Coach,

I think you've been pretty lenient on Sturtze so far. While it's clear he was signed to be an innings-eater and as a stop-gap, it's equally clear he's simply not a good pitcher. There were other innings-eaters available -- Jeff Suppan, for one -- who I would rather have on my staff. Maybe it's the deconstructionist/English major in me looking too deeply agin, but there seems to be the unspoken expectation, at least from some on this board, that Sturze would be Cory Lidle-lite, a pitcher resuced from the Devil Rays who would become a (reasonably) effective major league pitcher. The 4-18 record from a year ago is excusable, given how unpredictable and misleading W/L records are; the 271 hits allowed in 229 innings is pretty cut-and-dry, however, the "expected" hits forumla notwithstanding.

On an unrelated note ... if there's anything worse than an actual Braves telecast, it's a rain delay during a Braves telecast, where, should you be locked on your couch with the remote control an unreachable three feet away, you're forced to endure "World's Greatest Car Chases IV: The Cars Take Their Revenge."

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Wow.. can this team play *any* worse?

Which member of the ZLC will be first to jump off the JP bandwagon?

I still think he's doing a very good (but not spectacular job). You can't get swept by the D-Rays tho.

MP

While I'm picking nits and procrastinating cooking dinner ... why is Greg Myers hitting clean-up? Sure, batting order may be irrelevent but, still ...

As a non-partisan -- i.e. American -- member of the ZLC, I won't jump off the bandwagon until 2004 at the earliest.

http://economics.about.com
I'll be an Expos fan first so long as there's a club in Montreal. I just figure you should be able to be on an AL and an NL bandwagon at the same time.

Besides.. I either have to watch the Jays, or the Rochester Red Wings, and as frustrating as the Jays can be, it's not a difficult choice.

MP

I just figure you should be able to be on an AL and an NL bandwagon at the same time.

My own thoughts exactly...

The difference in tonight's game is defence. Sosa's been backed by three highlight-reel catches in the outfield -- Crawford took an RBI double away from Jayson Werth and Baldelli ran about 40 yards (in about 3.8 seconds) to haul in a gapper, then made another brilliant catch on a Hinske blast. Sturtze was betrayed by yet another inexcusable, brutal throw by Hudson on a cinch double-play ball. Then, in an inning that should have been over, Werth could have gunned down the second Tampa run at the plate, but bobbled a routine grounder. E-4 and the dreaded E-10 = 2-0. Sturtze isn't a Cy Young threat, but he would be in a scoreless game tonight with even a little help.

O-Dog redeemed himself with a timely 2-out, 2-run single, and how about Butterfield sending Woody with the tying run on such a shallow flare? Nice job by Chris to avoid the tag.

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YESSSSS! That ought to buy the O-Dog some time before JP considers making him a SkyChief.

MP

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The Jays *really* need to hold onto this lead. They can't get swept by the D-Rays. That'll drive more people away from the ballpark than SARS.

If I stay here I'm not going to get anything done. Time to go to Starbucks and grade student assignments. Why can't they give community college profs teaching assistants like the university guys get?

Peace,

MP

Orlando, all (or most, anyway) is forgiven. 2-2.

I don't know if being a Jays fan counts as being on a bandwagon, but I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment of being allowed to have a team in each league. It would be depressing when both teams were bad, but the Expos make fandom more exciting these days.

And Stewart singles the O-Dog in. 3-2 Jays.

I'm not sure if I've ever been a fully-fledged member of the JP fan club-I think he'll turn the team around, but the A's philosophy doesn't appeal to me aesthetically. Maybe this is deep-rooted-I was a hacktastic basestealer when I last played. I'm certainly not going to give up on him as a winning GM for at least another year though. I will, however, bitch about the bullpen at every opportunity.

The Sturtze splitter is fooling the D-Rays. Tanyon gets in trouble when he falls behind and has to groove a fastball, which was a more frequent problem against the patient NY and Boston hitters. This is a quality start, his third out of five. Good pick by Phelps to end the fifth, though Josh didn't look like a Gold Glover trying a backhand sweep at O-Dog's earlier poor throw.

Vernon Wells stole second base, and wanted to go back to first -- he probably thought it was a foul ball, as there was no throw. Myers advanced Wells to third with the proverbial productive out to the right side, then on a disputed "phantom" play at second, the Rays didn't turn two, so the fourth Toronto run scored. The Jays will take it.

I think he's Werth the roster spot!

Woodward just missed a 3-run homer by pulling a line drive ten feet foul, then hit a ground-rule double into the opposite corner to cash in the fifth Toronto run. That's using the whole field.

A long top of the seventh for the Jays didn't result in any more scoring (Hinske grounded out with the bases loaded on a disputed fair-foul call that brought both managers out of the dugout) but it may have brought Sturtze's evening to a premature end after just 90 pitches and (in my book) no earned runs. Aquilino Lopez allowed a single and a walk to the only batters he faced, so now it's Miller time.

Is that the first completely ineffective outing of the year for Lopez? I suppose there was the Yankees game. And we are now officially in white-knuckle territory, in the sure hands of Trever Miller...

Joe Brinkman never was a very good umpire, but he's awful now. He missed a strike on 0-1 to Anderson that was at least two inches above the knees and caught about a third of the plate. Trever eventually induced the ground ball but might have struck him out if it was 0-2 instead of 1-1; one of Lopez' runners scored when the attempted 3-6-1 DP was a bit late. So it's 5-3 Tampa, but Tam, the third pitcher of the inning, was able to get Baldelli to hit a harmless grounder.

Well, with Politte keeping them down in the eighth, let's hope for a two-run rally for the Jays so we don't have to see the most exciting closer in baseball...

Guess not. Well, I guess we'll just have to hold on tight...

Where's Rialto Margarine tonight?

Letting the first batter reach base: A proud tradition of Blue Jays closers since the days of Billy Koch. It's George freaking Lombard, and he gets on. I wouldn't be so annoyed if it hadn't been so utterly unsurprising.

Hey! How 'bout that? A converted save op.

Should they trade Escobar now while his value is up?

Great shot on Sportsnet of Tosca walking off the field with an arm on Escobar's shoulder. Carlos was probably explaining to Kelvim what just happened, and that it was good. OK, bring on the Royals.

Hooray! The Jays take one on the road off the mighty...Devil Rays. A win's a win, I guess. Now the team can come home and start the much-ballyhooed Royals return to reality. At least, I hope the Royals are going to return to reality. It would suck if they had three games worth of pixie dust left.

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Just got home in time to see "Scare and a Blown Save" manage to get out most of the bottom of the D-Rays order... more importantly, the Jays win!

Hopefully this could be a trend.

MP

Brinkman couldn't even tell a foul ball from a passed ball. Oh well. I guess the win is a good thing. I'm still not happy at all with the way the Jays are playing. A lot of weak at bats (admittedly a lot of hard hit balls have found gloves), weak pitching, weak defence.

Tosca has to start kicking some butt Pineilla style and give guys like Hudson extra fielding practice. How do you so consistently bounce the throw on routine double play balls?

Off-topic...has anyone heard word of the Jays changing their name and logo? Name change to the Toronto Jays and apparently an entirely new colour scheme which drops the red and concentrates on silver and blue.

Billie,

Where did you hear that? It sounds awful. I hope they don't do it; they just finished changing the logo for the worse and I'd like it if we could have a few years between stupid marketing moves.

Off-topic...has anyone heard word of the Jays changing their name and logo? Name change to the Toronto Jays and apparently an entirely new colour scheme which drops the red and concentrates on silver and blue.

Ugh. Double ugh. Dropping the red would be really stupid as it would eliminate the already-minimized maple leaf. I ain't gonna stand for no silver maple leaf. Other than that, it's OK... I mean, I have no attachment to the current colors and logos anyway. I'd rather see blue and white rather than blue and "silver", which makes me think of Buck Rogers-style silver jumpsuits... the thought of Escobar trotting out of the bullpen in a tight-fitting silver lamé one-piece is the unfortunate corollary of such an association. Of course, the obvious marketing slogan "The Team of the Future" just might be too good to miss.

Dropping "Blue" would be a necessary adjunct to ending the cozy beer-sponsorship relationship with Labatt. It was Labatt (actually their ad director, Art Lennox) who essentially got the team named "Blue Jays" in the first place (thank god we didn't wind up with "Blue Bats", which was apparently seriously considered). If the Jays were serious about pursuing Molson as a partner, they would have to drop "Blue" from the name.

Unless, of course, Molson reintroduced "Molson Blue" (i.e. Molson Stock Ale) back into the national marketplace in a big way. As it's the finest Molson product out there, I'd be heartily in favor of that move, but it's a longshot :)

Actually, Paul Godfrey hated the name when it was first announced... so he may have been waiting for a chance to get rid of it!

The team should have been the Maple Leafs from moment one, and the fact that some crap hockey team stole the name from the original Leafs doesn't change any of that.

We still own 20% of the team, so we're not going anywhere yet.

Grab those old style caps at MLB.com while they last. That new logo is the worst thing since the Toronto Raptors.