drama could have been avoided if the Jays had only picked up a run in the sixth when (stop us if you've heard this one before) they left runners on the corners with one out.

One good thing about today's game: Jamie Campbell wasn't broadcasting it, so he didn't get to go apeshit crazy on the air when the Mariners went ahead in the ninth. (Although he probably did so at home in stately Ginger Manor, with all of his Richie Zisk cards displayed in front of him.)

Ladies and Gentlemen - Your 2008 Toronto Blue Jays: Crushing your spirit, shredding the crushed remains, then lighting the whole shredded heap into blazing inferno. Rinse. Repeat.

Another losing streak is finished

Five losses later, the Jays survive an unassisted triple play in the nightcap of last night's double header to salvage a win.

Yay.

Five and a half back, five back of the Wild Card. Last place in the AL East. And while it is not exactly late, it's scarcely early in the season either.

Before finally busting out with a three-run tenth last night, the Jays had gone 31 innings without pushing across a run. Take a look at the team offensive totals, and you see the Jays languishing near the bottom of almost every category with the likes of the Giants and Royals and Padres.

This is a really bad team offensively. Not one that just needs to get on track either. It's just bad, and after six weeks of play, we're not sure when the moment of great clarity is supposed to occur, when the Jays pull themselves out of this funk.

We're coming to a sad realization: that 2006 was the aberration, not 2007.

What if we're really this bad?

Here's the scary thought that popped into our head as we woke up at 3 am: What if this isn't just a bad streak? What if this isn't just a spot where our boys are hitting some "at 'em balls" and having some bad luck?

What if the 2008 Toronto Blue Jays are really this bad?

The reason that this pops into our head is that last year's paltry performances from a number of the club's putative offensive contributors were pretty much written off before the season began. Bad shoulder, bad wrist, bad whatever...the 2007 Jays were said to have underperformed for a number of reasons, but that should not have been taken to mean that they weren't capable of much more this year.

But what if Vernon Wells really is a .260, 20 homer, 85 RsBI, sub-.800 OPS kind of player? What if Lyle Overbay is destined to hit .270, with a dozen homers? What if Alex Rios topped out last year?

It might have been easy to cast these dark thoughts aside a few weeks ago. But after watching this team go 1-7 on this road trip, and 4-12 since the sweep of the lowly Rangers in Arlignton, those awful thoughts are getting harder to suppress.

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.

Requiem for Goat Boy

The initial reaction after last night's crushing 1-0 loss to the Red Sox was to heap scorn upon Vernon Wells for his inability to come up with Kevin Youkilis' line drive single cleanly, allowing David Ortiz to rumble home with the winning run. Some people might have even questioned Wells' manhood for his inability to come up with that ball cleanly in the comment sections of other blogs. (Although we can't imagine who.)

But having watched the play endlessly, frame by frame, it looked to us as though the ball took a funny bounce just in front of Wells, and he did an okay job of keeping the ball in front of himself. Not a great job, just okay.

If that's the seventh inning, it's just another play. And if the Jays hadn't looked patently awful at the plate all night, it wouldn't have mattered. But with the Blue Jays' season quickly slip-sliding away in April, things are starting to get desperate, and reason is starting to get tossed out the window.

In contrast to the JaysTalk callers, we're not sure how the Jays' monumental ineptitude in hitting with runners in scoring position can be John Gibbons' fault. But if they can't win one of the next two games, by hook or by crook, we've got a sneaking suspicion that Gibby might not make it back to the home dugout in the Rogers Centre.

Gary Denbo has his work cut out for him

So much time has passed since Mickey "I'm Just the Patsy" Brantley was shown the far far end of the plank that we had almost forgotten about new Jays hitting coach Gary Denbo. Globe Junior reminds us of the new hire, who apparently isn't averse to taking balls in the face. (Hey-o!)

Denbo has his work cut out for him, what with the team's disappointing performance at the plate in 2007. Still, Denbo seems as though he may be set up for success, what with the team returning to mostly good health. And while we at the front of the mob chasing Brantley out of town, we kinda feel sorry for him. If Denbo comes out and has success with a team that is deeper and healthier, people (like us) will probably assume that it is because he is a genius, and Brantley was a dope.

It was twenty years ago today (well, this month)

If the Jays' offensive hadn't induced enough nausea for you so far this year, then read this article from the Hardball Times' John Brattain, who compares the Jays' hitting with RISP to that of the Jays during their week long meltdown in 1987.

We're pretty sure that when we get to hell, we will be forced to watch those Jays-Tigers series on an endless loop. But at least this year has braced us for the pain.

Mickey Brantley's Mantra - "If we suck, it's because we're hurt"

J.P. Ricciardi finally dropped the dime on Vernon Wells' general suckiness this year, by confirming what Mickey (I'm SO Outta Here) Brantley let slip earlier this week (oops): V-Dub's got shoulder issues.

"It's not so much an injury -- there's just a little tightness in there," Ricciardi said. "He's been playing, and I don't think he would use it as an excuse. He's got a little soreness in his shoulder, but nothing that's stopped him from playing." (mlb.com)

Props go out to Vernon for not rising to the bait ( "No comment. There's no excuses.") But it seems to us that by dropping this info out there, Mickey B might be making a too-little too-late attempt to dog paddle his way out of the deep end. Maybe if he can convince the world that all of the Jays' ineptitude at the plate this year can be attributed to injuries ("Reed! Lyle! Vernon! Glaus! It weren't my fault!"), then he'll be back next year for another kick at the can.

But if we were him, we wouldn't be putting down any roots in T.O..

He's a Doctor, not a miracle worker

You've gotta feel for Roy Halladay. Last night's complete game 3-0 loss to the Angels was as gutsy as the Jays' offense was limpy. Doc got hit around, but bore down enough to snuff out several rallies, in the hopes that the bats would somehow come alive.

They obviously didn't.

It's too bad Halladay can't hit, given his 1.000 OPS and .500 AVG.

Mind you, the Jered Weaver to Justin Speier to Scott Shields to Francisco Rodriguez combo that the Angels ran out last night is ridiculously solid, and looks like a playoff pitching staff.

But the Jays offense, which was sleepy throughout this month, has gone colder than cold. There isn't a single hot bat in the lineup, and no one is picking anyone else up.

It's too bad the Jays don't have a dedicated member of their coaching staff who is focussed on improving the team's offense. That might help.

Frank Thomas peers behind the grassy knoll

Give Frank Thomas some credit for breaking out his conspiracy theories about the baseballs being dead this year after he hit a tape-measure home run on Friday.

"It's been a strange season throughout baseball," Thomas said. "I don't want to say anything but I think something's going on with the baseballs. A lot of guys been hitting a lot of balls close to the wall and they're not flying." (Globe and Mail)

It might be tempting to write off Thomas' comments as sour grapes after a less than stellar power season, until you look around the Majors and see all of the other sluggers who are having down years.

Injuries might play a part for some of these guys, but seeing a number of players who will likely not 30 homers this season is definitely surprising.

• Manny Ramirez - 19 HRs
• Travis Hafner - 18 HRs
• Richie Sexson - 19 HRs
• Andruw Jones - 22 HRs
• Matt Holliday - 21 HRs
• Carlos Delgado - 18 HRs
• Derek Lee - 13 HRs
• Troy Glaus - 15 HRs
  

It seems a little odd to us to see this many sluggers all struggling simultaneously, and to see the power numbers decline across both leagues.

It could be (as we speculated over tasty beverages on Friday) that the quality of pitching has finally caught back up to the caliber of hitting, but to do so in the space of a single season?

Supposing that the balls are dead, there would be few teams that would be affected more by this change than the Blue Jays, a team whose offense was built around the big blast.

So, instead of blaming Gibby, Josh Towers, or Mickey Brantley for the Jays' offensive woes, perhaps we should be blaming Bud Selig?

And not to get reckless with our speculation, but do you suppose MLB might have ordered the balls to be deadened as a last resort to slow down Barry Bonds' chase of the home run record?

Somedays, just enough is good enough to get you by

Stop us if you've heard either of these stories before. The first one goes like this: Roy Halladay pitches lights out over nine innings, bearing down and stymieing the opposition after a couple of early runs. The other is the one about how the Jays offense barely scrapes more than a couple of runs together.

That was pretty much the story with this afternoon's 3-2 extra inning win over the Orioles. We probably don't even need to do game recaps at this point. The win keeps the Jays at 6.5 back in the Wild Card, if you're still tracking that sort of thing.

We'll take a win any day, but this seemed like the most passionless walkoff win we've ever seen. It just all seemed very "meh". (Then again, we weren't listening to Jamie Campbell, who might have been having kittens in the booth after Aaron Hill hit the lazy sac fly).

Milestones
Both Vernon Wells and Troy Glaus hit round numbers in RsBI this afternoon, with Wells driving in his 70th and Glaus driving himself in for his 50th with a fifth inning homer. With six weeks to go in the season, it would appear that neither player will get a sniff at 100 RsBI, a situation that is of obvious concern.

On the other hand, it is plausible that the Jays will end the season with three players driving in 90 or more. (Frank Thomas, 73; Wells; and Rios, 67.) We're not sure if you can fit faint praise like that onto an ice cream cake, but we'll look into it.

Too little, too late

A ninth inning rally - off Francisco Rodriguez, no less - wasn't enough to salvage a win out of another lackluster offensive game for the Blue Jays, who fell 4-3 to the Angels.

Dusty Lambchops pitched well, and as Alan Ashby pointed out on the radiocast, probably pitched better than his line (6 IP, 4 hits, 3 ERs, 7 Ks, 3 BBs) would indicate.

The entire Jays pitching staff has been rock solid in this series, including tonight's relievers Brian Wolfe (two innings, no runs) and Scott Downs (one inning, no runs). We really like what we've seen out of Wolfe, who has been way better than Jason Frasor and deserves the chance he has received late in the season, no matter what some tweaked out commenters at Drunk Jays Fans think.

Giving Jamie Campbell the night off
We don't hate on the Jays' TV voice as much as some others do (we think he's just a big nerd, in the best sense), but it has been nice listening to Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby on the radio as we watch the game. The radio is a couple of seconds ahead of the TV image, but we've managed to get used to it. It's also been funny to realize that sometimes, when Jerry starts dropping knowledge on the radio, it's because he's reading the graphics off the Sportsnet broadcast. (And there's no sin in that.)

An eyeful behind the plate
As we grew weary of waiting on the Jays' offense, it sure was nice to be able to enjoy the lovely servers propped up behind home plate. At least they have the hot women in black there, and not some awkward phase teen with a Jays cap dug out at the goodwill, a recycled shirt and a button the size of his head pinned on, advertising some ridiculously overpriced ice cream bar. Because that would not enhance the viewing experience at all.

Four hits, one run

So, yeah, that's not really gonna get it done, now is it?

Pity poor Dusty Lambchops, who pitched well, but saw his defense fail him, and the offense go completely somnambulatory .

We've clearly entered into the Bizzaro world
The whole lineup goes silent in last night's 4-1 loss to the Royals, except for the struggling Troy Glaus, who had two of the Jays' hits. Go figure.

Somebody get Marcum some water

Shaun Marcum pitched himself into a fit of dehydration last night, giving up one hit and no runs in 6.2 innings, helping to lead the Jays to a 2-0 win over the Royals.

As great as Marcum pitched, would it have killed him to have gulped back a little agua before the game? It was painful to watch him hobbling around with leg cramps, especially on a play where he had to cover first.

It reminds of what Ichiro said about KC: "Kansas City in August is hotter than two rats fucking in a sock."

If it's a road game, they must have left the offense at home
Once again, the Jays manage just two runs on the road. Which for some reason reminds us all of those old tales about the Jays stealing signs at the Rogers Centre. Just sayin'.

Saturday Night Game Fever
Tonight, Dustin McGowan goes up against Leo Nunez, who has a 1.93 ERA this year. Which, given that these are the Royals, seems like a physical impossibility.