That's what Travis Snider thinks of your small ball

When it comes time to actually take the wrecking ball to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, someone might consider giving Travis Snider a call.

Snider, who a day earlier was asked to square around and bunt over runners in an 8-4 loss to the Clevelanders, crushed two mammoth blasts into the far reaches of the aging stadium, leading the Jays to an 8-6 victory over the Twins. So the moral of the story, once again, is that small ball sucks.

(Take that, Juan Pierre Fan Club!)

When Snider was asked to give himself up to help move Rod Barajas' big slow butt up 90 feet, we turned to the father-in-law and said that we hoped that this is the last time we had to see nonsense like that. And while we mind don't that Magical Baseball Sage Cito Gaston has decided to take a slow route with Snider and make him earn his Major League bona fides, we're pleased as punch that The Great Big Giant Pasty White Hope^TM has already begun to make the case for a spot further up the lineup and a green light at the plate.

Where's Tomo Ohka these days?
As if the Jays didn't have enough worry over the state of their rotation, Jesse Litsch walked off the mound with "tightness" in his elbow. Given what happened with Shaun Marcum after his bout with elbow tightness last year, we're more than a little worried about what the Jays will have to do if Litsch is going to miss significant time.

It begs the question: Is there anything left out there on the scrap heap of starting pitchers? Because off the top of our head, we can't think of anyone who would do much better than just setting up a tee at home plate.

Also, doesn't this lend a bit of credence to Keith Law's notion that Brad Arnsberg, while being a wizard of a pitching coach, is also murder on young arms?

Around the Minors
The Las Vegas 51s' affiliation with the Blue Jays is off to an inauspicious start, with the Triple-A club going 0-4 out of the gate. If you've got trouble with your blood pressure, we don't suggest looking at the team's pitching stats to start the season, because there are some gaudy ERAs after the first series in the thin air of Colorado Springs. For the first time in Tao of Stieb history, allow us to use the following caveat: "The PCL is a hitters league."

On the plus side, 1B Randy Ruiz drove in eight in the first series, with 14 total bases and an OPS of 1.268, while Voodoo Joe Inglett is rocking a 1.000 OPS.

In New Hampshire, the Fisher Cats are off to a 3-2 start, with Springtime hero Brad Emaus driving in eight to start the season.

In Dunedin, the Advanced-A Jays are 1-3 to start. Diminutive reliever Tim Collins - a prospect discovered by J.P. Ricciardi's dad on the fields of Worcester, Mass., has stood out so far, striking out seven batters in four and a third innings while walking none and giving up a single hit.

Thanks to the Ack
While some in the comments figured that the Ack spent too much time in the comments of the Drunk Jays Fans, we tip our cap to our colleague for coming in and holding the fort in an extra long relief outing over the holidays. Great job Ack...now go and put some ice on those blogging fingers, because we'll need you back soon.

At least they lead the league in something

After hitting into three more tonight, your Toronto Blue Jays have pulled away from the competition and now solidly lead the league in grounding into double plays with a magnificent 58. Oh, and they probably lead the league in hitting into triple plays as well.

A note of caution about this stat: Yeah, it's as frustrating as all get out when you see the Jays snuff out another rally in this manner, but at the same time, the mighty BoSox and their unstoppable offense rank second in this category, so we're not even sure if it means anything.

A few other random thoughts:

You can't pitch around Vlad
Didja see the pitch that he hit for the three-run bomb in the third? Yeah, sure, we got to see him hit those on the occasional Expos game that was briadcast back in the day, but it's still pretty stunning to see him go that far inside and hit it like it was a fastball grooved down the middle of the plate.

When is an RBI not a cause for celebration?
When you see Alex Rios drive in a run (finally), but he looks very much like he did in his rookie year, when he was pretty much a soft singles hitter. And of course, when he does put a ride into a ball tonight, he gets robbed by Sarge Junior. Somedays, we hate this stupid game.

JaysTalk listeners: LISTEN UP TO THIS, IDIOTS
For the last goddamn time...this is Major League MickeyFicking Baseball. This isn't your glory days on the crushed gravel Little League diamonds of Buttfuck, Wherever. This is the Big Leagues, so STOP TALKING ABOUT BUNTING! We get that you're a frickin' Mosquito League coach who teaches fundamentals to all of the ADD cases that get pawned off on you, and we're sure that you're the Sparky Anderson or Casey Stengel of Barrie or North Bay or whatever. But laying down a bunt and hoping that the fielders working their way through their awkward phase throw it over the chain link back stop and into the swamp behind doesn't work at this level.

Seriously. Stop extrapolating your experience in adolescent scrub leagues onto the players who are infinitely more capable than you or your inbred demon spawn.

Much obliged.

Eckstein just dropped down a sac bunt

Fourth inning, none out and Scutaro on second, Little X drops down the sac bunt to move Scoots to third.

Any chance that you small-ball loving jackasses might pour yourselves a nice steaming cup of shut the fuck up, at least for a few nights?

Much obliged.

The Battle for AL East Supremacy Begins

Sure, it's only two weeks into the season, but the Jays and Orioles sit a half game ahead of the Red Sox atop the AL East. We hope that O's fans are relishing this moment.

We really shouldn't gloat over what we anticipate will be a precipitous fall from grace for the Baltimoreans, seeing as how last year's team (which pretty much sucked as much as we anticipate this year's will) went 8-10 against the Jays.

Tonight's pitching matchup features Dustin McGowan and his Lambchops of Vengeance versus Matt Albers (1-0, 0.00 ERA).

Tomorrow night, it's Shaun Marcum versus the Human Rain Delay, Steve Trachsel. For those of you planning to PVR the game, please remember to add an extra hour or two.

Jon Hale is our Pitch F/X Pool Boy: Hale is supposed to be on vacation, but he's taken time out to affirm that we were correct when we stated that Laz Diaz was giving Halladay some pitches off the plate on Saturday. Of course, Diaz is know to have a pretty consistently wide strike zone, so it's not as though Halladay was getting away with anything. Also of interest on the Mockingbird is a breakdown of Beej's return.

Jim Lang loves Whitey Herzog, in theory: Jim Lang, a man whose tenure on Canada's airwaves defies explanation, went off on a "I hate Moneyball" rant on his Sportsnet.ca blog last week. Of course, being a Canadian sports anchor, Jim's areas of expertise tend to fall more in the area of junior hockey and scrub-league football. (Yeah, we're looking your way, CFL.) So you'll have to forgive Jimmer if he kinda muffed up his facts. Lang's notion that the Jays should give up lots of outs to get one run doesn't exactly square with, you know, reality. Or the fact that Whitey's teams were OBP machines.

Fire Joe Morgan, who took time out of their busy day to give Lang the bidness, must be wondering about the crappy state of baseball commentary in Canada. This marks the second time in as many weeks that they've had to take a Toronto sports media goon to the shed, after last week's Professor Griff takedown.

Win! Homers! Screw Small Ball!

When Coco Crisp popped up his bunt in the eighth tonight, we jumped up and shouted "Yeah! Screw your small ball!" (Mrs. Tao shot us a look of death, but we explained that it's better that we yell at the players on TV than at her. She didn't seem to buy it.)

When Vernon Wells cranked one into the deep seats, giving the Jays the 6-4 win over the Red Sox, we felt completely vindicated. (Although a bit more reserved in our cheering, seeing as how no one else would hear it.)

Anyways: Screw small ball.

And another thing
Why do the Massholes look so goddamned pleased with themselves every time they sing Sweet Caroline. It's not as though they don't sing it every home game. It's a Neil Diamond song...get over it! (And that goes double for you, Jamie Campbell!)