12 May 2007: The End of an Era
Saturday, May 12 2007 @ 05:00 AM EDT
Contributed by: Magpie
Someday we'll look back on this and it will all seem funny.
--Bruce Springsteen
How shall we remember them, these Ten Days in May?
To me, they will always be the Zambrano Era. And it was with high hopes that some of us awaited the dawning of this Brave New World. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and mice aft gang'a'gley, as the great Robbie Burns once noted. Here is precisely how the gang gleyed:
Toronto Blue Jays Team Batting Statistics
NAME G AB R H 2B 3B HR TB RBI BB SO SB CS BA OBP SLG OPS
Alex Rios 9 33 3 11 4 0 2 21 5 4 3 0 0 .333 .395 .636 1.031
Troy Glaus 9 31 6 9 2 0 3 20 5 4 5 0 0 .290 .371 .645 1.017
Lyle Overbay 8 30 6 8 2 0 3 19 4 3 6 0 0 .267 .333 .633 .967
Sal Fasano 5 16 1 3 1 0 1 7 2 1 7 0 0 .188 .235 .438 .673
Jason Phillips 7 18 1 4 3 0 0 7 2 1 5 0 0 .222 .263 .389 .652
Aaron Hill 9 34 3 5 3 0 1 11 2 4 9 1 0 .147 .237 .324 .560
Vernon Wells 7 28 3 6 2 0 0 8 0 1 4 0 1 .214 .241 .286 .527
Frank Thomas 9 34 2 7 2 0 0 9 2 2 7 0 0 .206 .250 .265 .515
Matt Stairs 7 11 0 2 0 0 0 2 3 2 2 0 0 .182 .308 .182 .490
Adam Lind 9 39 0 7 1 0 0 8 1 2 10 1 0 .179 .220 .205 .425
Royce Clayton 5 11 2 1 0 0 0 1 0 2 2 0 0 .091 .231 .091 .322
Jason Smith 6 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 .000 .200 .000 .200
John McDonald 7 18 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 4 0 0 .056 .056 .056 .111
Blue Jays 9 307 27 64 20 0 10 114 26 27 66 2 1 .208 .272 .371 .643
Toronto Blue Jays Team Pitching Statistics
NAME G GS W L Sv QS Hld IP H ER R HR BB SO K/9 WHIP ERA
Jeremy Accardo 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 4.0 3 0 0 0 0 5 11.25 0.75 0.00
Jamie Vermilyea 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3.0 2 0 0 0 0 1 3.00 0.67 0.00
Casey Janssen 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 2.2 3 0 0 0 1 1 3.38 1.50 0.00
Shaun Marcum 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 4.1 5 1 1 0 1 5 10.38 1.38 2.08
Tomo Ohka 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 12.0 16 9 10 2 6 3 2.25 1.83 6.75
A.J. Burnett 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 12.2 15 10 10 5 5 16 11.37 1.58 7.11
Brian Tallet 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3.1 3 3 3 0 3 3 8.10 1.80 8.10
Scott Downs 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3.0 3 3 3 2 3 5 15.00 2.00 9.00
Josh Towers 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 8.0 10 8 9 4 1 5 5.63 1.38 9.00
Dustin McGowan 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 5.0 6 5 5 0 5 4 7.20 2.20 9.00
Jason Frasor 4 0 0 1 0 0 0 3.1 5 4 4 1 5 1 2.70 3.00 10.80
Roy Halladay 2 2 0 2 0 0 0 10.1 23 16 17 1 2 5 4.35 2.42 13.94
Victor Zambrano 2 2 0 1 0 0 0 5.1 12 10 10 5 5 1 1.69 3.19 16.88
Blue Jays 9 9 0 9 0 0 0 77.0 106 69 72 20 37 55 6.43 1.86 8.06
But all bad things must come to an end. The line must be drawn here! And so it was.
A couple of notes from last night's game. First, of all I did join the Chat briefly, and within two innings I remembered immediately a) why it's fun, and b) why I stopped participating. You see, I'm actually getting paid to do something else when I'm at the Dome, and whenever I get involved in the Chat I start missing stuff. And have to figure out what and how and catch up and go into Edit mode. It's not good, I shouldn't be doing that. So I hereby announce that only when I'm not actually working the game will I be climbing aboard. Unless something really important happens that I need to share, of course..
I was wondering why Lyle Overbay lit out for second as Hill went from second to third on Phillips' fly ball to right in the sixth. Harris cut the throw, and Overbay put out quite easily. And then I remembered Delmon Young missing about six cutoff men the last time the Jays played Tampa, and I suppose Lyle was remembering too. Ah, well - not this time, buddy. Presumably the coaches had a chat with the young prodigy.
When I see a big Blue Jay righthander come out to the mound in the ninth inning and overwhelm hitters with a 95 mph heater and a scary splitfinger... memories rush over me. Sweet, happy, memories. For this was Tom Henke's modus operandi for years and years and years. And man, do I ever, ever like to see a Jays pitcher remind me of Tom Henke. Even if it's just for one night...
Gibbons gets ripped a lot for his game management in general and his bullpen management in particular. I haven't joined the chorus, largely because I think game management is tremendously overrated when it comes to assessing what a manger brings to a team. I think for the most part, there's actually very, very little to choose from between the thirty guys who actually have the major league jobs, and the scores and scores (if not hundreds or thousands) of people who don't. As for his bullpen management, I'm not wild about it, but I do think he's been largely finding out what he's got to work with this year - who can do what, who can handle this, and so on.
(I think a manager's main contribution to a team comes from a) recognizing talent, understanding what his players can and can not do; b) getting the players to show up and play hard; c) making the players better, improving them somehow. I'm not convinced that Gibbons brings anything special to the table here, and it would be really nice to find someone who did - but I'm not convinced that he's doing any real damage either. I'm pretty sure I don't have enough information to make a judgement in any case.)
And for the most part, I'm inclined to leave game management decisions alone. But last night, I was scratching my head in puzzlement and my neighbours were also scratching their heads in sympathetic confusion. We couldn't figure out what the hell the manager was thinking...
The manager was Joe Maddon. With one out in the seventh, Alex Rios ripped a home run to put the Jays up 4-1. Shawn Camp was ready in the bullpen, Vernon Wells was at the plate. And Kazmir, who is still only 23 years old, who did miss the last six weeks of the season last year with shoulder soreness, and who also represents the hope and future of the franchise, such as it is, had already thrown 115 pitches in a long game that had already gone 2 hours and 20 minutes. But Maddon didn't move, and it quickly dawned on us why - he was hoping Kazmir could retire Wells, so he could leave him in to face the left-handed hitter on deck.
And while the insanity of this line of thinking washed over us - the left-handed hitter in question was Jason Smith, and why the hell would you think you need anyone special to face Jason Smith - Wells ripped a double into the corner and Maddon reluctantly pulled the plug and brought Camp in to the game.
And just as we were all muttering stupid, stupid,stupid, Smith lined an RBI base hit (on an 0-2 pitch, yet. Ouch!).
Proving once more the wisdom of Yogi: in baseball, you don't know nothing.
And there you go. You can't lose 'em all.
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