Shut Up. It's Reasonable.

It’s unreasonable for a 30 year old man to need to be accountable to someone in order to ensure he doesn’t fall into trouble. I have no doubt about this. But it’s also unreasonable to waste away a ton of promise and potential through excess alcohol and drug use.

Oh Parkes.

Any sort of concern about Josh Hamilton's need for an "accountability partner" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of addiction and sober living.  Addiction is an illness and sobriety, once achieved, needs to be maintained. 

Of course it is unreasonable to ruin an infinite amount of talent and promise with excessive use of booze and drugs, but that is assuming there is any sort of reason involved in addiction.  It's an illness in which a person violates a fundamental aspect of the human condition-self-preservation.  His age has nothing to do with anything as addiction isn't age specific. 

Sponsorship is considered a vital part of AA, as well as Narcotics Anonymous.   Whatever "Jesus is my Homeboy" version Josh Hamilton employs is a variation of a pretty standard presence in the lives of many recovering addicts.  It would be like saying, "it's unreasonable for Hamilton to employ a personal trainer- he should know how to work out" or "it's unreasonable for Hamilton to employ a nutritionist- he should know what to eat." Sponsors are usually fellow recovering addicts who have gone through the 12 step process. Sobriety is something that needs maintenance. This is not unusual. It would be more concerning if Hamilton didn't have one.

It may be unusual for one's employer to have the addict's sponsor on the payroll, but I think it's been well established that these aren't usual people. There's a lot of money piled up around them. 

And whatever shady past Hamilton carries around with him, I think his play and his numbers over the past five years have made the Rangers satisfied with their investment.  If  (that's a big "if") the Rangers favour Fielder, it probably has more to do with age and injuries, not any kind of sobriety maintenance. 

Big Guns

I haven't written since Yu Darvish didn't happen.  But it's not like much has happened, except people moaning about penny pinching and lame duck GMs.  But AA has been quietly making moves.  Not splashy (ie expensive) moves, but moves.


Before they moaned about the cheapness, moaners moaned about the bullpen.  AA went out and stocked the bullpen.  Sergio Santos (new closer), Darren Oliver (octogenarian south paw) and Jason Frasor (once and future Sausage King of Chicago) came back from the White Sox.  


“It felt like I was never coming back. (His July 27 trade) was an emotional day. I think it was the first time I'd cried since I gave up five runs in Atlanta a couple of years ago,” Frasor said, laughing.  Aw, don't cry Sausage King. Especially not about Atlanta. Unless you have to hang out with Chipper Jones.


I understand the feelings of malaise some fans have with the off season.  I mean, it's hard to blog when there is nothing to blog about.  And if I don't blog, there isn't a blog.


The new uniforms and the Yu drama were ups, but the fall out from the lost bid and perceived non-action brought the energy down. "There's a lot of things that we could have done this past off-season just to say that we did it.  But I don't ultimately believe that it would have been good signings or good trades for us.  I think it would have been bad."


Also, the Sergio Santos deal was pretty amazing. As Frasor said, "I think you guys are really going to like him. I can't believe Alex pulled him away from Chicago first of all, and for me to go back there and hopefully set him up again, it's great.”  Plus, Santos' contract is very team friendly. 


I want another starter to increase depth, and I want another bat.  But if Escobar, Lawrie, JPA, EE, Johnson and Rasmus, not to mention Lind and Snider, can pull themselves together and perform either as well or better than they did last season, that should be enough to cover Bautista in offensively protective deliciousness.


I took a question from Twitter: 


@james_in_TO asks: Do longer games mean better records, if so, will you happily endure it?

The Yankees and the Red Sox have great teams and usually have great records.  However, watching those two teams is awful.  It's slow, it's drawn out and deliberate.  Red Sox pitchers are ponderous while pitching and Yankee batters are clearly encouraged to grind out at bats. It's effective, but incredibly irritating. Sunday Night Baseball games featuring those two teams are awful, because it invites blather from the commentators and games of no import get drawn out into the early hours of the morning.  It's technically good, because both teams feature good players, but there is no joy in it.  

The Jays play an up tempo style and are a very fun team to watch.  A Jays/Yankees game can often be very, very fun. So while better records are clearly desirable, but I would not happily endure the drudgery. Watching the Red Sox just makes me militant. 

The Jays Winter Tour has rolled on from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal and now Halifax.  The boys excitedly tweeted along the way and alienated Toronto Maple Leaf fans by wearing the Habs and very nifty Senators jerseys at hockey games. They spoke French, visited Parliament Hill and saw some sick kids at the hospital.  Eric Thames' arms are alarmingly awesome. Wasn't he wiry like Bautista before? 

Mr. Big Guns is also in love with Halifax, according to his tweets. He seems like a bit of a city slut, though.

Yu Said Sit Back Down Where Yu Belong

Well, that was a let down.  It would've been fun, in a brand new, shiny toy kind of way, but it was never a sure thing-either winning the Darvish bid or Darvish even being a successful MLB pitcher.  The Rangers may not even sign him.  They might get within a dollar twice, and still lose.  That is the Ranger way. 

And I'm sure some people will try to paint me as a Rogers apologist, but it is more than a little ridiculous to suggest that AA submitted a pathetically small bid. He could have bid 50 million dollars.  It's a blind bid. We don't know what the losing bids were.  Because it's BLIND. 

I'm as frustrated as anyone about finishing out of the playoffs and being in the purgatory of  "rebuilding" but step back from the ledge.  Some configuration of Romero, Morrow, Alvarez, McGowan and Drabek (plus whatever other bits and pieces you want to throw in) is still a good starting point.  The off-season isn't over.  Just chill the fuck out.

There should be a study done on the Twitter goings on surrounding Darvish.  Kevin Gray was strangely confident when he tweeted that he had inside sources that said the Jays won the bid. He kept tweeting it.  It was eerie. 

So I was reading the comments over on DJF about the Yu Darvish ordeal, and one peaked my interest.


BJ

Hey fuckwit, I see you've set aside your pissing and moaning about Beeston only to turn on Andrew (brilliant post) Stoeten. Maybe try the schoolyard dribblings of Hum and Chuck. Better yet, join her with her creepy tweeting of Jays players.

Hi BJ:

Thanks for your feedback. I'm all for supporting Andrew Stoeten and whatever he is ranting about, but could you leave me out of whatever it is you are doing? Stop encouraging the mouth breathing capons that are wailing about whatever move Anthopolous is or isn't making to come and interact with me. If you think any of my interactions on Twitter are creepy, you don't know Twitter. Or creepy. If you don't like what I do on Twitter, try not creeping me.

Kindly go #$(% yourself, because it is quite clear no one else will.

Best,
Joanna.

Does anyone know what exactly are "schoolyard dribblings"?

Fun with Columnists

Dustin Parkes and Andrew Stoeten covered that Geoff Baker blog post and it's layers of bullshit.

This was a good part:

"I don't know the answer. All I know is, the Blue Jays let it be known early on at the winter meetings that they weren't going to spend big on Prince Fielder over more than five years. They went out and traded for a closer rather than spend on one in free agency. These may wind up being prudent moves, but was that really the reason they were made? "

How has Baker been in this business for so long and not grasped the concept that what a GM says he is going to is not exactly what he is actually going to do? How has he grasped the concept of not showing your hand? And I am in favour of signing Fielder because I think it'll be entertaining to watch and I want him to be Bautista's special line up friend, but I am also completely aware of the reasons to be cautious and I'm very glad I don't have to make that decision. Also, they traded for a closer with a prospect. Why spend money when that deal can be made? I think that's a plus for Anthopoulos.

And finally knowing about the Dave Stewart situation does not an insider make. That was pretty well known news back in the day.

Now it's all right to have issues with Rogers and to criticize the moves, but at least get the facts straight. And don't freak out about Rogers possibly buying the Leafs when it hasn't happened yet. And please don't make stuff up to make Mariner fans feel better about themselves now that they have to see Albert Pujols on a regular basis.

On Sunday, I made the mistake of interacting with Joe Cowley on Twitter. About a tweet or two into it, I realized he was that guy. He will also be the guy who stated that he can't find an NFL game on TV while in Toronto. There are only about 75 games to choose from on any given Sunday from September til February if you use that new fangled invention called a remote control. Oh and according to Cowley, Bautista isn't competitive. That's credible journalism right there.

Sentences

For those who are unaware, I went back to school in September. School has kicked my ass and stolen my soul, leaving me unavailable for blogging and baseball (or much else.) So the following is what I've been thinking about baseball-wise for the last two months. I am also writing this because my little baby has been sorely neglected.

So congrats, I guess, to the St.Louis Cardinals. I hope Colby Rasmus was in a secluded cabin somewhere, cleaning game and not aware of the whole "Cardinals won that trade!!! Ooooh WEEE!" silliness that kept being said on the broadcasts.

Watching the Rangers get within a strike of winning the whole show not once, but twice in Game 6 was both awesome and horrifying. If your relief pitchers are so burnt out they can't throw a strike to save themselves, you have mismanaged your bullpen, Ron Washington.

Justin Verlander 100% earned the Cy Young and I've come to terms with him winning the AL MVP. What I cannot accept is Bautista finishing 3rd to Ellsbury.

The Boston Red Sox had a historical collapse in September. It was a total shit show. Many sportswriters dismissed Bautista for not being on a contending team. But they then didn't hold Ellsbury responsible for the shit show that was his team. I don't hold him responsible for it either, I just think there is a gap in logic. So apparently having great numbers in the second half on a team that played terribly at the beginning and at the end of the season is more valuable than having at times historical, Bondsian numbers on a team that played steadily for the whole season. Whatever. Bautista got the Hank Aaron Award, so that's something.

The Texas writer who voted Michael Young first and Bautista 7th needs to be publicly shamed. And stripped of his credentials. And his pants.

The new uniforms are gorgeous. As was the sight of all the boys showing up in cold and dark Toronto to show them off.

Mmmmmm....serifs.


P.S. Phillies, you can't have d'Arnaud back. Piss off.

Dispatches

The following is made up of bits and pieces of baseball related things that came up over the week and change I didn't write.

I died a little on the inside when someone told me, rather snottily, that baseball was boring and also that it was the easiest to play because "fat people play it." So I dragged him outside and smacked him around.

Well, you can only be fat if you are a pitcher, a catcher or a first baseman. And someone like Sabbathia is clearly mounds of fun, but is also strong with ox-like tendencies and probably more in shape than most people. His arm would fall off if he wasn't in some sort of peak condition. Sabbathia is hardly ever on the DL, which is telling.

As for the contention that it is boring, I present this:

,

Whatever. The fact that the Red Sox loss and the Longoria homer happened within about 3 minutes of each other continues to blow my mind.

Speaking of the sleepless fury, the fallout from the epic Boston collapse began within hours of the end of the regular season. And Terry Francona said this,

"When things go bad, your true colors show and I was bothered by what was showing."

I like Terry Francona-and maybe even the fact that SOSH hates him so much made me think he is the sort of guy I can get behind. The enemy of your enemy is your friend, etc.

I have a feeling it is going to get very, very ugly. Francona was loyal to the cause to the very end and wouldn't name names, but it was clear that things were very, very rotten indeed.

"Some of it may be personal," he said. "I thought it was time. And again, to be honest with you, I didn't know, I'm not sure how much support there was from ownership. … And I don't know if I felt real comfortable. You've got to be all-in in this job, and I voiced that today. … It's got to be, everybody has to be together, and I was questioning some of that a little bit."

Oh right, the Jays finished their season. I was disappointed that, once again, they finished out of the post season but some comfort can be taken in the fact that they finished .500. I guess.

Ricky Romero, Jose Bautista and Brett Lawrie are highlights. Encarnacion's smile and offensive blossoming. Escobar's swag. In general, this group was insanely fun to watch.

Brett Lawrie has so much star dust on him I sometimes can't believe he is for real.

As Ned Stark likes to say, winter is coming.

This will keep you warm:

Girl on Film : Moneyball

As the off season approaches, I'm looking for ways to keep the content flowing on this site. One of the ways I am going to do that is to write reviews of books, films and other baseball related material.

So I saw Moneyball, a film I had been anticipating for a while.

There is just not that much of a story. Beane's kid is cute and that's a nice relationship, but there are no stakes. Beane has a boring relationship with his ex played by Robin Wright. His daughter is unfailingly supportive. The DePodesta character never really questions anything. Aaron Sorkin did re-writes on this picture, so I was expecting a little more of The Social Network in it. The stakes in that movie felt higher, there was more drive. And computer programming is as dull as baseball stats, so you can't tell me that it couldn't have been more interesting. I haven't read the book in a long time and most people have been telling me how things have been cut or changed, making some of the moves nonsensical, but mostly I just found it dull. It takes a lot for me to find something dull.

The acting is solid up and down. Pitt brings the right kind of cheeky swagger to Beane. His portrayal of Beane adds to a long list of performances where he eats a lot. This one featured a lot of chew. I think Jonah Hill's performance of Paul Brand (which is the name they use for Paul DePodesta) is the best part of the movie. And Philip Seymour Hoffman is just never not good.

Winning 20 games in a row is an impressive feat, but it's not winning the World Series. It's something approaching delicious irony that the team that actually won the Series the season that the movie is set in was the LA Angels, Oakland's division rivals. That's not mentioned, because it seems the only three teams that count in this world are the Yankees, the A's and the Red Sox. Moneyball was used to "beat" the Yankees, but failed to beat the more modestly ($ 61,721,667) budgeted Angels.

I wanted to throw something at the screen when the postscript came up, saying that the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004 using the same philosophy as Beane. Yeah, except Epstein had a $127,298,500 payroll when his team won the World Series in 2004. And a $143,026,214 when they won again in 2007. Now, I'm not saying that Epstein doesn't use SABR as part of his team building. I mean, the famous "Greek God of Walks" annoys the crap out of us every time we play the Sox. But it is a stretch to say that the Red Sox are a "Moneyball" team. The only team with a small payroll to win the whole show since Moneyball was published was the Florida Marlins in 2003.

I guess I just have a fundamental disagreement with the concept. I will admit that I find stats dull. I don't understand all of them, but I try to know what is actually considered good. Arguing with Boston fans over Twitter about just why Bautista is the 2011 MVP has expanded my knowledge. But I respect stats, and leave them to others who understand and care about them to develop and explain them. But I think eliminating the subjective nature of baseball is wrong. Baseball is subjective because life is subjective.

I think JP Ricciardi tried and failed to build the Jays this way and an AL East team obviously sees the "beasts of the East" more often than the A's do. Now, I'm not saying that advanced statistics can't be used when trying to build a team. But I think a better course of action is to use both the newer stats and the more traditional scouting. I'm not convinced that every scout is 95 years old and babbles about "5 tools". There is value in their work. Combine the best of both. It's one of the benefits of living in the post-Moneyball age.

Shock Factor

Oh look, I'm writing.

Playing the Angels have proved a little more annoying than I remember. The Jays haven't faced Weaver or Santana yet this series, who have historically owned them, but still faced the mighty Dan Haran. And I find that unlike some really great pitchers around the league, Haran is a drag to watch because he is so methodical and a bit joyless on the mound. That, combined with the fact that Vernon Wells plays to his full potential in front of the fans who boo him and Peter Bourjos is very gifted, makes the series very annoying. Other than Romero dressing up as Vernon. That made up for some of it. Anyone else reminded of this? Vernon turned me into a newt!

Although it gets less funny when the guy you are mocking hits 4 RBIs and gets to the seemingly unshakeable Casey Janssen and his team smashes your bullpen for the second consecutive night.

Brett Lawrie broke his finger (and our full tilt hearts) when he was taking grounders yesterday, ending his season with just under a week to go. And no, Lawrie isn't eligible for Rookie of the Year next season. People need to get over that, as I think ROY is a massively overrated award. During his first 43 games, Gordie Dougie lead all rookies in the majors over that time in triples (four), slugging percentage (.580), total bases (86), and on-base plus slugging (.961). All while bathing in beer, maple syrup, wrestling moose and chopping down pine trees with his bare hands. And earning the scorn of Red Sox fans, which has endeared him to me immensely.

If you guys aren't reading John Lott from the National Post, you are fools. His stories have helped me deal with the impending melancholy of the end of baseball. Kelly Johnson talks about not paying attention to the Arizona Diamondbacks and their playoff hunt.

“There was some shock factor, switching leagues and coming over to the [AL] East, seeing new pitchers every time out. As far as coming to a new team, the guys here made it real easy and everybody around the city has been great.”

Plus, the NL West is a humorous division, might as well build up your experience versus the cream.

There's Always Options, Right?

I took a brief look at SOSH last night after the Jays victory, and it was pretty depressing.

This team is not even fun to watch right now. With the pitching matchups we have this weekend, Tampa is going to come in and sweep the shit out of this team and leave town with a lead in the wild card.

It's beyond schadenfreude, people. So these people have become officially useless to me.

I love that this is their attitude after their team scored 18 runs the previous game versus the Jays. Like, things are bad, but things could still happen for them. Their team can still play.

I am guilty of becoming emotionally invested in my team and having the outcome of games effect my mood, but if my interest in my team was basically sucking my soul, I would find a new hobby. I mean, these guys are basically saying, "You get the rope, I'll get the cyanide."

Their forefathers suffered through 86 years of futility and these numpties have 2 championships in the last decade (not to mention the Celtics, Patriots and Bruins' success.) They are a disgrace to long suffering Massholes everywhere.

For the second time in a week, the Jays got to Daniel Bard. Bard is 0-3 with a 30.86 earned-run average in his last three appearances. “I've been through it before. ”Sometimes the effects are magnified by how big the games are."

It was certainly magnified for me for how awesome it was to see Adam Loewen hit a base clearing go ahead double.

It's great the see the kids play well, but I feel the season winding down. The air is cooler, the leaves are changing and I feel a little melancholy. The New York Times wrote a really good article about the Jays and Orioles, in the context of their series last weekend, being on the outside looking in the AL East, where the 2nd and 3rd place teams are battling to the death. It's interesting, other than being lumped in with the Orioles, because when I look at what Anthopoulos is crafting, the future looks a lot brighter for this team than a lot of other teams, the Orioles included.

I enjoyed this:

“Everything comes down to opportunity cost,” Anthopoulos says. “If you go this route, what’s the impact? There’s always options, right?”

Right.

One of the big stories of the season is what the hell is happening with Brandon Morrow? John Lott, who has become one of my favourite Jays writers this season, sat down with Bruce Walton to discuss. Walton and Farrell have suggested to Morrow to try to work in a cutter, but there are a lot of questions and seems to be more experimentation going on than with a sexually confused university student. It's an interesting discussion on pitching, even though it doesn't solve much.

To note:

"Obviously, we need to stay down a little bit better. That’s just more staying over the rubber a little bit longer; it’s not too technical. It’s more coming up with a game plan, that we can go out there year in and year out and make little adjustments as we go. The main thing is him working back and forth in the zone: trying to kill some ball speed with either a breaking ball or a changeup.”

Nowhere does it say "I know, let's move Brandon Morrow to the bullpen. That will solve all the problems." Take note of that. Make a t-shirt.

Keith Law got himself into some shit when he dissed the Moneyball movie on his personal blog, and got into it with Moneyball author Michael Lewis. Law discussed the situation on the Baseball Today podcast and Stoeten broke down the Blue Jay angle of it, which is wonderfully juicy in the gossip department. I want to wait and see the movie (though that really has nothing to do with the Law/Lewis showdown) before I make a judgement over what's going on.

At this point, I'm just going to assume that Law doesn't like the Moneyball movie because Brad Pitt played Billy Beane and not him.

Navin, awesome sports fan and writer, tweeted this tonight:

I would counter that the AL East crown should be celebrated by bathing in the blood of their vanquished foes. But yeah, the competition is totally equal across the league.

Off Day of the Damned: I Got Older

Today is my birthday. Today is also an off day, which was richly earned by taking 3 of 4 from the Red Sox and 2 of 3 from the Orioles.

I went to the game on Sunday, and it was the first one I had been to in years that wasn't versus the Yankees. The crowd is different because it isn't full of occasionally hostile Yankee fans. I didn't spend all that much time in my seat (section 129, row 7, seat 11-or the "See Lawrie Twitch" seats.) It was very sunny at the start of the game and I am a delicate rose, so I only hung out for an inning and a half. I met a bunch of blog/twitter friends in the shade and I walked Gregg Zaun to the door of the parking lot. I'd like to report that though they are not visible on tv, he has teeth. And he is somehow both bigger and smaller than me. Don't quite know how he managed that.

So, on this off day day of birth, I thought I would do a break down of the current starting 5 to determine the sum of their hum and chuck.

Brett Cecil

Oh Brett, Friday's game broke my heart. That, with the 9 strike outs, might have been the best Cecil has pitched all season and he ran into the behemoth known as Vladimir Guerrero.

“I’m scared to even intentionally walk him,” mused Brett Cecil. “He might stick the bat out there and try to flip one." And just to show that the baseball gods truly hate us, he didn't get any support at all to counteract the Vlad effect. One thing Cecil needs to work on not falling off to the third base side, which I think is the key to the velocity issue. Cecil really needs to appreciate his chuck because that's all he's got on the mound. He needs to nurture it, own it, kiss it and hug it. He needs to love the stuffing out of his chuck. But luckily, good chuck can go a long, long way.

If you chuck something, let it go. If it comes back to you, its yours forever. -Richard Bach

Brandon Morrow

Morrow should really be the king of hum and chuck. 93 fastball, with a slider, a curve and a change. It's an embarrassment of riches. But just judging from his body language, Morrow doesn't have faith in his stuff. He gives up a homer and his shoulders droop, like he has been trying to impersonate someone else and the gig is up. His last start versus the Red Sox, Morrow allowed eight Boston runs off eight hits in just 4 1/3 innings, including home runs to Jacoby Ellsbury and David Ortiz. I'm sure it's at least a bit of a concern for the Jays. He just really needs to trust his stuff and be the Brandon Morrow he can be.

We must become the hum that we want to chuck.- Mahatma Gandhi

Dustin McGowan

I watched McGowan's first start in the big leagues in 3 years, and it was clear that he had a few wrenches in the works. And was missing an out pitch. 3 years ago, the Jays used to send Roy Halladay, AJ Burnett, Dustin McGowan and Shaun Marcum to the hill as their 1-4. And it was fantastically good pitching. When Marcum was traded in the off season, I mourned the last piece of that quad of doom. It would be an amazing boost for the Jays to have a pitcher with McGowan's potential back. Plus, it's just a good story. “Walking back and forth to my place, you have a bunch of people telling me good luck and welcome back,” he said. “It means a lot.” Plus, as the Tao of Stieb pointed out, McGowan looks like he could be John Farrell's son.

In pitching there's nothing so becomes a man as modest chuck and hum. -William Shakespeare

Henderson Alvarez

Alvarez is something. He's got plenty of hum in his 96 plus mph fastball, a plus change up and a slider in progress. He had a bit of a rough outing vs the Orioles on Saturday, and by "rough outing" I mean a 93-pitch, seven-inning outing, where he gave up three runs, on nine hits and a walk. So the kind of start some pitchers dream about. But Alvarez got a little out of his delivery which caused his arm slot to drop and made his slider a little flat. “I noticed my ball was up a little in the first few innings and I had to find a way to keep it down to be successful,” said Alvarez, through coach/translator Luis Rivera. “I made a little adjustment and started hitting my locations.” All this and he's 21.

La chuck es el lenguaje del hum. - Pablo Neruda

Ricky Romero

I've talked a bit on this blog about how impressed I am by Ricky Romero this season. The only thing missing from his boss-dom was tackling the Red Sox. Romero had a 2-6 record, with an 8.08 ERA in 11 games vs Boston. John Farrell suggested that his normally delicious changeup wasn't tempting enough for the notoriously and annoyingly choosy Sox hitters, so maybe mix in the curve. Romero conspired with Arencibia over pancakes pre-game, and took what Farrell suggested to heart. He struck Pedroia out on a curve in the dirt in the 1st, and froze a ridiculously good Jacoby Ellsbury with a nasty, nasty hammer in the 5th.

It was so beefy.

You can do it son; be a man and chuck up or hum. -Tupac

An Otherwise Crazy Game

I know that, after a Jays win that went down like the Jays win last night, a lot of you were hoping for a SOSH post, but I sort of lost my desire to hang out there for any length of time when one of them posted that the Red Sox had a worse day than the KHL hockey team. The KHL hockey team was killed in a plane crash in Russia. So I would argue they get the edge on who had a"bad day."

The gist of the sentiments was that the bullpen's performance is "unacceptable", Wakefield is never going to get win 200 and Francona is the worst person who ever lived.

Anyway, Encarnacion's transformation from Sad Panda with Bad Defence into Offensive Panda with Mythical Clutch is one of my feel good stories of the year. I didn't like to see him suck, I didn't like people screaming about him sucking. I just like the dude. I think part of if may be that EE is what we got for Rolen, and I just want to remind myself that I used to get to watch Rolen everyday. Encarnacion's base clearing double off an erratic Daniel Bard in the 8th inning was wonderfully satisfying. He just looks so damn happy.

Brandon Morrow remains frustrating, but almost as frustrating is the rabble comparing him to AJ Burnett. Yes, both are power pitchers with plus stuff, but AJ, at Morrow's age, had a lot more starting experience. He isn't a flake, doesn't seem to have any focus issues and actually has a change up. Morrow also has considerably better hair.

The Jays may have given up eleventy billion runs so far this series, but they have won 2 of 3 this series, and look for the series win with Romero on the hump. Ricky has been rocky versus the Red Sox, so it could get alarming. But this is totally why Sox fans hate the Jays. When I first starting writing this blog, the Jays had a habit of rolling into Fenway in September and putting it to a Sox team desperate to make the playoffs. The Jays would leave Boston with the home team twitching in the fetal position, arrive in New York and get swept by the Yankees.

It happened the opposite way this past week, but it's made me very nostalgic.

Adam Loewen climbed aboard the Warm Fuzzy Express when he made his MLB debut as a position player. My dad saw Loewen pitch at the 2001 Canada Games at a game that was played about 5 minutes from my house. He was very impressed with the kid's stuff, so I was sad when Loewen was forced to quit pitching. But he looks like a big, strapping hitter now and I'm glad to see him back.

“It’s been very overwhelming,” Loewen said of the experience. “It didn’t really sink in until the first inning when I was standing in the outfield. I grew up watching the Blue Jays and wanting to play for the Blue Jays. I think any Canadian kid back at home dreams the same thing. For it to actually finally come true, it’s an unbelievable feeling.”

I bet Loewen and Lawrie bathed in beer and maple syrup pre-game.

In general, it was just a really weird game. I mean, the final out was on a caught stealing at second. As Farrell put it, "somewhat of a fitting ending to an otherwise crazy game."

Watching this Red Sox team makes me anxious, irrationally angry and sort of hate filled, despite all the winning. Sort of like a typical Sox fan.

SOSH is What Happens

I had a very busy weekend so I only saw a few games sporadically over the weekend. Romero pitched fairly well, battled but didn't get the benefit of the Yankee strike zone. And to the people who get on Bautista for have discussions about the strike zone after striking out. Well, all of the Yankees do it and they do it several times during an at bat. And their stadium remains a joke.

Jeff Blair joined Gregg Zaun and Jamie Campbell in their pre game show. They discussed their choices for their MVP, Cy Young and ROY for each league. Blair chose Curtis Granderson for AL MVP and said that, like it or not, people only vote for players from contending teams. Jeff? That may be true, but that doesn't make it right. Pick who deserves it, not the one you think might win so you look clever if it comes true.

If you put Granderson or Ellsbury or (shudder) Pedroia into the Jays lineup do the Jays suddenly get vaulted into first place? Is that true of any player?

The Red Sox came off a weekend series where they got knocked around by the Rangers at Fenway so both teams limped into the Rogers Centre on Labour Day.

A Red Sox-Jays game means I have to go visit my good friends at SOSH, who ask "Do they even have Labour Day in Canada?"

Josh Beckett cruised until the 4th and left with extreme sucking (actual reason was a sore ankle.) He said post game that he fell during his bullpen session but didn't feel it until the last two pitches of his outing. He fell?

Beckett has a sprained right ankle. Could have been a lot worse

Yes, we could've had to continue to watch him take his sweet time to throw a pitch.

Henderson Alvarez has so much promise and has so much raw stuff it's very exciting to watch.

They're fucking awful right now. Just got shut down by a Double-A starter.

Yes, well very few great pitchers manifest randomly from a crowd of people. Some actually have to pitch some kind of level of the game before making it to the big leagues. Plus, have you seen this kid's stuff????

Alvarez hits 95 pitches at the end of 6. Delicate but crunchy morsels of Blue Jay relievers can't be far away.

This guy is going to be really disappointed.

The game carried on with no score. And the SOSH game thread becomes stale and dull,Youkilis strikes out looking and has his customary little spaz at the call.

STFU Youk, that shit was right down the pipe.

On occasion these people have a moment of clarity, and it is just really scary.

If the pipe was in the rh batters box

And order is restored.

I love it when these people complain about the strike zone.

DeWayne Wise made an amazing catch to rob Crawford of a sure triple and they complained about their luck. Bautista couldn't make a catch

Bautista's a shitty defender.

Just don't.

On a day where Beckett is injured and the bullpen steps up to shut down the Jays, what a letdown it would be if the Sox offense loses this game.

Yeah, a letdown.

Is Francisco the guy who threw a folding chair into the stands?

Yes. Now we just hope he throws strikes.

I thought they don't celebrate Labor Day in Canada. Why are Sox bats taking the day off?

It takes two seconds to find out the history of Labour Day. Canada had it about 8 years before the States.

Jonathan Papelbon put me (and much of Twitter) into fits and not because his stuff is so amazing. Why he is allowed to take so much time between pitches, I don't know. It took him 24 minutes to throw 27 pitches. I think baseball needs to enforce the never enforced time between pitches when there is no one on rule, and create a rule where the pitcher has a certain amount of time to either make a pitch or throw to a base if someone is on. If they fail to do so, it's a ball or a balk. For the sake of the game. For the sake of my sanity.

I wonder if Sox fans notice what the pace of the pitching does to the game?

What are those idiots booing at?

I guess not.

Are the citizens of Toronto always this irritable?

No, your team just brings it out in us.

Papelbon finally got his 3rd out and Shawn Camp took about 2.5 seconds to retire the Sox.

Things felt dire, but there was a glimmer of hope.

I hope for the best, but this game has the 'bullshit bloop double down the line' feeling to win it for Toronto in the 15th inning.

If by "bullshit bloop double down the line", you mean "walk off bomb by rookie phenom Gordie Dougie", you are so right.

Lawrie is a fucking douche.

I once hoped that Lawrie would be so energetically good, the Sox fans would hate him as much as Jays fans hate Pedroia. You have arrived, Brett!!!

Am I the only one who thought that tongue thing was a little excessive? I don't know if someone SHOULD throw at him, but if I was pitching tomorrow I would.

For those used to one who pumps his fist like an asshole after getting a mid season save from the Royals, Lawrie sticking his tongue while circling the bases after his first walk off homer would seem excessive.

The Rays aren't catching them, unless the Sox go into a complete free fall.

Something to look forward to!

Just enjoy this.


"Brett Lawrie is a STAR!"- Alan Ashby

The Tao of Stieb wondered over Twitter what is going on in the minds and souls of Red Sox fans that have to watch this shit all summer.

I think I know what happens to those who watch the Red Sox on a consistent basis. SOSH is what happens.

Vexed

I'm not going to hate on Brian Tallet. But I had a major issue with how he and the rest of that bullpen was used last night. Tallet is fresh off the DL, hasn't pitched in the majors in months and has been seen by the Jays since last year. Maybe try him out in a lower leverage situation, see what Tallet actually had. And some are saying "He was all there was." Well, not quite, as Francisco and Lewis were still in the pen. And maybe don't burn through all your more reliable bullpen pitchers earlier in the game. It just vexed me as it was a very winnable game. I mean, Kevin Gregg had put all that effort into blowing the game for the Orioles and the Jays just didn't show him any appreciation.

“It was a pretty crappy result, huh,” Tallet said. “That’s what happens when you don’t throw strikes early when you get in there. Let those guys get on base and anything can happen and that’s what happened. It was just stupid. I’ve been playing this game for how long? It’s inexcusable. The team battled their asses off, man. For me to go out there and not get it done is really disappointing.”

Yeah, strikes are sort of important.

This game fatigued me. And I'm sure people are going to tell me that Tallet was the only option (as they did on Twitter last night), but I'm fatigued.

Brett Lawrie doesn't fatigue me. Because he continues to be awesome. In the third inning, with two on, Lawrie launched a 2-2 Jeremy Guthrie pitch into the seats for his 6th homer of his 24 game career. Full Tilt.

I tweeted last night that the Yankees and Red Sox couldn't decide which team was more boring, so they had a brawl. Really it had to do with Francisco Cervelli hitting a homer off Red Sox pitcher John Lackey and clapping his hands once, supposedly in Sox catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia's face. Well, to be fair, Salty was standing about an inch from the plate.

So Lackey took offence and plunked Cervelli in the back next time he was up. Benches cleared and the game slowed down to an even more tortoise like pace.

"Every time I get a base hit or a double, I clap. That's me, that's my game, and I don't try to do anything bad to another player," Cervelli said. "That's Cervelli."

Ok, I was with you until you said, "That's Cervelli." That was your third career homer. Don't refer to yourself in the third person.

In Praise of Jerk Ball

I loved Scott Rolen as a Jay. I always thought he played his ass off and made all the right plays with a scowl on his face. Only after he was traded that I heard how surly he was with the press, how much he hated living in Toronto and how he was just generally a malcontent. And for whatever reason, I love him all the more. He was a miserable son of a bitch, but instead of going off somewhere to sulk, he played his ass off until he was traded.

When I heard about Colby Rasmus and his conflicts with Tony LaRussa, and that St. Louis went cold on Rasmus when they discovered he was quiet, sullen and a bit standoffish. Someone compared him to JD Drew. Now, JD Drew is a sullen jerk and that, combined with the fact that he plays for the Red Sox, means I kind of don't like him. That being said, I wouldn't kick him off my team. I probably wouldn't date or hang out with him, but he can play for my baseball team.

Hearing the various reactions to Yunel Escobar outrage over getting plunked by Luke Hochevar made me roll my eyes. "He's too arrogant." "He's making it all about him. It's not intentional" Remember, folks, that Hochevar had yet to give up a hit and this plunk was the crack in the facade. Maybe jawing at the pitcher just a bit pulls him off his game just enough to break his concentration. Hochevar then pitched inside to Bautista, which apparently woke Bautista up and whacked a monster shot to the seats. The look he gave Hochevar told me that he didn't appreciate either the plunking of Escobar or the inside pitch.

Speaking off Bautista, he had issues with the strike zone on Friday, got annoyed, then furious and got tossed out of the game for taking his bat to the Blackberry sign on the back of the dugout. The funny thing was that Henderson Alvarez had a short discussion with Bautista right before he took the bat to the wall. And then threw equipment on the field and yelled a bit more after he was tossed. Again, people were saying "Jose is so immature." I saw the pitches on Pitch fx, and yes, they were strikes, but they were borderline low strikes and Bautista doesn't have the benefit of Pitch fx. Most hitters of his calibre get the benefit of those kinds of calls. It's one of the perks of having fallible and slightly biased umpires.

Lawrie, playing at full throttle, even when he is celebrating, and doesn't care what the haters think. His energy pushes his team forward and probably annoys the crap out of his opponents.

I think Jerk Ball is what is going to take this team to the next level. Think of all the successful teams that have featured sullen jerks, guys you probably hate because they are good and loud about it and a healthy dose of Latino swag.

This, by the way, is what one thinks about when one's team is down 6-0 and the soon to be DFA'd pitcher is giving up 6 runs in the 9th.

Healthy Criticism

I'm sort of a creature of habit, and the west coast game schedule throws everything off. Games start later, end later and are played in that sad stadium with the never ending foul ground.

Over the last weekend, the starting pitching for both sides had been extremely good.

Luis Perez flirted with perfection through 5 innings and only gave up 1 hit through his 6 innings. I've taken notice of Perez because of his stellar work out of the bullpen and for the little Dominican faux hawk he's been working. When asked if he was expecting near perfection for his start on Sunday, Perez said, “All I was thinking about was attacking the hitters and keeping the ball down, nothing else.”

José Bautista hit a homer at a time where it felt like no one was ever going to get another run. Ever. I like to imagine that Bautista heard that Curtis Granderson had tied him for most home runs, and it focused his attention. I think they should just start lying to him. Yeah, José. Curtis hit 2 today. Off you go!!

The MVP race debate had heated up once again. Keith Law and I have totally made up, after a fight he had no idea even happened. Law has been overwhelmingly pro-Bautista as MVP.

Some New York fan took exception to me calling him an idiot over Twitter for tweeting to Keith Law that he didn't see the value of Bautista. He tweeted me back and said I was blocked, for name calling. He accepts discourse and "healthy criticism."

I'm sorry, being called an idiot after undervaluing Bautista is healthy criticism. It's a freaking public service because it serves the greater good. People need to know when they are being idiotic.

Law really attracts the prime tweeters, as evidenced by some little Boston punk who was trying to convince Law that Bautista was horrible, because he had answered one of his tweets, calling the young Masshole a douche. Well, a little research showed that it was richly earned, as the little punk called Bautista something that rhymes with maggot. Which is way more offensive. The kid also wrote "aloud" when he meant "allowed." And was told, by someone whose second language is English, to learn to spell. Oh José.

AJ Burnett is a flake. Extremely talented in the stuff department, not that talented in the brain department. I really don't know why he is pitching as he is, but I have long suspected he is best served by pitching on 1 year contracts. His best year ever was his last one with the Jays because he was focused on working hard and getting a new contract. Focus is everything.

The speculation here is just really funny. "Let's check the words here." This is what I think it is. I think AJ thinks he struck Mauer out. He probably says something along the lines of "I got him." It really doesn't look like "Shove this ball, Joe." And both went up the tunnel to check the pitch on video. AJ maybe be a fool, but he knows to go sit back in the dugout.

This is not the classic "@&#! you, John." Which is really a classic in the Great Moments in Skipper/Pitcher Discourse archives.

Between the Yankee pitching woes and the ridiculous dismissal of José Bautista as a viable MVP candidate, I am overwhelmed. It all invites more ridicule than I will ever have time to provide.

Just Didn't Get the Job Done

Brett Lawrie made a kind of homecoming when the Jays flew in to start a series with the Mariners. There were large contingent from Vancouver, and the locals have an interest in Lawrie because his sister Danielle was the NCAA player of the year and led the University of Washington to the 2009 NCAA softball title.

It's a shame the bullpen couldn't make it pleasant for him.

There were an alarming amount of homers in last night's game, considering Safeco is a well known pitcher's park. It ranks 24th of 30 with a park factor of 0.896. The Rogers Centre ranks 4th. But Eric Thames and Adam Lind both had two run shots, and Brett Lawrie contributed a solo shot. The bullpen implosion wasn't exactly as bad as the bullpen implosion of April, where the Jays couldn't hold on to a 7-0 lead and ended up losing in a walkoff. Brandon League got his 30th save. Brandon League has his name and number tatooed on his back. In case he gets lost, I suppose.

What the heck happened?

"Two-strike breaking balls, both of them," said Farrell. "Mistakes made on location with both of them. We had left-on-left and right-on-right matchups we wanted and just didn't get the job done."

In general, it was horrifying.

I don't really know how any 18 year old can look at 2.5 million dollars and turn it down to go to school, even if it's a great school. Some people are saying, "Maybe Beede isn't ready to go pro." Well, maybe, by why put all the work into getting so good at this age if you aren't preparing yourself to go pro? Would it not be a good idea to put the mental and emotional work in, too? If I had this skill for something that is far from certain and so volatile, I'd pocket some money off it as soon as I could, even though there is a huge upside if it all works out. School can wait. That's just what I would do.

Some people were gnashing their teeth that AA "wasted" his top draft pick on this kid who openly said he was committed to going to Vanderbilt. Well, reports are that Jays just didn't offer enough money, so the deal could have been made if AA ponied up. The draft is a crap shoot. I mean, Corey Patterson was drafted 3rd overall.

There were rumours going around that the Jays had made an illegal pre-draft deal with Beede, which ticked Anthopoulos off. "I’m amazed at all the false rumours about everything," said Anthopoulos. "I’m just sick of reading lies and rumours that people make up about us all the time. I’ve had enough of it.”

Hear that? He's had ENOUGH.

Some of the credit for that rumour spreading goes to Keith Law, who said that he believed it to be true around the time of the draft and repeated it over Twitter last night.

When the rumour first surfaced, one of Law's followers asked if had a reliable source or was simply speculating, Law replied: “I would NEVER write something like that w/o reliable sourcing."

Like four anonymous White Sox bullpen pitchers?

That's not exactly fair, Law didn't write that article. But he did defend it, so I will continue to mock.

But Then I Just Smile

Smile, and get manhandled by very large men. Encarnacion's hitting .348/.458/.629 since the All Star Break.

Vernon Wells returned over the weekend. He hit a homer the first pitch he saw, and I rejoiced. I got over it when I remembered Ervin Santana owns the Jays, and that is exactly what he did.

Wells got a nice ovation from the crowd, and looked visibly moved when he stepped out and tipped his hat.

"I didn't think there would be much but there was and I just tried to enjoy it an obviously not be a crybaby at home plate. It's just a moment I'll never forget."

It would've been so awesome if he started crying, just for the event of it. Hitting a homer on the first pitch was ok, too. Vernon goofed around a bit with Romero (who was throwing peanuts at him in the on deck circle) and he brought his whole family to Toronto for the weekend.

For a weekend I was dreading because we had to face some of the best pitchers in the game, going 2 for 3 was a pleasant event. I haven't seen Dan Haren pitch very often, and I've got to say it's a bit of a drag. His motion includes this leg kick where he suspends it in the air for a beat or two. It's probably his trick to throw off the timing of the batters or is just a way that he makes sure he loads properly. Watching pitchers with great, fluid mechanics is like watching a dance. It can be quite beautiful.

AA is trying to get his top draft pick Tyler Beede signed before the deadline, and apparently the two are a part by millions.

Jeez, kid. I know it is hard, but it's a young team going places, it's probably some nice bank and you can go to college later if things don't work out. College at 18 is kind of overrated. Trust me.

Friday Links

Brett Lawrie's grand slam celebration is already the stuff of legend. My favourite part is Lawrie tossing his helmet, having it bounce off Encarnacion and then the two guys body slamming each other, while Lawrie whoops it up. Lind and Romero cracking up in the background and Bautista applauding the display of uber manhood add to the general awesomeness of the entire thing.

Yesterday's game was a total buzz kill and I don't even want to think about it. The Jays are in tough this weekend versus the Angels, having to face Santana, Weaver and Haren. Vernon Wells makes his return for the first time since being traded. People are probably going to boo, and, judging by their completely irritating and disrespectful commercials, Sportsnet wants Jays fans to boo Wells because he is such a horrible disappointment and suffocated all our dreams. When Carlos Delgado made his first return, people wanted to boo him because he had refused to be traded before free agency. Well, Wells let the team trade him and both sides have moved on. He gave a lot to the community (I'm pretty sure his contract had a charitable gift clause. I think he had to donate $100,000 to Jays Care, or something.) Wells was very involved in local youth baseball. And Vernon was always good natured and humorous. So, yeah, completely boo-worthy.

Some people (at least on Twitter) are tired of talking about the ESPN article, and I am a little, too. But the reaction to the reaction I still find interesting.

The Tao of Stieb had a little chat with Grantland's Chris Jones about the situation. Which is really excellent work on the Tao's part, but mostly contributed to my dissatisfaction. The Tao will probably find that sentence amusing.

Jeff Blair, a respected veteran sports journalist who is not in the ESPN community, criticized the article, saying it used "mathematics from your mother’s basement" to try and prove the outlandish claims made by the White Sox, so one can't really dismiss criticism towards the article as not liking the message or somehow not understanding the way investigative journalism works, which is something Keith Law did a few times over Twitter.

I had expressed earlier my disappointment in Keith Law's reaction to it, in the way he just deflected any sort of criticism of the numbers presented in the article. I think he knew that Nelson was taking a lot of shit on this, she's his friend and he wanted to deflect any more heat coming her way. The mainstream American press' reaction to this goes along the same lines. When Anthoplous said that the baseball community is a very small fraternity, I would say that the sports writing community is even smaller. I have no issue with the idea that some teams think the Jays are cheating nor do I think the use of unnamed sources is wrong. It's using cherry picked evidence to suggest it that it may be true that is the problem.

Also, something new I thought about. The article is basically one anecdote from anonymous sources surrounded by questionable numbers. The White Sox being the accusers isn't in the article itself, but it came from Jose Bautista when he was questioned about the incident mentioned in the piece.

Earlier in the season, Russell Martin and Joe Girardi came right out to the press and publicly said that they believed something was fishy. Like many who heard it, I dismissed it as trying to deflect attention away from struggling Yankee pitching but I am almost certain that that is what triggered this whole thing in the first place.

So, why use anonymous sources on incidents from a season ago when people are publicly saying things to the press, during a series between teams from this season?

ESPN published a story on the White Sox reactions to the piece, but I didn't see one about the Jays. Unlike Keating and Nelson's piece, the article has comments from actual former Jays. The Sausage King has no clue and figures if it happened, it was very, very secret. He is now questioning his whole time in Toronto, wondering what it all means (that last bit was artistic license.) Maybe that's why Frasor took so long to throw his pitch. He was thinking about all the secrets being kept from him. Ozzie Guillen remains awesome.

And this idea that four separate sources came forward isn't exactly true, as it came from four pitchers in the same bullpen. Those guys do nothing but talk for about 5 innings, and I'm sure the conversation topics range from food to boobs to Jesus, but if the team gets killed in a stadium the way the White Sox get killed in the Rogers Centre, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that they throw some conspiracy theories in there, too. Jose Bautista is described as smiling coyly when accused, which has its own implications. I would describe Bautista in a lot of ways, but coy isn't one of them.

I did a little investigating on the coverage of past accusations of cheating. I had forgotten that the Yankees were doing something fishy over opening weekend this season, and unlike with the Jays story, there is photographic evidence. It's a story from NESN, which is obviously completely neutral. What I didn't find is any kind of piece from ESPN on this. It broke first through Keith Olbermann, who used to work for ESPN.

I also found an old story about the Red Sox having TVs in the Fenway bullpen during a Tampa Bay series, until Lou Pinella got the umpire to make them turn them off. But again, that article is from a Tampa area paper, not on ESPN.

Most of these stories, including the man in white story, are amusing but reading them and the coverage of this piece in general just makes me a little bitter. I, by no means, think this is a wide-spread anti- Jays, anti-Canada conspiracy. But it leaves me a little peevish.

Most stories about this kind of sign stealing are treated like humorous soft news, while this, with a similar anecdote at it's core, was treated like hard investigative journalism. Actually, the "man in white" story is even flimsier because, unlike the Yankee employee in the stands or the bullpen TVs, it was never substantial enough to be investigated by either an umpire or MLB.

Jose Bautista has been subjected to a tremendous amount of scrutiny since breaking out. Sign stealing has now been piled on to the implications of PED use and jokes about bat corking. His numbers before the All Star break put him firmly in the lead for the AL MVP, but his success was repeatedly dismissed by American broadcasters and sports writers, who named a rotating line of Red Sox players (and one Yankee) as those who were worthier. The more these things happen, the more respect I have for Bautista in the way that he shakes off all the talk, is open to discussing his approach and in the way he leads the Jays.

People, over Twitter, asked me why I said I respect Nelson as a writer. I have followed her work a little bit over the past few years, and two stories stand out for me. One was a story on Luke Scott, which not only highlighted Scott particular brand of tea bagging craziness but also made me think about race in general and, in particular, race in Latin America (read it, maybe you'll see why.) The other was her piece on Nick Adenhart and the other people who died in the car crash that claimed his life.

This cheating story is by far not her best work, but Amy K Nelson isn't a hack.

This Whole Thing is Stupid

Well, this little article by Amy K Nelson and Peter Keating that appeared on ESPN got a lot of people going.

"From the batter's box, it was clear the man in white had been perfectly positioned just above the pitcher's head so that the batter would not need to move his own head, or even alter his gaze, in order to see his signal."

That's just gold.

Stoeten here, Parkes here and The Mighty Tao here got their hacks in and knocked a few out of the park. With evidence and logical conclusions, instead of the "WTF?" incoherent feelings I had when reading it.

First, my views on stealing signs.

Teams stealing signs, using eyes, ears and observation, is totally cool. Don't like it? Change your signs.

Stealing signs, using blue tooth technology, mysterious men in white t-shirts, the stadium hotel and waving arms is not as cool. Hysterically funny, but not on the level.

Keith Law disappointed me on the Baseball Today podcast. I enjoyed it so much when he ripped into Tony LaRussa's incoherent ramblings.

I know I shouldn't have expected anything more. He works for ESPN. Instead of driving his crab mobile trough the holes in this article, he just called it well-written and said it reflects whispers he heard when he worked for the Jays. But what about the circumstantial evidence?! Law said people accused Cito Gaston of using the hotel in the early 90s.

Wait a second. The early 90s? When the Jays won it all? Of course they were cheating. There is no way this Toronto team was the best in baseball.

Jose Bautista told Jays' reporters that the dude who accused him and threatened him was with the White Sox and it happened in spring 2010. Spring 2010 aka the time when Bautista was that former Pirate who had a hot September in 2009. Bautista was hitting .161/.325/.323 and 1 home run when the pitcher threatened to bean him.

If the White Sox truly thought the Jays were stealing signals, why would they do business with AA at all? Those two teams were involved in trades 2 weeks ago. Teahen, who is sitting on the Jays bench, was a member of that team last year and most of this year. Why didn't Ozzie Guillen, whose mouth has no off switch, bitch about this at the time? I don't think the White Sox are the main players in this story. I think the Yankees are the actual accusers, just based on what Russell Martin said about changing his signs and then Joe Girardi's passive aggressive comments about outside equipment.

If any other team in the league had any sort of actual proof, why haven't they filed complaints with MLB?

I remember reading somewhere that the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry, after 2004, was mostly a product of the press. The real heated rivalry the Red Sox had in recent years has been with Tampa Bay. I would make the argument that the Yankees most heated rivalry is with the Jays.

A lot of people on Twitter joined Law in commending the piece as good, quality journalism. I have no problem with the style of the piece. I don't think either Keating or Nelson are bad writers. I just don't think you can have unnamed sources and circumstantial evidence and just go with that. Why didn't they go ask a former Jay about it?

It's completely unfair to say that Nelson writes for ESPN because she slept her way to the top, but that is just the sort of bullshit female sportswriters put up with.

Besides, everyone knows that Keating is the slut in this equation. I found some statistics, cirumstantial evidence and unnamed sources to prove it.

Keating, the slut, was on Sid and Tim of Score Radio to talk about the article. Keating stood behind his article, said he has "Canadian friends", there is no bias against the Jays on ESPN, said his "unnamed sources"' stories were backed up with compelling statistical evidence (which Parkes did a pretty good job of debunking) and was pretty insulted by the accusation of cherry picking stats to tell the story.

Not a single player in this whole drama asked what I think is the ultimate question: if the Jays are stealing signs, why the hell are they not better? The article claimed that the Jays stole signs all through 2010. So apparently the Jays stole signs to hit a crap load of homers, finish 4th in the AL East and once again come up short in their goal of making the playoffs.

The Jays are starting to show signs that they are going to be good in the next few years. I guarantee this shit is going to come up again if the Jays actually start challenging the beasts of the East.

Henderson Alvarez, with his plus fastball and his plus change, makes his ML debut.

Cutters and Bewilderment

Brief observations over the weekend: Rasmus looks relaxed, Lawrie can rake so far and his defensive strategy that first night appeared to be to let the ball bounce off his body in Escobar's direction. Romero was absolutely nails on Sunday, and he was named AL Player of the Week for his efforts. How did you do it, Ricky? "We did it with a lot of fastballs and cutters." Brandon Morrow deserves a massive hug.

The Tao of Stieb was railing on Twitter over a Mark Zwolinski article in the Star about the so-called Jays hype machine. I checked it out and understood the bewilderment.

Ok, I don't know who expected Drabek to stick in the big leagues immediately. He pitched well in the spring, and was given a shot to try it in the big leagues, but no one who really understood the situation expected it to be smooth sailing. He made his MLB debut before he made his AAA debut. One of the things I believe led to Drabek's demotion, beyond his numbers, was his attitude towards failure. Had he proven he could fail and recover at the big league level, Drabek probably would've stuck around.

The Jays owe Drabek a huge, concerted effort to salvage the promise that still exists from the wreckage of his demotion earlier this season.

They appear to be on the right track: manager John Farrell said the club might take another look at Drabek in September, a move which could give the right-hander something to shoot for this season, and a much-needed boost of confidence heading into the off-season (where the Jays will continue to work with him).

The wreckage of his demotion? Roy Halladay getting demoted down to single A ball to rebuild his entire identity as a pitcher is wreckage. Demoting a rookie to AAA is standard practice. The Jays don't owe Drabek anything besides support. "The Jays will continue to work with him." This kid is the main piece in the Roy Halladay deal. This is who they got for the best pitcher around. They aren't going to scrap him because he hits a snag.

I find it particularly irritating that Zwolinski lumps Drabek in with Russ Adams in the "Didn't Survive the Hype" category. That is more damaging to Drabek's image in the media or among the average fan than any sort of hype the Jays as an organization have drummed up. And as if the press has no role in this hype.

The Jays are an exciting team to watch and people should start getting excited. We have a stud in the making for an ace, a short stop with swag, a dream boat catcher with pop, a pure Canadian third basemen with maple syrup in his veins, a magical ninja for a GM, a farm system Keith Law likes and the best damn baseball player in the league (and still the MVP.) There is a lot to be optimistic about. This isn't the Leafs (a team whose situation Zwolinski kept comparing the Jays to.)

Anyway, go read John Lott's article in the Post instead for an actual coherent take on Drabek.