Turn it Loose
Tropicana Field is a truly ridiculous place to play baseball. The Rays are a great team and it really seems wrong that they have to play in the black hole of suck. I made an observation a few years ago that there are several terrible ball teams that have gorgeous parks: Kansas City, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Minnesota. Of course, three of those teams have since started playing in a way that reflects the baseball beauty that surrounds them. But The Trop illustrates the opposite: great team and terrible park.
Contributing to the horror of that ballpark is that the Jays haven’t won a series there since April 2007. Saturday’s game, where JA Happ returned to the place he got hit in the head in May and pitched triumphantly and Adam Lind hit two homers, proved that the Jays can actually play well in Tropicana Field. The Encarnacion homer combined with Redmond pitching well in front of his family was great. Encarnacion is just a beast at the plate with two strikes.
But as the tie game went into extras, I started to feel like the series loss streak was going to continue, especially when a second Encarnacion hit missed being a homer by about an inch. This is where the magical 11 game win streak ended. This is the place dream go to die.
I was impressed with the way the Jays played the Red Sox. They took two of three, and even the one they lost was a tight game that could've gone either way. Rajai Davis’ “little league” homer was probably the highlight. When it gets to January, and it feels like winter is never going to end and baseball is never coming back, just fire this one up:
I found the Red Sox last year to be kind of depressing (it's hard to make fun of sad sacks), so I know that the Red Sox being terrible is not fun for me. Also, it's not fun for them to be great, because who wants to see their entitled fans get rewarded with good baseball, especially at the expense of the Jays. The most fun is when the Red Sox are nearly good, but get derailed by things like bad luck, bullpen management and silly errors. That's classic Red Sox baseball. It's the way the baseball gods intended.
I mentioned this on Twitter, and I'll reiterate it here. I'm so happy that Brett Lawrie is playing the way he is now. So many people dismissed him earlier in the year even though he is very young and demanded to know why he wasn't Manny Machado, as if Manny Machado is a reasonable standard rather than an outlier, a once in a generation player that is somehow prodigiously gifted in both talent and attitude.
As an AL East scout put it: “(Lawrie) looks almost like he's too intense, like he has difficulty controlling himself. Whereas Machado, it seems like it comes easier to him.”
Almost like they are two different people.
I'm also pleased to see that Brett Lawrie remains an intense spaz despite his success.
I was looking for quotes from the past few weeks about Lawrie, and I found this one. In a 5-1 loss to Oakland on August 13th, Lawrie elected to bunt the runner over. It was a good bunt, but Gibby had words for the kid:
“I told him, ‘We're down a run, don't want to play for the tie, and you're swinging so good, better than anybody on the team right now,’ ” he said.
Gibby didn't want a bunt. That's because bunting is for idiots.
“I totally understand his thinking,” Gibbons said. “He’s trying to get that guy in scoring position so a base hit will tie it there. My thinking was, ‘Turn it loose, man. You've been driving the ball all over the field. You might put one in the seats [or] up the gap.’ ”
I want Wilner to read this quote to every Blue Jays Talk caller who calls in and demands to know why a player who isn't Kawasaki or Rajai Davis didn't bunt. Adam Lind should not be bunting. Edwin Encarnacion should not be bunting. Jose Bautista should not be bunting. Stop giving away outs. Turn it loose.
I also think this is a good idea for this team going into the last stretch of this season. Turn it loose.
It's been a disappointing and frustrating season. But most of these guys will be back with the team next year. Start playing better fundamentally, learn to play as a team unit and build the foundation to go back at it in 2014.
Turn it loose.