Reprieves, squandered second chances and weekend stuff

We'd hate to go down the road of talking how something in a baseball helped us to see what really matters and all that jazz. Still, we were left dumbfounded when John McDonald hit his ninth inning homer on his first Father's Day after his father's recent passing. We don't really need to tart the moment up, because most of you readers saw it yourself, and had your own moment with it. We hope that you can remember whatever you felt in that moment, and we'll leave it there.

A bucketload of Sunday transactions
The Jays have been nudging the pawns around board for the past few weeks, adding players with marginal roles like DeWayne Wise and Nick Green to the roster, while sending Jeremy Reed away and waiting for Travis Snider's wrist to recover.

But Sunday's transactions are a bit more intriguing to us. The Jays dispatched Jorge Padilla to the Mets for essentially nothing, which tipped us off that something else might be moving later in the day. (We can't remember is Padilla was still on the 40-man, but we figured a move like that was making room for something else.)

Before the Jays even had time to hit the showers after yesterday's loss to the Giants, the team announced that they were calling up Triple-A slugger Jarret Hoffpauir, while sending Edwin Encarnacion off to Vegas to chill and get his swing back.

We love the move to bring up Hoffpauir, as it shows that the team might not be quite so stubborn about trying to get the most out of the minor-league veterans on its roster. He's posting a .910 OPS in Vegas, with more walks (21) than strikeouts (15), which shows a level of maturity with the strike zone. Moreover, he's in his 27 year-old season, which means (if the old scouting addage holds true) that the next few years might be his most productive. So why not give him a chance?

The only thing that is perplexing about this is the sequence of adding journeyman Nick Green and his career .656 OPS to the mix while dispatching Encarnacion, who's OPSing .765 this year. We're not entirely sure what Encarnacion is supposed to learn at this point in the PCL, and the Jays should know that they have a guy who will hit the ball hard and whiff a lot. We're not sure how that's supposed to change from here on out.

Maybe this is just the beginning of the end for Edwin.

A Minor League Hero is something to be
Another couple of transactions that might have slipped below the radar drew our attention this weekend. First off, our off-season mancrush Brian Dopirak was dropped from the 40-man roster and outrighted to Vegas.

It's funny to us now how much we spent the off-season bitching and moaning about the raw deal that Dopirak and Randy Ruiz were getting, and how the Jays should be making room for both of them on the 25-man roster. Now, Ruiz is getting back into game shape and helping the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, while Dopirak is rocking a sub-.700 OPS and grounding into double plays like your grandma.

We're sure there's a lesson to be learned there.

Meanwhile, Kevin Ahrens (the next Chipper!) and his .524 OPS was shipped from high-A Dunedin to end-of-the-line Lansing last week, with an order to stop with his switch-hitting nonsense (Thanks to Lott at the NP.) We'd say something hopeful about the young-ish (21) Ahrens' chances of pulling it together, but a slide back to the Midwest League at this point pretty much wipes clear most of the optimism that we might have had for him.

Litsch is bitchin'; Brian leaves us cryin'
How good did Jesse Litsch look on Saturday? Good enough that we're going to give him one week's worth of free passes. There shall be no discussion of his follicular colouring or pigmentation, nor shall there be any brickbats launched at the expense of his physique. You toss a three-hitter where you attack hitters like that, and you get yourself a nice reprieve.

As for the man he replaced in the rotation, Mr. Tallet: Shave your stupid lambchops, you beatnik.

Optimism! More Optimism Please!
Five Dunedin Blue Jays were named to the Florida State League All-Star game, including starter Henderson Alvarez, catchers Travis d’Arnaud and Yan Gomes and infielder Tyler Pastornicky. (And some other dude got added, but we're inclined to believe that it was a sympathy thing...or we're just too lazy to go back and find who it was.)

We've got a lot invested emotionally in Alvarez, d'Arnaud and Pastornicky at this point, so any good news coming from wherever they are is fine by us. We just wish we didn't have to wait so long for them to get here, because the more levels that they have to traverse, the more that we get nervous about whether if they can surmount the next obstacle.

On the other hand, the past few weeks worth of performance from J.P. Arencibia (still young at 24!) has us feeling like we might actually start to see real live prospects emerge from the system any day now. Arencibia is doing a passable job in terms of throwing runners out (24%) while reclaiming some of his past form at the plate (.884 OPS, 14 HRs, 35 RsBI.) It was in his 24th year that Mike Napoli finally emerged from the minors to start making a dent in Anaheim, and Arencibia's numbers compare pretty favorably with the Angel's backstop.

We could definitely learn to live with that.

Doing right by Ruiz

At the end of the day, the release of Randy Radames Ruiz was the best result for all parties involved - the Jays, Ruiz himself, and the fans.

Ruiz benefits from likely the biggest payday he'll ever see; though terms are unknown, it's sure to be more than the major league minimum, and for a soon-to-be 33 year old baseball player staring down his twilight years, that can't be overlooked. After 11 seasons scratching out a living as a minor leaguer (along with parts of seasons on the big league roster), Ruiz can do what he does best - hit bombs - free of the worry of providing for his family now and 10 years from now.

The Jays gain a coveted roster spot, because let's face it - as used, Ruiz wasn't close to being an asset. But that's the rub, isn't it? I'd like to know the thought process in bringing Ruiz north with the team to be a once-a-week DH/pinch hitter..... because that made no sense.The strength of Ruiz was his ability to hit the ball. Did he even own a glove? It was an awkward arrangement for all, as it was becoming painful to watch the slugger swing at anything close in an attempt to win over the manager in his limited appearances.

And the fans.....well, we're freed as much as Randy was. With his scorching "tryout" to close out '09, we were all left to wonder what could be if Ruiz were finally given the necessary major league at-bats to show what he could do. Hell, the manager himself was fond of saying that Ruiz could hit 30 home runs given the at-bats.

Unfortunately, that was never going to happen.

Welcome FredDotLew to the T-Dot-O

It's probably a pretty clear indicator of the extent to which we are so far gone in terms of our baseball obsession that we are completely geeked out over the Jays' acquisition of Fred Lewis.

Lewis is a guy who struggled to find a full time spot in a big league lineup, and when things went well for him, he managed a little bit of power, a bit more speed and a pretty-good-but-not-otherworldly OPS. And on defense, don't even ask us because we have no idea how to parse through the factors that allow a man to have both a +29.3 and a -59.9 UZR/150, as though some days he's Willie Mays and some days he's Pete Incaviglia.

Maybe this is overly glib, but given the description above, there's a part of us that keeps thinking of Fred Lewis as the Black Reed Johnson. (Although without Johnson's JV girls field hockey running style, which is a big plus.)

Still, this is a pretty snazzy deal for the Jays, who give up pretty much nothing and get a decent player who profiles well as a leadoff guy (.355 career OBP) and who can step into any of the outfield positions in a pinch. His presence immediately send Jeremy Reed back to Vegas, and gives the Jays some additional strength off the bench.

Of course, that's as things stand today. Where this acquisition gets really interesting is in a week or so, when Aaron Hill comes back from the DL. When the music stops at that point, who is left scrambling to find themselves one of the 25 seats? Is it Randy Ruiz, who is getting no love from The Manager anyhow? Does Travis Snider return to Sin City? Does Jo-Bau slide to third, leaving EE without a spot? Does Lyle Overbay get paid to sit at home and explore further adventures in facial hair?

And maybe the most important question that this trade raises: Is Ghostrunner on First's Lloyd the Barber a Savant, a Soothsayer, a Witch or a Double-Agent, sent by Alex Anthopoulos to infiltrate the Jays blogosphere.

FredDotLew is a social media monster
Love the story, as recounted by Big League Stew, of how Lewis broke the news of his trade via his Facebook page. That's so 2007! Lewis is all over the interwebs, so he may end up wresting the mantle of Most Beloved Jay on the Internet from the rehabbing Dirk Hayhurst. The Pinch Runner's Gospels, anyone?


Travis Snider is a lovable dude
Speaking of the Rosy-Cheeked Phenom, his bat flip on his first homer of the year gave us a little jolt of happiness in the depth of our cockles. Pair that up with a beauty of a diving catch, and our belief in Snider grew exponentially last night.

(Although someone might want to teach that kid how to lay out for a ball. We want to pat Snider on the back and tell him: It's cool and all that you're hard as fuck and you're gonna catch that ball no matter what, but landing shoulder first to catch a ball in an April game scares the shit out of us. Land on your chest and belly if you want to hit the turf, mmkay?)

Friday Rock Out - Because you miss them, don't you?
Since we've stopped tossing up random music clips, we get tweets and emails all the time suggesting this band or those guys who should make the cut. But today's selection is just for us: Cracker's "Low". We've been getting nostalgic lately, and this is a hat tip to our angry white boy days, when we'd pull on our torn denim and plaid and our Doc Martens, groom our goatee and get ready to take on the world with an arsenal of sullen looks and post-adolescent sarcasm. Enjoy.

In lieu of thoughts, 10 random tweetable whims

We'd prefer not to put too much more thought into last night's game. We're not even going to repeat the score or the details, because such a thing will only help the thought to take purchase in the soil of our mind. And so, we forget.

In lieu of any day after gnashing of teeth, we offer up 10 brief and random notions on the season thus far. We do this also because since we been on the Twitter, we can no longer shape or develop any cogent argument in a paragraph. We can only hint at the possibility of one in 140 characters.

(All hail Twitter: The End of Thought, The Triumph of Whims!)

1. We'd given up on Casey Janssen, but he now looks like he could throw a pitch past someone if he needed to.

2. Randy Ruiz is a big dude, but he can run the bases with fury if he needs to.

3. We like seeing Adam Lind in the field. It reminds us that he's going to play there when the Jays make it to the World Series.

4. Overbay complained in '09 about not getting regular playing time. We hope he's enjoying his 2010 so far. We're not. So far.

5. Kevin Gregg just looks like a closer. Like a big, jarheaded nasty shut-the-door closer. And that appeals to some part of us.

6. Frasor is about eight inches shorter than Gregg, but still throws harder. It just doesn't seem that way.

7. Ruiz has now scored more runs than Aaron Hill. And not in the good way we might have imagined before the season.

8. Hamstring injuries scare the shit out of us. We remember the first time Vernon pulled up lame with one.

9. A sign that this might be more than a hot start: In addition to his improved swing, Vernon is letting pitches off the plate go for balls.

10. The 51s are 6-1 so far. And Brad Mills' line looks like this: 2-0, 0.79 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 18 Ks, 1 BB.

Why is this man smiling?

Maybe because a certain slow-of-foot tweeter says that The Manager says that he's going to get full-time duty at first base this year.

If you've followed along for awhile, you likely know that we love us some Randy Ruiz and we loathe The Manager's managerialism. So what we're about to say might surprise you:

We kinda like this move. Sorta. Even if we don't actually believe it will come to pass.

Overbay, much like his fellow Washingtonian/sweet-swinging/first-sacker/doubles-machine John Olerud, will always disappoint those who are expecting a 300 lb gorilla at first base. But if you can get over the notion that a corner infielder's offensive production needs to be measured in home runs and runs batted in, you'll see that Overbay can still provide above average production. In 2009, his 122 OPS+ ranked behind only Adam Lind (144) and Scott Rolen's 1/2 season (124) amongst Jays hitters, and put him ahead of everybody's favorite poster-boy Aaron Hill (117).

The caveat, of course, is that Overbay was held back from facing too many lefties, and kinda sucked against them, posting a 53 OPS+. He only started eight games all year against lefties, and stood in the batters box against them just 86 times. And even in his best season (2006) with the Jays, Overbay didn't get a ton of looks at lefties (167 plate appearances), and he managed just a .305 OBP against them.

Even so, here's where we think it might make sense: There's a line that Overbay threw out at one point last season about how he found it difficult to get into a groove when his playing time was so irregular. Even if that is a load of horseshit, it's the load of horseshit that is in Overbay's head, and if getting him a few extra AB's against lefties to prove himself helps him keep his hitting stroke in order, then so be it.

But ultimately, we doubt that The Manager will be able to resist the urge to platoon Overbay and Ruiz. And frankly, that might be for the best. (Agreeing with The Manager? We must be feverish.)

Ruiz needs some sort of a role on the Jays if he is going to be on the roster, and he certainly wouldn't fit into the Johnny Mac pinch running role. Parking him on the bench to serve as an occasional pinch hitter won't really give the Jays a sense of who he could be as a major leaguer. If he were to get a turn a few times per week in the early going, and show himself to be unable to hang at this level, then that's one thing. But if he's languishing with a .750 OPS in less than 50 ABs somewhere in the middle of June, then the Jays would probably be better off letting Ruiz go elsewhere and bringing in a player with some positional flexibility.

Even if that would be a cryin' shame.

Don't tell me the Jays are doing well in the Fake Games

La la la la la! We can't hear you!

When you say that José Bautista is hitting home runs, and so is Vernon Wells, and so is Randy Ruiz, we can't hear you. And don't even bother trying to tell us that Shaun Marcum pitched well in his first outing, or that Dustin McGowan looked like he might be showing some progress and may be on his way back. We're not going to hear you.

We're blocking out any such good news in the early going because we wouldn't want such news to find purchase in our mind, and start to grow visions of success. We would prefer to look at this all as a fluke, and to pretend that the Jays are playing bantam-level players in out-sized big league uniforms.

We should know better than to get enthusiastic in March. This is a lesson that should have been driven home by last year's squad, which was still sitting in first in May before completely falling apart and playing like the worst team in the Majors for the final three months of the season.

Still, the hopeless romantic in us wants to believe that there is something to the things that we're hearing out of Dunedin.

Marginalia - Notes on how we make editorial choices
We'd initially written something here about "don't let us look at the Fake Games results". Then we went looking for a photo of someone with a blindfold on. And that's when we realized that there are a lot of effed-up pictures of blindfolded people on the internet, and we didn't want to parse through those pictures anymore.

A weekend in The Show
So we picked up our copy of MLB 10 The Show this weekend, which was a very new and interesting experience after having played the MLB 2K games on the Wii for the past several years. If there is one thing that a uniform nerd like myself could fully appreciate, it was playing my first game and seeing Jo-Bau in his new number 19, and Randy Ruiz wearing his new number 21. The rosters hadn't quite been updated to the point of having Kevin Gregg in the bullpen, although we'll take that as a positive at this point. At least we didn't have to see last year's staff ace still on the roster, taunting us with his digital presence.

Now if we can only get the hang of this whole pitching meter thing. Because that shit is driving us nuts.

It's gut-check time for Randy Ruiz

Yep, it's smaller. But still delightfully lucky when you touch it. Ruiz is looking so lithe, in fact, that The Manager is actually making the sane (if obvious) point that he deserves a chance to prove himself.

Meanwhile, AA is pitting Ruiz against Brian Dopirak in a Hell in the Cell Spring Training Death Match for one spot on the roster. And while we are rooting for both of them to break on through, we're going to have to side with the Brooklyn Buddha in this battle. (And this, in spite of the fact that Dopirak has been seen in New Balance kicks, which strikes us as the absolute coolest cleat choice ever. And those things matter to us.)

Speaking of aesthetics...
Note that Shaun Marcum is still refusing to wear the stupid NASCAR pit crew hats that New Era and MLB have mandated. You know why? Because Shaun Marcum won't lower himself to that sort of bullshit templated erroneous design. Which is why he's the ace of our staff. Because he's fucking nails.

Carlos Delgado is not highstepping through that door

And for his next trick, MLB.com's Noah Coslov will tell all the children that they are getting a wicked BMX bike, and then after they get all excited and build ramps and jumps and mud moguls in the driveway, he'll tell them that he made a mistake, and that he had heard it from Santa Claus. Except that Santa doesn't exist. Sorry kids!

In a way, we're kinda relieved to come to the realization that King Carlos is not coming back to Toronto. (Unless he is. Nevermind. Sorry.) As much as our sentimental side would love to see Delgado pull on an ugly black Jays cap once again, his addition would only serve to further complicate the 1B/LF/DH conundrum of figuring out where we find room in the field and the lineup for Lind/Overbay/Ruiz/Snider/Wallace/Dopirak/Bautista/etc...

Beyond that, we'd just finally worn down Drew from Ghostrunner on First so that he'd climb aboard the Randy Ruiz love train, a train that was goin' off the tracks, over the rail, off the bridge and into the water if Delgado were to make his triumphant return to Canada.

Ruiz or Delgado? Delgado or Ruiz? We would have been torn between two sluggers, feelin' like a fool.

Randy Ruiz rakes, refuses to relent

MLB.com's Noah Cozlov tweeted this morning that "GMs should be all over Randy Ruiz" given his play in Puerto Rico this winter. Moreover, he notes that Ruiz is playing first and left field (really?), and that he is in the "best shape of his life".

(Wow...you really can squeeze a lot into 140 characters!)

How well is Ruiz doing in the PR? In 26 games (96 ABs), he's put up seven homers and 27 driven in, while posting a 1.017 OPS (.423 OBP, .594 SLG) for the Indios de Mayaguez. In spite of not having played the full slate of games (he's about 10 short of the other leaders), he ranks second in HRs, OPS and RsBI, seventh in runs scored.

Quibble if you must about the quality of pitching that Ruiz has faced in Puerto Rico, just as some may have tried to do in attempting to pull at the threads and show his August-September to be nothing more than an illusion. (Although looking at the list of dudes who Ruiz took deep last year - Beckett, Wakefield, Pettitte, A.J., Joba - it doesn't seem as though he cheated us.) Maybe we're an apologist for some ghost of a chance that Ruiz will just keep on hitting, and become a cornerstone of the offense. But it seems to us as though he's done everything that he can to prove his worth to this team, and short of hitting a homer every game, we're not sure what it would take to keep him in the lineup or even on the 25-man roster.

(Of course, it doesn't help Ruiz that he'll need to keep himself in the seemingly impenetrable good graces of The Manager. We don't even want to start down the road of trying to understand what goes on in The Manager's head. The process is simply too maddening.)

Leading into the 2010 season, there is an abundance of choice for the Blue Jays when it comes to their 1B/DH/LF positions. It seems as though we're constantly reminding ourselves of possible options for those positions. "Oh yeah, what about Brian Dopirak?", or"Golly gee, I totally forgot that we still have Lyle Overbay", or "Why don't I care more about that Cooper kid?"

Or most importantly: "When do the Fake Spring Games start so that I can start poring over the boxscores to make fake arguments distinguishing one dude from the other?"

Corner boys don't get no respect

With all of the mid-winter rosterbation going down these days, there are lots of plans be floated by armchair GMs who have pretty much got their fingers on the pulse of what is going down with the Blue Jays. (Or so we think.) Most of these are looking ahead several years, as though we could just sim through the 2010 schedule and get right to the good stuff a year or two down the road.

But the fact is that there is still a 162-game slate ahead of this team next year, and you can't just flush it down the toilet and expect that the beleaguered fan base is going to put up with it. Tank Nation might sound like a clever idea, but this is a team that has lost a lot of currency, and has to be ready to put up a fight next year.

With that in mind, the odd thing that we keep noticing (or tripping ourselves up with) is the fact that barely anyone even acknowledges the existence of the two Major League veteran corner infielders that are currently under contract and on the roster.

Maybe it is a sign that, with the new regime and the new decade and the dawn of the Eternal Building Process, people are ready to cash in on Lyle Overbay and Edwin Encarnacion. They'd rather think forward, beyond 2010, towards the day when Brett Wallace will waddle around at first base and something (lord help us) will patrol the other side of the diamond.

But the odd thing about this is just how much we've all diminished the contributions (or potential contributions) of the two guys that's we've got. Overbay posted a WAR of 2.0 in 2009 and Encarnacion posted the same number in his last healthy season ('o8), which aren't league-leading numbers by any stretch, but they are at least positive contributions.

And that doesn't even account for the forgotten 1B/DH Randy Ruiz, who ripped it up good (10 homers / 1.019 OPS in 115 MLB at bats) when he finally got his shot. Nor does it account for Brian Dopirak, who put up an .876 OPS versus the PCL in 232 ABs (versus Wallace's .870 in 203 ABs in the high and dry offensive air out west.)

The Jays probably aren't the only team with a bunch of 1B/LF/DH types cluttering up their 40-man rosters, but we might be the only team to have disregarded the potential contributions of half of those players before pitchers and catchers report.

Roy Halladay is a saint. A SAINT!

There are many lessons to be learned from last night's 12-0 thrashing of the Pawtucket Portland SeaDogs Lowell Spinners Boston Red Sox.

First and foremost, we have seen once again that Roy Halladay is a Man. A manly Man who does not cotton to the foolish games played by snivelling boys around.

Roy is generally a pacifist and a man who usually looks to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number. But if you get cavalier in throwing at one of his teammates, Roy Halladay is a Man who will risk getting tossed out of his last start of the season (?) and his last start as a Blue Jay (?) to settle things. Bottom line: Roy Halladay will plunk a punk.

And moreover, he will use his surgical precision to hit your player directly in his ostentatious elbow pad, so as not to needlessly hurt him. Because Roy is a Man who knows that HGH simply would not heal the bruises caused by a Roy Halladay fastball.

We watched the replay of Halladay sticking it into Big Papi's elbow pad about 20 times last night. It was a good thing. It brought joy.

Randy Ruiz is otherworldly
Because Cito Gaston has spent much of the season apparently trying to clean his colon with his mustache, he seems utterly oblivious to the offensive skills of Randy Ruiz. And so, Ruiz took it upon himself last night to inflict a week's worth of damage in what could be his final start as a Blue Jay.

Two homers, four runs scored and a 4-6 night. That should pretty much earn Ruiz an assload of pine for the rest of the season, because Cito is an idiot. (Christ, even Drew at Ghostrunners has started to believe!)

Randy Ruiz is hitting a homer once every 13 plate appearances. That's a 50 homer pace. But really, who needs offense?

Jo-Bau is intergalactic
Lost amongst everything last night is the fact that José Bautista hit a homer for the third straight game, and his fourth homer in five games. If the Jays don't have room for him on their bench as a supersub next year, the Red Sox should definitely jump all over him, because he is a monster in Fenway.

It's September and all, but...
Jays sweep the Red Sox. That always sounds good.

A man defeated?

"The biggest thing that people forget is that when Toronto won the World Series, they had the highest payroll in baseball. There's a direct equivalent to that. If we're going to play in the big man's division, and we're not going to spend that money, it's going to be really hard for us to compete with those teams."

So says the much maligned - and unfairly, I would add - Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi this week. I'd made a personal pledge to stop reading into every utterance from Jays management, but this is too easy. Ricciardi sounds frustrated - frustrated at the lack of direction he's been given, frustrated at the "payroll flexibility" mandate, and frustrated that the promising team he'd assembled has now gone straight to shit (how's that for grammar? FAIL). In short, he sounds like us.

He also sounds like a man with one foot out the door, whether by his own desire or someone else's. Evidently, he's not part of "The Plan" (TM). So whaddya got for us, Beeston? I sure hope it's a little more than offering up Ricciardi as a sacrificial lamb. Tell me there's more to it than that, Beest. Because unless you're simply aiming to please the typical asshat JaysTalk caller, that's not going to be enough.

Blogger seeks assistance in locating missing slugger
Has anyone seen Randy Ruiz? He can be described as follows:

• May or may not be a part of the 2010 Blue Jays baseball club. Insufficient evidence to evaluate at this time.
• Currently sporting an .878 OPS with 7 HR in 95 AB at the Major League Level.
• Portly, but in a fun way.
• Was the organization's AAA player of the year.
• Has only seen 8 at-bats in the last week.
• Ostensibly sits behind Jose Bautista and Kevin Millar on the depth chart.

If you have any information as to this man's whereabouts, please pass along any and all tips to Cito Gaston. Evidently, he can't find him either.

A One-Sentence Post on...Randy Ruiz

This 24 hour period will make for a heck of a tale for Randy Ruiz someday, what with him being named PCL MVP, finally getting a start at first base, having a homer called back by video review and taking a Josh Towers pitch off his pretty face.

Wild walk off madness!

We managed to miss almost all of last night's game because we were caught in a dinner party where we were helping a couple choose songs for their wedding playlist.

(We're not sharing the contents of said playlist, lest we undo any sense of cool that we may have nurtured through a season of Friday Rock Outs. But in our defense, let us say that when Mrs. Tao decides that there should be Pussycat Dolls, there's gonna be Pussycat Dolls. And there's only so much that you can fight it.)

Nevertheless, we managed to tune in for all of the good stuff in the ninth. And what a wild ninth it was. Pinch hit Rodness! Scoots taking second on a fly ball! Walks! Belief in Vernon! Millar, who we still hate, walking the bases full! Randy Ruiz, teed up for the walkoff hit! Wild pitch! Scoots! Ballgame!

It's a good thing that we have the off day to recover from a single inning of offense that was more interesting than much of the month of August.

Some other random thoughts on the bottom of the ninth
A win is a win, so you probably shouldn't be upset that it wasn't choreographed to your heart's particular delights. But having said that, we would have enjoyed seeing a walkoff walk, if only so that there could be shrimp for the masses.

We also would have loved to see Ruiz get a hit and be the hero, but we'll have to content ourselves with the notion that J.P. Howell, even with two strikes, wanted to keep his pitch as far out of the Bronx Basher's wheelhouse as possible.

No love for Millar
We're not sure how we would have felt about "You're such a disease, Kevin" Millar getting the walkoff hit last night. Sure, we want the win, but we don't want to have any kind feelings towards Millar ever again.

One night this week, we fired up our MLB 2K8 and set it up so that we could heave pitches at head of "Kyle Morgan" (Millar's alias in the game because of his scabby activity.) It was cathartic.

Walkoff joy is fleeting
Was it just us, or did the enthusiasm over last night's walkoff win vanish before the cameras were turned away? By the time that the Jays reached the dugout, the faces were nearly as stoic as what you would have expected on the losing team.

A season of missed opportunities and unproductive roster spots

It's fine to have a longer view of what is good for the ballclub and all, but really: Travis Snider and Randy Ruiz should have spent more time on the Blue Jays than they did. And while their contributions might not be worth a dozen games in the standings, the fact that the Jays were willing to maintain two or three or four dead slots on their 25-man roster all season drives us to distraction.

It makes us want to start making ritualistic sacrifices.

From the outset, we'll confess that what we're about to do is unfair. But at this point in a season that has gone off the rails, over the embankment, down the cliff and into the ravine, we need an outlet.

And our primary whipping boy, above any others, is Kevin Millar.

Millar didn't do much to deserve this ignoble fate, but on the other hand, he didn't do much to keep himself on the big league roster either. And yet, here he is: Still on the team, as we reach the cusp of September. Skulking around the clubhouse, sporting his .678 OPS, enjoying the final days of a marginally productive major league career.

Ruiz, who was left to rot in Las Vegas all season because no one believed in him or his PCL-inflated numbers, has managed four homers in 50 ABs. Millar has eeked out six in 198 ABs. Six, which is also the number of homers that Travis Snider has managed in 124 ABs.

Sure, you can argue that maybe the Jays' brain trust wanted to let Snider recover from his back injury in the minors and work his way back gradually. And that they didn't have enough of a sample to give up on Millar, or Johnny Mac, or Joe Inglett in favour of a potentially productive bat in Ruiz.

If José Bautista were the lone supersub at the end of the bench, that would be one thing. The fact that this team played with him as the first man off the bench all season is just depressing.

Should the Blue Jays want to keep the faith with their loyal following (such as it is), and at least appear ready to compete and field a team that can hang, they can't have their 25th man be a relatively slow-footed designated pinch runner with 27 career steals. Nor can they have their 24th man be a washed up personality who can't hit righties or lefties and plays one eminently fillable position.

The Jays have 25 spots on their active roster. They should use them a little more wisely.

A One-Sentence Post On...The Greatest Blue Jays Late Season Callup of All Time

Even PCL-inflated stats hating Drew has to agree: Randy Ruiz if the Greatest Blue Jays Late Season Callup of All Time...GBLSCOAT!!!1

Finding hope in another one run loss

Last night, we had the rather bizarre feeling about a half-hour after the Jays' 10-9 loss to the stupid Red Sox. We were kinda okay with the game.

It could be that for the first time that we can remember this season, the Jays had what seemed to be a pretty formidable lineup. Between the call up of the Rosy-Cheeked Raker Travis Snider, the continued production of Randy Ruiz, and the absence of any Millars or Ingletts, we could feel pretty good about the offense.

Hell, the Jays hung seven runs on Josh Beckett, two on super-prospect Daniel Bard, and made Jon-O Papelbon work like a monkeyfluffer (33 pitches) to get four outs.

In a season this bleak, sometimes you have to dig elbow deep into the muck to pluck out a truffle of hope. If the Jays are going to continue to lose, it's at least a bit heartening to see them go down with a fight.

Who do you boo?
Apparently, everyone loves Casey Janssen because he's such a nice boy, so no one is going to give him too much grief for playing hot potato with a bunted ball in the eighth. (And BTW, how weird is it that Janssen only gets charged with one earned run, when it was HIS error that led to the three runs scoring?)

Then on the other side, Vernon Wells hits a line drive to the deepest part of the ball park off the other team's closer for an out, and gets booed by the meatheads.

We're just saying: Vernon should change his name to "Gordie" or "Dougie" in the off-season, go to a lot of Leafs games, drink lots of Tim Horton's and develop an instinctive air of superiority over Americans so that he can ingratiate himself to the hosers.

The Randy Ruiz Era has begun

Sometimes, in the middle of mourning the things that you've lost or the things that you've started to realize will never come to pass, you begin to create unnatural attachments to whatever shines in your proximity.

Such is the case with Randy Ruiz.

The big Bronx-born slugger managed to slice a pitch the other way for Yankee Stadium special last night, putting the Jays ahead 4-3. If only the game could have ended there.

Unfortunately, we were forced to watch Cito's lefty mancrush Jesse Carlson slinging batting practice floaters in to the mightiest lineup in the Majors. Three hits, three runs and back-to-back homers in one-third of an inning later, it was all shittied up good.

Those ever-so-brief moments of happiness that we as Jays fans can eek out are pretty fleeting, aren't they.

Vernon says a mouthful
Vernon Wells' reaction to the Sun on Rios' hasty departure was pretty revealing in terms of his current state of mind.

"You sign that kind of a deal, (scrutiny) is going to come with it," he said. "It's a matter of going out and playing better baseball. You can never justify the amount of money anybody makes in this game. You don't make excuses for it. It's not my job to explain it or justify it. I've just got to go out and play the game of baseball like I have ever since I was a little kid."

Well okay then.

Afternoon baseball will kill your productivity
It's kinda eerie to look at the lines of this afternoon's starters: RR Cool Jay (10-5, 3.66 ERA, 1.37 WHIP) takes to the bump versus this A.J. Burnett fellow (10-5, 3.67 ERA, 1.37 WHIP). First pitch is at 1:07. Get it on.

Dear Kevin Millar: You suck.

It's probably unfair, given the absolute shit show that the last six weeks of Blue Jays baseball has had to offer us, to attempt to single out one whipping boy and let him feel the brunt of our frustrations.

But seriously: Kevin Millar sucks, and it sucks that someone keeps allowing him to suck on this team. And to be fair, it's not really his fault that we (and notable others) have grown tired of him.

Before the season, we didn't mind the Millar signing as a low risk move to bring in an extra veteran bat into the lineup for the sake of insurance. Our exact words upon his signing were: "...we hope that his presence might encourage Lyle Overbay to rethink the 25 steps and moving parts that currently comprise his swing." Which might be the case, but who the hell would know given the amount of pine that Overbay's posterior has kept clean this season.

If Millar was even remotely approaching his career OPS of .812, then he'd be a superstar on the 2009 edition of the Blue Jays. But his execrable .663 OPS in 58 games is unforgivable, and nothing less than a waste of a roster spot.

And maybe we'd be a little more charitable about Millar's waning days in big league ball if it weren't for the fact that we watched the manager pull a vintage Cito move of leaving the middling veteran in a key situation (8th inning, one out facing righty reliever Phil Hughes) when he had a vastly superior option sitting on the bench (Overbay vs. RHP: .913 OPS).

And beyond that, the Jays have Randy Ruiz in Las Vegas mashing the ball like no other player in the affiliated minor leagues (25 homers, 101 RBI, .997 OPS). We could give a shit if the brain trust somehow figures that he's not able of replicating those numbers in the big leagues, or if he's a bad guy or whatever. Randy Ruiz would not post a sub-.700 OPS if he received the call up that he so rightly deserves.

(Or what about Travis Snider? Or Brian Dopirak? Something, goddamnit! Something!)

It's one thing to point to an unfortunate set of circumstances, like the multitude of pitching injuries, that have led to the Jays falling off the pace and looking towards next year. The Jays may preach that they have been the victims of bad luck this year, but on a certain level, you need to make your own luck, and not hope that it falls magically to you.

Because Kevin Millar ain't no lucky charm.