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