Tommy John is a Punk

How convenient.  Our host 'round these parts, the Tao, has jetted off to parts unknown for God knows how long, leaving yours truly in charge of providing Jays-related content, at a time when it's fully understandable that the fanbase is growing increasingly perturbed and inconsolable.  I'm going from comfortably posting on the weekends (or not, as the case may be), to getting tapped for more regular duty at the exact time that the team slipped into a losing record for the first time all season, coupled with a meteor shower of injuries to the starting rotation.

I NEVER SIGNED UP FOR THIS, TAO.

The Twitterverse damn near blew a gasket tonight when Drew Hutchison became the third Jays starter this week to tiptoe off the mound in the first inning and disappear into the dugout, presumably to navigate a maze of MRIs and/or flight schedules to Birmingham, the home of Dr. James Andrews. (Aside: I picture Dr. James Andrews owning a foreboding-looking castle on the top of a mountain somewhere, and you have to pound a giant medieval door knocker to get in the place.  And it's always raining.  I'm sure his office is much better lit than I'm imagining, though.)

Lost in the rush to start hacking off our own arms and sending them to SkyDome as replacements was the fact that the Jays won tonight, with some yeoman's work put in by the bullpen being the most significant factor (because they sure as hell didn't hit much, although it was good to see Brett Lawrie drive a couple of balls hard to the wall.  We'll forget about his little baserunning escapade in the eighth).  That losing record?  Back to even-Steven.  No matter how much rending of garments takes place, the fact remains that the team is still competitive.  Nobody's printing post-season tickets, but they're hanging tough. 

Don't tell that to Fox Sports' Jon Paul Morosi, though.  After Hutchison's injury, Dr. Morosi (I can only assume he's a medical doctor, and moreover one who is capable of diagnosing arm injuries from a TV screen) tweeted that it was time for the Jays to start selling. I'm not here to tell you that the Jays will hang around a wild card race with a mess of starters on the DL, but if my knowledge of 1970s crossover country hits has taught me anything, it's that you have to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em.  I just don't think it's time to start selling every last piece just yet.  Maybe let's wait until we're a little closer to the deadline?  Please?

I feel awful for Morrow, Drabek and Hutchison, but you may have noticed that apart from that, I'm basically an optimist when it comes to the Toronto Blue Jays.  My reasons for that are pretty simple, when it comes right down to it:  I have a family, a job, a mortgage and a real life that all provide me with my quota of stress.  I don't need to let baseball, of all things, add to it.  When things turn negative for the team I support, I try not to get too grouchy or complain too much.  I try to take it with a bit of good humour.  A couple more wins this weekend will help with that.

They're back, I'm back, let's all come back

Funny thing happened on the path towards following every bit of the excruciating minutiae of this 2011 Spring Training:

I haven't been.

See, sometimes life has a way of tossing a curveball at a guy every now and then (and what would my first post in over a month be without a hacktastic baseball pun, am I right?), and so I find myself seemingly on the periphery of the coverage.

Bautista's big contract, Brett Lawrie's major-league readiness, the battle for the 4th and 5th spots in the rotation, the development of Gose-Hechavarria et al..... I know all the basic plots but am probably lacking on the intricacies of each discussion.

Do I have opinions on each? Sure I do. Are they (even more) unfounded and unsupported (than usual)? Oh, probably.

But here I am once again, by the grace of Tao who allows me to entertain myself (and hopefully, at least some of you) around these parts. I have to say I'm looking forward to diving back in, starting with Sunday's televised exhibition game. Boo-ya indeed.

Holy shit - it's baseball season my friends.

We got nothin'

Holy shit. We've been staring at this screen for, like, a decade, and we've come to realize that we have absolutely nothing to say. Seriously. Nothin'.

Maybe it's just that we haven't watched a full game in almost two weeks (life itself having impeded our baseball privileges), or maybe it's that there's not nearly as much to bitch and moan about since the Jays finally pulled it together in the month of May.

It might even be that we are insanely jealous that the Drunk Jays Fans interviewed our not-so-secret mancrush Stephen Brunt on their latest podcast. (We're assuming that the invitation for a return engagement for yours truly must have been lost in our spam filter.)

Hey man, we're sorry. We've just gotten fat, lazy and disengaged. It's as if David Shoalts is writing the blog posts here. It's gotten so bad that we can barely muster the energy to shit on the Yankees in anticipation of the series, which starts tonight.

Sorry we suck. We're gonna get back into fighting shape this week, we swear.

In the meantime, we're just going to work the word "smegma" into as many posts as possible in lieu of saying anything witty or insightful.

Back in the saddle

Hello darlin's. Nice to see ya again.

It's been a hellish time for your humble scribe over the past week, and right about now, we're dying to get back to our daily Jays-oriented rituals.

We almost hesitate to make any sort of a comeback to the blogoworld, because a) the Jays have been doing quite well, thank you, since we went away, and b) we're only halfway done with our secret missions.

We'll confess to being a bit out of the loop, as we've read game stories or boxscores but have only seen a handful of innings since our last post. So in all truth, you probably know way more than we do about how the Jays are trending.

God almighty, we're looking forward to sitting back and enjoying a game. Listening to JaysTalk wingnuts. Reading the Drunks and understanding the references. Just a few more days to go.

Gibby, reconsidered
If there is one self-criticism that we would level at our own blog, it is the way we bounce back and forth on John Gibbons. Just a few weeks ago, we were eulogizing him. Now, he's won his 300th game as the Blue Jays' manager, and sits behind only Cito and Bobby Cox in that category. The Jays have pulled off a bit of a winning run, and have done so with several regulars in and out of the lineup with injuries. Maybe the good ol' boy has been pulling the right strings, or maybe it's all luck and balls are falling in. Or maybe there are benefits to facing the Royals for four games.

In the end, we shouldn't be praising Gibby for this run any more than we should be blaming him for the team going into the tank a few weeks back. Still, we have to admire his resiliency. No matter how many times we (and others like us) count him out, John Gibbons gets up of the canvas and gets back on his feet. That's got to be worth something.

A final introspective thought
We'd generally hesitate to respond to anonymous comments, but this one had us befuddled and bemused: "This blog just doesn't have the same enterainment quality as the drunks. That, and a past anti-American quip was unwarranted."

Let's just say that we'd generally agree that the Drunks have a higher "enterainment" factor than we do. But we're way prettier.

Also, can anyone think of the anti-American quip that we made? Not that we're above such a thing, but we can't remember it. (A note to the anonymous American: Develop a thicker skin. You're going to need it in the coming years.)