A one-sentence post on...parting

It is such sweet sorrow indeed to know that with his trade to the Pirates yesterday, Robinson Diaz will never again share a manly embrace with Adam Lind...at least not on the playing field.

What's that awful taste in our mouth

Is it the two days worth of retching until we blew out the capillaries around our eyes, or is it the fact that we just watched the Jays, with last night's 5-3 loss to the Disney World Rays, slip into last place in the AL East.

We're leaning towards the latter.

A few thoughts on the past couple of nights.

How many catchers can you fit into one lineup? Apparently, at least three. With Zaunie handling the actual catching duties, Rod Barajas taking over for an ailing Lyle Overbay at first, and rookie Robinson Diaz DHing, the Jays packed the lineup with backstops last night. Being the negative Nellies that we are, we immediately started contemplating what would happen if Gorman Thomas came crashing into Zaun, and the Jays were forced to re-jig the lineup on the go. Thankfully, all three of them made it through the game healthy, although their performance (0-11, topped off by a Diaz flailing at a Troy Percival breaking ball for strike three in the ninth) left something to be desired.

At least were not along in our misery: Apparently, we're not the only ones who are miserably sick. There is some sort of flu-like thing going through the Jays' clubhouse, which felled Alex Rios last night. Not that we're looking to make excuses for the team, but if they had anything close to what we had, then we get why they've looked listlessly awful over the past week, losing six of their last eight.

Who needs a bullpen? It took Roy Halladay 107 pitches to get through last night's game for his second straight complete game loss. The question for us is: Are the Jays running the risk of burning him out this early in the season? Doc looked fine at that point, and his greatest strength is his efficiency, so surely there's nothing to worry about. Right?

Matt Stairs is awesome: Boo yah!

Position Battle Royale! Catchers edition!

Most of the Blue Jays media types have already figured that the roster is set for 2008, and there's not much more to figure out before the real games start.

We beg to differ. As the saying goes, there many a slip between a cup and a lip, and if you don't believe us, you should see the front of Parkes' shirt after a night at the Monarch. (Zing!)

As such, we're going to go around the diamond to provide you with exactly the sort of fraudulent guesswork fabricated analysis profound insight that you've come to expect from this blog.

First up: the back catcher.

Dramatis Personae:

• Gregg Zaun as the Scandalized Incumbent;
  
• Rod Barajas as the Boy Who Played Hard to Get;
  
• Curtis Thigpen as the Catcher of the Future;
  
• Robinson Diaz as the Rookie;
  
• and featuring Special Guest Star Sal Fasano as Fu Manchu.

With the moves last week to send Thigpen and Diaz to the minors to start the season, the Jays will start the season with Zaun as the top receiver and Barajas as the backup. Still, it's a long season, and our bet is that with injuries and performance, we'll see some movement amongst the ranks.

Zaun got off to a quiet spring (standard caveat: fake games don't mean diddly), but has turned it on as of late. His homer and double versus the Clevelanders showed that the old man with the undertaker's sense of style and apparently no teeth might still have something left in the tank. But he's still 36, an age by which most catchers have already begun to decline.

(We pause now to consider about a dozen "blank cheque" jokes, but choose to defer. For now.)

Barajas has acquitted himself well in the spring, and is working on getting familiar with the pitching staff, notably Halladay. At the plate, he has performed at least as well as Zaun for most of the spring, and is (knock on wood) the first backup in years that the team has had coming out of the spring who could plausibly take over for an extended period without hurting the team offensively.

(We pause now to shudder at the remembrances of the Jason Phillips era.)

With the signing of Barajas, it was pretty much a done deal that Thigpen and Diaz wouldn't see much big league action this year. And it's just as well: Thigpen is versatile, but our guess is that he doesn't have the defensive skills that the others do, and his offense isn't good enough to get him out from behind the plate.

Diaz, who we believe has a better bat and glove, has likely sprung past Thigpen in the pecking order. It was odd to see him get playing time at third base in the spring, but that's what fake games are for. Or so we are told.

(Yet another pause. This time to consider the fact Kevin Cash, who previously played the role of Catcher of the Future, has a spot on the Red Sox roster. Bully for him.)

Much as one can admire the hirsute Fasano, he's really just another body in camp at this point. Let's not forget that the adjustments that he suggested to Roy Halladay's cutter grip last year (for which he received effusive praise in the press) were abandoned shortly thereafter. He's a wise old soul, but more than likely a backup in Syracuse at best.

How will it all shake down?
What are we, Nostradamus? Your guess is as good as ours. But if you wanna know what we're guessing (if only so that you can hold us up for ridicule later), here it is:

• Zaunie gets lots of leeway to right himself.
• Barajas starts in more than 90 games this year (in Toronto or elsewhere).
• Thigpen doesn't wear a Jays jersey until after September.
• Diaz gets the call, but spends more time on the big club perfecting his sunflower seed expectoration.
• Fasano gets to make the faithful in another city his pals.
  

Your thoughts? As Jamie Campbell cuts and pastes into all of his blog entries, we welcome your opinion in the comments.

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.

Mike Wilner will answer your mailbag questions in his own good time

JaysTalk overlord Mike Wilner blew out his mailbag this weekend, and reading it served as a reminder of how bad the post-game callers can be.

Sure, it can be nerve-wracking when you're live on the radio, and we'd forgive the callers if their points aren't always made eloquently. But seeing the way that these crayon-eaters abuse the English language in their emails, it's clear that those high-voltage power lines running over Scarborough and Ajax are clearly having some sort of effect on the verbal cortex of those who live below.

And whaddaya know: Mike on the Mic ran our email! But before you think that we've lost our mind talking about Robinson Diaz getting the call to the bigs before June, what with Rod Barajas being signed, we'd like to point out in our own defense that our email was written in a hung over stupor on New Year's Day. Not that we're complaining...

Our email also spills the beans on a potential JaysTalk podcast, which Wilner says may be happening in 2008. (Yay!)

More Linkage

• Jordan Bastian also goes into the mailbag to answer your questions on Canadians playing for the Jays, prospects and the rotation.
• Jon Hale breaks down the performance of the manager in a post titled The Tao of Gibby. Should we be flattered?
• Hale also links to an excellent Boston Globe interview with J.P. Ricciardi, where the GM reveals that Roy Halladay wanted to pitch the final game of the season on short rest. That's just fucking fierce.
  

Welcome back to our good graces, Frank

Maybe sitting through those games in Tampa stirred something in Frank Thomas, who with two homers and four RsBI today, has so far driven in six runs in this series.

Johnny Mac added three RsBI his own self in Toronto's 9-5 win.

We're complete ecstatic about this, but we'd still like to see some production on the road for the rest of the season.

Meanwhile, down on the farm
Veteran minor-leaguer Jeremy Cummings looked lights out for the Chiefs in their 7-3 win over the Ottawa Lynx. since opting out of his AAA contract with the Twins, Cummings is 2-1 with a 2.64 ERA and 27 Ks versus 12 BBs. Of course, there is very little chance that we'll see him with the big club anytime soon, since he's likely been labeled a "AAAA"-type player.

Also impressive were Robinson Diaz, who looks as though he'll push Curtis Thigpen for the back-up job next year. Sergio Santos drove in two, but also made an error. He looks to us like a guy who may be more suited to play third or even a Jeff Kent-like second, but maybe that's just his height that is crossing us up.

Is this sadly weird, or weirdly sad?
Howie Clark got the DFA routine on Friday to make room for Hector Luna. Luna's never struck us as much more than a National League bench guy, but he is versatile, and may be worth the flyer. Still, we're hoping that Clark slips through waivers and sticks in the Jays' system.