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Owing to the twin demands of career and new fatherhood, I’m almost ashamed to admit that it has been several weeks since I was last able to sit down and enjoy a ballgame from start to finish.
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Owing to the twin demands of career and new fatherhood, I’m almost ashamed to admit that it has been several weeks since I was last able to sit down and enjoy a ballgame from start to finish.
You know what that means...
Let's get right to it, then, and meet ...
A relatively brief Scout this week, as it's being created while visiting family for a wedding (not mine). As is usually the case with Boston coming to town this season, Toronto faces three up-and-down starters, an inconsistent bullpen, an occasionally erratic defence...and an absolutely dominant lineup. Can the Jays keep up their strong play against the Bosox, with less on the line (at least from the Jays' perspective)?
This week's Scout features some offseason planning, some nagging aches and pains and some more of the same from the one and only Boomer.
On to the Advance Scout!Curiously, the game turned on two slow rollers hit by Travis Lee to Shea Hillenbrand. Shea, who made a couple of lovely scoop and flip plays on similar balls yesterday and today, misplayed both. He couldn't field the ninth inning roller cleanly, and the tying run crossed the plate - in the eleventh his throw home short-hopped Zaun, and the winning run crossed the plate.
Not that this game should have come down to that.
But to limit ourselves to those three surnames on this team made up entirely of players whose last/family name begins with the letter "J" would deprive us of Hall of Famers like Addie Joss and Fergie Jenkins, not to mention a certain shortstop currently starring in a leading role just off Broadway.
Jenkins and Joss notwithstanding, of the other six "J"s inducted into Cooperstown so far, two are Jacksons (Reggie and Travis) and three are Johnsons (Walter, Judy and Ban, who wasn't a player). That leaves Hughie Jennings, a .311 career hitter who could also play short for this team, but who will probably find himself busy managing it instead. Nobody named "Jones" is in the Hall, surprisingly, but Chipper and Andruw will make a case in 15 or 20 years, while Randy Johnson will beat both of them there by a decade.
Now, please meet ...