The Jays had a hazillion chances to score some runs - the Brewers issued seven walks. Oh, it was ugly. There was Hinske's golden sombrero. There was Reed Johnson going 0-5 (does this man need some rest or what?). Alex Rios, 0-4. Ken Huckaby 0 for June...
I went to today's game at the Dome / Rogers Centre and I have to say, it wasn't necessarily a brutal game, but it featured some very bad play by the Jays.
In particular, bad fielding was a major problem. There seemed to be significant communication problems between Rios in CF, and Catalanatto in LF, as well as between Rios and the infield. I am thinking that Wells' absence is the major problem here -- people are not necessarily in their regular roles, and aren't 100% on what should be happening.
That being said, there were just bad plays that were being made as well. Rios dropped a fly ball, missed a flyball, Cat missed two fly balls, someone threw over Gregg Zaun's head, and Hinske dropped a crucial throw from Russ Adams at one point that resulted in two men on and nobody out.
Hinske actually had the worst day on the team by far. He went 0 for 4, with 4 strikeouts, and he dropped the throw from Adams. Where I was sitting in 130C on the LF side, fans were outwardly booing him, and not the calls made against him. Although I like to be a Hinske booster, today he was not at his best.
Another bad thing -- Capuano walked five(!) and we scored only once on him. It was ridiculous.
After seeing the '05 Brew Crew live in action, I believe we too need a slugger of the calibre of Carlos Lee. Even just one guy with that kind of power potential gives your team a bit of a psychological, competitive, and home-run power edge. When Lee was up to bat, he seemed to work the at-bats well, and keep the pitcher focused on his plate appearance and away from who was on base, leaving opportunity for them to get good jumps etc. It's too bad we never nabbed him in the off-season, he struck as being really good. He too dropped a ball at one point in LF, but the Jays knew better than to run on him.
Turnbow, in person, is quite a dominant force too. He hit 95-97 for many of his pitches on the radar gun, and his "change up" was rated at 85 MPH. Quite impressive, and when you see his very quick and explosive windup in person, you are impressed as well.
But although the game had its weak points, there were a few notable points:
All-all-all, it was a game.
Oh, God. Don't remind me.
I have two questions related to this game:
1. Who the hell are Hoopy and YoYo?
2. Will we be seeing any more of them?
I love Reed and I was a prior supporter of him in a full time role, butthis is evidence that he is not. He'll do a damn fine job in a fourth outfielder/sparkplug role, but full-time I don't think so.
To VBF, I was wondering the same thing about Hoppy and YoYo. My thoughts were that they were particularly craptacular character designs -- they looked on screen as though they had been conceived and animated using MS Paint.
As for some other comments building on the Hinske-bashing, it was also noted in the Toronto Star, with them asking Eric if he was hearing the boos. His answer? "No".
Today I am reading online through some of the links at Baseball Rumors that Roy Oswalt is potentially going to be made available if Houston keeps losing, as they instead try for a complete rebuild. I say we pay through the nose for Oswalt and have him in our rotation next year. Halladay + Oswalt + Lilly would be a great one-two-three, with our other guys filling the final two spots through competition. If Houston is going to let him go, Toronto needs to step up and get him.
And then, we should snag Austin Kearns from the Cincinati AAA team. Actually, we should do that first and then trade for Oswalt, as so not to overpay for Monsieur Kearns. In any case, we definitely need more offense!
After watching yesterday's game, I really think LF needs a serious upgrade. As noted above by other posters, Reed 'Sparky' Johnson is a pretty solid player, but he should be a platoon guy, and not an everyday starter. And the Cat is just not strong enough to throw in missiles from LF, thus he shouldn't be out there. It should be DH or the bench for him.
