Hrm.

I've been a little too busy to post much lately... busy, and totally lacking in material without regurgitating the same old game recap that's already been reworded 50 times on the RSS feed we all read. I was entrusted with the steering wheel at Go Jays Go on the weekend, and let's just say that the weak material made it easy for me. I was there at the Rogers Centre on Saturday and Sunday, spiffy new camera in hand, and there wasn't even anything worth photographing and posting. I'm getting disappointed in you, RC Jays fans. You're boring.

Tonight's Alcoholic Beverage Of The Game is the Killer Koolaid.

* 1 1/2 oz Vodka
* 1/2 oz Peach schnapps
* 1/2 oz Amaretto
* 3 oz Cranberry juice cocktail

This was my favorite drink when I was a broke university student. Maximum buzz, minimum cash.

(And now for something totally off topic...)

I've missed half of the game because of this little bugger, who I've been keeping an eye on for the last day and a half:



No shit, I found a baby blue jay next to my deck yesterday afternoon. He doesn't have his tail feathers yet and is too little to fly. I'm trying to keep him in my yard, because he hopped over to the neighbor's yard last evening, and proceeded to have a near-death experience with their cat, who, mercifully, is a pitiful hunter.

I've had to snag the baby jay up about five times now, after he's wandered over too far into feline territory. I think he's getting fed up of that; he squawks at me now. At least the parents leave me alone. I've fed them peanuts all winter, so they seem cool with me.

Joey Votto

Tonight's starting lineups have yet to be announced, but if the hometown boy is playing (ETA - yes, he's in the lineup) you Messin' With Recession MFers better give him one hell of a noisy standing O.

It was just Fathers Day.

He deserves it.

Shockingly, 20% of voters on a recent poll at insidethemajors.com felt that players with anxiety disorders were somehow undeserving of DL time. (Bart's site seems to be down at the moment. Take my word for it.) Tell me, after reading Votto's breif account, does it sound like he was in any shape to play? Would you want a guy in that condition on your team?

I'm trying to imagine what the argument against it would be. That players might fake it? Why would a player fake something with a negative stigma attached to it, when they could just fake a physical injury?

Happy Fathers Day

My dad, starting me off right.

My dad is awesome.

In the 70s, he basically looked like Brian Tallet and Rance Mulliniks had a baby.

You may not know him by name, but if you've ever seen the large celestial body known as The Moon, my dad singlehandedly hung it there.

Daddy, thanks for: baseball, self-reliance, proper spelling and grammar (when it's important, ie not the blogosphere), baseball, discipline, common sense, the somewhat sophisticated British sense of humour, the somewhat less sophisticated British high alcohol tolerance; common courtesy, the courage to be myself... and did I mention the baseball?

At Least We Got A Few Innings Off

I was hoping they got up to leave. For good.

I love how everyone who DOESN'T rely on the center field camera for their view of the game actually thinks these guys are funny.

Hey KKKKKKKKKKKoolaid!

Scott Richmond grabs himself a career-high 9 10 11 strike-outs... not including his own at the dish. Hey-oh! At least he swung. You go, buddy.



LOL. So wrong. Interleague. WTFBBQ.

Lookit 'em stats: 000. 0. 0. Lookit all 'em goose eggs. You just keep throwing strikes, sweetheart.

8 IP, 11 Ks, only 107 (or so) pitches thrown. All'a sudden, that "Richmond Set to Replace Halladay" headline doesn't seem so funny, does it, bee-otches?

Richmond seems to do well in the pissing rain. His first career win came in Baltimore last year after a complete came shutout... sorta. It was called after 5 innings.

Music: "September In The Rain", Frank Sinatra

"Richmond Set To Replace Halladay"

Richmond Set To Replace Halladay

Guffaw. Imagine magically sending that headline back in time to the March 2009 You. Then, add that Halladay, Janssen, Downs and Litsch have joined Marcum and McGowan in the DL club. The '08 rotation is officially gone, Mike-Foxtrot-ers!

March-2009-You would have a brain aneurysm.

I dunno, I'm just not feeling the gloom quite yet. Maybe it's the time of year; that my seasonal affective disorder turns into mania right about now... but I'm somehow confident that we're in for some good baseball. To shamelessly steal Eyebleaf's MO, I believe in Scott Richmond. FNA.

On last night's "ugly" win... don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Wasn't there a lot of complaining last year about how many games the Jays could have won had they only taken advantage of the other teams' mistakes? Last night was karma. The Jays made mistakes, they won the game.

Scott Downs, are your feet made of paper mâché? Good grief, boy. While I'm not exactly a fan of interleague play, I think citing Downs' injury is a very weak argument against it. That was the kind of freak injury that could have happened just as easily if he slipped stepping off the bus, or if he was, say, fielding an infield play. Hey, wait! Come to think of it, that's exactly what happened to him TWICE late last season. I guess we need Designated Fielders to stand next to pitchers and be prepared to run on wet grass, dive at bunts, and all those other dangerous things that could conceivably injure a pitcher.

These guys all do resistance training and run, do they not? Blaming this kind of injury on pitchers batting is kind of like accusing someone of cheating if they happen to win on scratch tickets several times in a row.

Tonight's Alcoholic Beverage Of The Game is the brain aneurysm. Add 1/3 shot of Bailey's to 2/3 shot of peach schnapps, drizzling it slowly so it congeals. Add a few drops of grenadine for the blood effect. (No joke, it's a real shot, and a tasty one at that.)

Goddammit.

Well, that was almost like watching two different ball games, wasn't it?

I mean, if I were to tell you ahead of time that you would see:

- Halladay starting,
- Halladay starting after being sent home a day early from Texas for some extra ZZZs, no less,
- They're playing the Marlins, and
- Immediately following Doc, the bullpen would throw three shutout innings,

...you'd probably just think it was strange that the bullpen would need to throw three innings for Doc, period. And, of course, the Jays won, right?

Nope.

Doc got broken. Early.

Scott Richmond is rumored to have done nicely afterward, but gee, it was hard to tell, with the game audio suddenly consisting of interviews and all.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Flashback Fridays and Comfort Zone guests are great. I love hearing from the old-timers. But do they really have to do it in the middle of the game? If you're enough of a fan that you appreciate those interviews, you're probably enough of a fan that you're probably trying to, y'know, PAY ATTENTION TO THE GAME.

Top of the fifth: Balor Moore. Top of the sixth: the scouting guy. Fed up, I decide to cash in on the Gameday Audio subscription I almost forgot about. Now Balor Moore is being interviewed by Jerry and Alan. FFS.

I digress. Close ballgame up until that point. I was having fun. Voodoo Joe singled and RBIed to tie the game, stole a bag, and proceeded to get RBIed.

Not long after that, it morphed into some shitty ballgame that requires no summary on my part. RSS is your friend. I'm going to bed.

Music: Prodigy, Take Me To The Hospital

Freaks of Nature

During last night's broadcast, Jerry and Alan were discussing pitchers who threw with their non-dominant hands.

The Blue Jay pitchers mentioned, if I remember correctly, were Duane Ward and John Cerutti.

They forgot left-handed right-handed pitcher Jesse Litsch:

More Dirk

...on country music, slot machines, and a new drink for Ian to offer up with the Kool-Aid and mash liquor:

Hey!

Stop that!

(Tap tap tap...) Rain Delay.

...so it's 9:47 pm EDT, and the weather radar in TX is still rather orange, yellow and red. Methinks it'll be a late night for those of us Jays fans who stay up if they actually get this game in.

I am bored.

So you get a screen cap of Mr Hayhurst from his interview on Jays Connected.



GARFOOSE!



(ETA) Uh, yeah, I guess they called it. I concur with Dave, every ballpark should have a removable lid.

(ETA again) Even funnier: (flood)

Oh Noez...

Jays' Jesse Litsch Needs 'Tommy John' Surgery

I am sad for Jesse. It seemed promising when he left that game in mid-April, reminding folks that he had never been injured before.

Scutaro Now Leads MLB In Grins.

Good Try...

Foxtrot This Sierra

Rios apologized. No one was too pissed at him in the first place, considering the circumstances, right?

I'm in the military. Just this week, I attended a cadet inspection and caught myself cussing not once, not twice, not three times, but four times in front of cadets and/or their parents. It just kinda... y'know. I let it slip. Yes, I'm an idiot. But I wasn't even angry. I wasn't having a bad day. I certainly wasn't being taunted.

To defend Rios further, I speculate that one doesn't have an appreciation for the impact of the F bomb when English is one's second language.

If I was taunted by a piece-of-shit of that piece-of-shit's magnitude, I'd probably induce strokes in children with my collosal display of obscenity. The difference between Alex Rios and I is that no one would bother recording it and posting it to youtube for the sake of douchebaggery and dick-waving.

By the way, you all got a good look at the guy, right? I know I did. I hope he's smart enough to stay away from the Rogers Centre now.

(Sigh)

Summer is officially here. That was my first game at which the lid was off the ball park. Sun, beer and baseball.

Thus, I'm not too bummed about today's loss. T'would have been nice for that eighth inning rally to have paid off, but... no dice.

A few pics from God's country:

Voodoo Joe's single:



Dirk Hayhurst's debut as a Jay:



Some colourful brats:



I think he has kids your age, girls. o.O

Three Quick Things

1) I hate work when it makes me miss entire weeks of baseball.

2) HB.



Once upon a time, you could see The Dome from across the lake. This is a scan of a post card from St Catharines. Why anyone would send a post card from St Catharines is beyond me, but I digress.

3) I hope Dirk Hayhurst throws half as well as he writes. Perhaps he'll be able to follow up his first book (due for release next spring) with a second detailing his misadventures in Canadialand.

I'm off to the city for today's bratinée game. Later!

..And The Angels Wept.

"...and that one (#14, career high) ends the ballgame..."

Faster than the next frame could capture it, that ball was caught at the knees.

Barajas on Doc, via Jordan Bastian's twitter: "For me, it's fun, because I know I'm going to go out there and see one of the best pitchers of my generation."