Rock, meet bottom

If the bottom of the 3rd inning in Saturday's matinee against the Yankees doesn't represent the low point of the season to date, then I don't know what does. 11 runs? 11 goddamned runs?

Truth be told, I just finished deleting 30 minutes worth of blogging, as it consisted wholly of whining about the lineup card filled out by Cito (Nick Green leading off at DH, John McDonald in left....but I digress) and the embarrassing display of baseball in the aforementioned inning. I was all set to hit "post" in a blind rage, feeling smug and satisfied, when a few things occurred to me:

It's just one game. 3-2 or 11-2, the Blue Jays losing to the Yankees - both teams as currently constructed - shouldn't come as a surprise or major disappointment. One team is built to win now (and every year, one could argue), the other is building to win in the future. The near future. Hopefully.

And you know, about that lineup....which I still maintain was horseshit, and continues a running beef I have with Cito and his "giveaway game" lineups....the major-league roster, right now, does not have a lot of horses. Plain and simple. And I understand that. It's about building toward the future. It's about developing the talent in the minor leagues. But with the second half approaching, I'm left to wonder: how much more developing do some of these players in AAA have left to do? How much added benefit can be derived from 80 more games in the PCL?

Will JP Arencibia improve on his near 1.0 OPS? Is Brett Wallace's defense and learning the position really what's keeping him down (apart from the current "sore wrist", but you know what I'm sayin')? Is there really anything to be gained by letting these players dominate a league in which they have little more to prove (Arencibia moreso than Wallace)? If 2011 is to be the start of The Contending Years, wouldn't a few months of big league training this season serve the players - and the organization - well?

Time will tell. As the trade deadline draws nearer, hopefully sooner than later.

The future of Marcum
I haven't completely exhaled upon hearing word of Shaun Marcum's trip to the DL with "elbow inflammation", but the MRI revealing no new damage certainly helps. Still, clear MRI or not, you'll forgive me for feeling a little nauseous at the thought.

Equally disconcerting is the fact that sore elbow or not, Marcum's name still figures prominently in trade talk. Truthfully, I'm conflicted. I have a soft spot for Marcum. He may not be the "ace", but he certainly does appear to be the "glue" of the starting 5. He's self-effacing (re: "I don't throw a "heater"....it's a "warmer" "), fun to watch, and popular with his teammates.

On the other hand....if the Jays do have a surplus, it's in starting pitching. Marcum likely has the most value of the pitchers potentially dangled (Romero will not be one of them), and is likely the guy seen by contenders as the most ready to help chase a pennant. However.....I don't believe Anthopoulos would deal one of his coveted young arms for anything less than a spectacular return, and this trip to the DL will certainly not help in that regard.

My prediction: Marcum will be a Blue Jay come August 1st. And he will continue to fucking nail it.

The long, slow, miserable march towards mediocrity

If you can dig way back into your memories, you may remember that on May 19, the Blue Jays sat atop the AL East by three and a half games. At lot has happened in the intervening three months, and not much of it has been all that pleasing to watch.

Since then, the Jays have gone 28-49. That's 21 games below .500. And just for the sake of reference, the hapless Washington Nationals over the same period of time have gone 31-51.

Let that roll around in your head for just a moment: The Jays are one game worse than the Nats over the past three months.

In the early part of the season, the Jays were knocking the seams off the ball, with a team OPS of .821 (.358 OBP, .463 SLG). In those halcyon days of Spring, the pitching staff put up a 3.58 ERA, with a WHIP around 1.25.

But as the season wore on, injuries piled up, and the magic of Cito and his new/retro staff began to wear off, it all went pear-shaped. The pitchers posted an ERA of 4.43 from May 19 on, and the offense sputtered, mustering only a .734 OPS (.316 OBP, .418 SLG).

It's depressing to look at that drop off, and to see that the preponderance of evidence suggests that this team is not close to regaining their footing in the AL East and reawakening dreams of pennant races. Moreover, what all of those numbers can't quite convey is just what a gong show the past few months have been, bookended by two three-game sweeps at the hands of the Red Sox.

(And really, doesn't Bret Cecil's brain cramp last night pretty much encapsulate, in one surreal moment, what the past few months have been like?)

It's important that we not lose sight of the good things that this team has going for it, and the bright spots that we can forsee on next year's roster and beyond. We'll be there throughout the off-season with our pom-poms, leading the cheers.

But it is equally important that we not overlook what an absolute shit-show the majority of this season has been, and that we not allow ourselves to get so comfortable that we give some of those responsible for it a free pass and a second chance to shitty up the next season or two.

Fire Cito. Fire J.P.. Let's move on.

How low can Vernon go?

There seem to be two camps out there when it comes to Vernon Wells: Those who can't possibly hate the player and his contract any more, and those who have assured us all season that he'll turn things around and re-establish himself as the team's best hitter.

We probably have been in the latter group for most of the season, but we're getting perilously close to a tipping point in the season where we stop thinking of this as a bad start and start looking at it as a bad season...or worse.

In the 32 games since Vernon Wells last hit a ball out of the park (May 6th versus Anaheim), he has posted a .574 OPS and driven in a grand total of seven runs in 134 plate appearances. Each one of which, it should be noted, with him hitting fourth in the Jays batting order, just to beat that dead horse again.

And dare we mention that Travis Snider was exiled to Las Vegas after posting an OPS of .686 in 108 plate appearances? If that sort of performance merits a demotion - and it did - then shouldn't Vernon receive some sort of demotion himself? Like maybe a week or two of hitting seventh or eighth in the lineup?

Most importantly, the Jays have gone 14-18 in those games. We'd hazard a guess that not many teams would do much better with their cleanup hitter putting up numbers that could be bested by the fourth outfielder on their Triple-A team.

Several times over the course of the year, we've figured that Vernon hit bottom. When you hear enough thuds in the run of a season, you imagine that Wells couldn't go much lower, but we're coming to realize that what we're actually hearing is Vernon falling out of the Shitty Tree and hitting every shitty branch on the way down.

We're pretty much stuck with Vernon Wells for the long term, so there's not much that we can do aside from hoping that he addresses the issues that he's having at the plate. We see a lot of up-and-down hand movement in his swing, something that probably contributes to the fact that he rarely hits the ball squarely.

The larger question, especially for the Sports and the City blog, is whether or not there is a Hatred Level on their Advisory System that exceeds Severe. Because we may need it.

Alex Rios is the Windmill

If you could harness the energy of Alex Rios swinging and missing - as he did five times in five at bats in yesterday's 6-5 heartbreaker to the Angelenos - you could power the six blocks surrounding the Dome.

(And somewhere, Alex Gonzalez was rooting for the game to go into extra innings so that someone else could share the dubious honour of having struck out six times in a game. No such luck.)

Let's not be too quick to rip Rios to shreds, though. Over the past couple of weeks, he has likely been the Jays' best offensive player, so he's allowed to have a shittacular bed shitting game here and there.

Your new cleanup hitter (fingers crossed!)
Since Adam Lind went 5-for-5 in his stint as the cleanup hitter yesterday, can we possibly hope against hope that maybe he'll slide into that spot a little more permanently? Does it even matter? Are we just Vernon-hating to fill the void in our life?

Aaaaand....breathe

I'm slugging a beer as I type this (and, as promised, have this playing in the background. I am a sad, sad man), and it is definitely the tastiest beer I've had in, oh, 10 days or so. A big win to snap a 9 gamer will do that for your taste buds.

It's only one game, but all is right in the world again. Blue Jays 6, D-bag Nation 3.

It's fitting that the win comes against veteran shitballer Timmy Tim Wakefield, who's fluttering balls of shit induced the 9 game shitshow of feeble swings and losing baseball. The Jays didn't go yard, but sat back on the knuckler and smashed five doubles around the park - two by Scott (I believe) Rolen - which is surely a sign that the sticks are coming around. Mix in a workmanlike effort by Casey Janssen (there's that term again - more on Dirty Janssen later) and a flashback to 2008's bullpen, and voila - win. I think I can speak for the majority here when I say.....YES.

The Positives
A quality start from Casey Janssen. A few too many hits allowed (11) and not a lot of empty swings (2 K's), maybe.....but it was 7 innings of ball that kept the Jays in it. Let's not quibble.

Brandon League - filthy mcnasty, and Scott Downs - reliable. I'd almost forgotten what a nails bullpen felt like.

Marco (marco) Scutaro (scutaro) and Scott Rolen - key hits at key times. Feels like April again.

The Negatives
Are you fucking kidding me? The Jays just won for the first time in 10 games. Against the Red Sox. Don't be an asshole.

The WTF?
Rance Mulliniks in the booth doing the colour.....for the Sox on NESN? What, did Dennis Eckersley run out of things to say about "easy cheese" and the like? That sound you hear is me scratching my head. A west coast guy with a southern drawl and a Blue Jays background.... broadcasting a game for New England. OK then.

In any event, keep up the negative mojo over there this weekend, Rancie boy....we've got two more games to win.

Believe, baby.

Congratulations Stairsy!

Sure, Matt Stairs' role in this World Series was essentially to make sure that Geoff Jenkins' ass pocket was tucked in at all times. Nevertheless, it warms the soul to see the pride of Tay Creek N.B. letting his freak flag fly, and getting his ring.

He's Matt Stairs: World Champion. Fuck yeah.

Also soul-warming - Shitske edition
Watching Eric Hinske - tubby disappointment that he is - wave weakly at a Brad Lidge off speed pitch to end the game, series and season. We're sure that he'll get over it after a getting his tip frosted and eating a 10 pound wheel of Wisconsin cheddar in one sitting.

Let's try not to Denbo this thing up

Greetings, friends of the Tao. It's your new pal The Ack here, acting as your freshly-minted weekend editor. I know, I know - a bit of a head-scratching decision by ToS, isn't it? Seems to be a lot like the Brevin Mencherson experiment, while a perfectly healthy Adam Lind is killing the ball down on the farm. Pretty wild gamble, if you ask me. Reckless, even.

I have my theories.....perhaps the Tao wants you to appreciate his posts for the genius they are by bringing in a total rube for contrast. Or, perhaps the Tao was just sick of me shittying up his comments section on a daily basis. Either way, much like Brevin, who am I to say "no" to the opportunity? The hope here is that like "young Adam Lind" (to steal one of Campbell's patented descriptors), who after a sluggish start to the season now leads the team in CLUTCH, I'll round into form.

(You see what I just did there? I bought myself a month or two of terrible. See how I did that? Slick.)

Oh yeah, about the name....I really shouldn't have to go in-depth about the legend of famed middle reliever Jim Acker, should I? No, I didn't think so.


So, about Adam Lind
He's raking, big time. He probably should have been up weeks before he finally was recalled, and he should probably be hitting higher than the 7-spot right now. But I'm not going to get on JP/Gibby/Cito for either of those things, and here's why:

In his first stint up this season, Lind went 1 for 19, and not one of those Aaron-Hill-hitting-the-ball-hard-but-it's-just-not-dropping-for-him 1 for 19's.....he looked lost. Soft stuff down and away, strike 3. Let's face it, at the time of his demotion, the Jays were still in "we gotta win games now" mode, and a young player with declining confidence wasn't doing the team (or Lind) any good. So down he went - and yeah, maybe he was down too long - but the stay in central New York obviously didn't hurt him. To the contrary, maybe, just maybe, the extended stint in the 'Cuse did Lind more good than we are giving JP/Gibby credit for?

As far as hitting 7th, again - confidence. Give Cito props for giving Lind the everyday job in left and slowly moving him up the order. Baby steps, people. Remember, he started out hitting 9. If he continues at even a healthy fraction of this pace, I'm sure he'll settle in somewhere 2-6 by mid-August.


Weekend series against the sub-Mariners
If the Jays are to hit Cito's stated goal of 10 games over .500 by season's end, these are the types of home series you need to think about sweeping. Unfortunately, the big-2 of the rotation - Doc and a suddenly frisky AJ Burnett - won't see the mound, so I'll settle for a Meatloaf.

Looking to keep his rotation spot (although, who's going to replace him now? Davis Romero? Bill Murphy?), John Parrish (1-0) throws Friday with Miguel Batista (4-11) countering for Seattle. Let's hope the ex-Jay finds a spot at the end of the bench nice and early, allowing him time to work on his latest prose, "Ode to a Shitty Pitcher". Hey Miguel, there's no point in throwing 8 different pitches if they're all fat and juicy.