The Roundup

To borrow a quote from Cosmo Kramer, the Jays' month of May has been "a story of love, deception, greed, lust, and unbridled enthusiasm." Bringing it back from the near abyss, a long-ish winning streak, and three shutouts over the past week? The only explanation must be that the various moons of Endoor are in some sort of strange and favourable configuration.

I need to put the success of our arms and the feebleness of our bats into perspective:

* 6 games into its season, TFC has scored 8 goals and allowed 9 whereas division leader Columbus has scored 11 and allowed 7
* 5 games into May, the Jays have scored 15 runs and allowed 5

I don't know if that really means anything or is fair, but the numbers stand for the themselves.

Bastian has a new mailbag up. If you listen to JaysTalk or read The Oracle, Bastian is pretty redundant. And I say that as someone who really finds no fault with his work. We had some pretty high hopes for him in the pre-season when he started blogging during spring training, but working for the Company (MLB) appears to have injected his work with a certain degree of boringness. Where's the unbridled enthusiam, Jordan?

Speaking of The Oracle, J-Mac in for defense in the 9th? Eckstein to the bottom of the order? I'd like to think that Wilner has finally beat Gibby and JP into submission and resources will be used a little more rationally from here on out. High five!

Griff... he doesn't like naming Lind the starting LF then demoting him to a bench role a week and a half later. And I pretty much agree entirely with that argument. Not the usual horseshit about "sticking to the plan" or Reed Johnson, but the first part about Lind.

Blair noddingly approves of Gibby's constant lineup tinkering, but wonders if he's "gone to the whip hand." Some interesting footnotes on Lind:

Yesterday, he effectively benched left-hand-hitting prospect Adam Lind (1-for-19 in six games) with the full support of general manager J.P. Ricciardi. Shannon Stewart batted second and started in left field as Gibbons ran out his 28th different lineup in 33 games.

The Lind decision is interesting, since Gibbons pushed privately for Lind as an antidote to Thomas. And when Lind and now healthy Scott Rolen were both in the fold, it was clear that Gibbons felt that, finally, he had a team with which he was comfortable.

So what happened?

"You'd like to just kind of settle in on one thing and leave it there, but we've been searching for some things," Gibbons said. "We brought Stewart here for a reason. He never seemed a guy for a part-time role. Stewart's a contact guy. He's always hit at the top of the lineup. I think he [Lind] is ready for the majors, but he's just not hitting now. Right now, we want to get something going."

What that means I don't know because I don't speak Boomhauer, but it seems to bode ill for young Adam Lind this year.

I'm just going to blurt it out: if the organization doesn't have any confidence in Lind, which his "indefinite" benching in favour of Shannon Stewart indicates, we might as well trade him...

to Pittsburgh for Jason Bay.

The case for Bay:

* he's off to a solid .266/.400/.459 start, dampening concerns about a balky knee
* he's a righty, yes, but like Scott Rolen hits right-handed pitching very well (career .875 OPS against righties, .932 against lefties)
* he's a superior defender than Shannon Stewart
* bringing him in would reduce Stew to platoon DH and 4th OF, which is more in line with the role we brought him in for
* he would cost us only about $4.5 million from here on, which is no more than what we're paying David Eckstein this year
* relatively speaking, attendance hasn't been bad (6th of 14 in the AL), but a Canadian star would put butts in seats regardless of how you feel about the marketing strategy of bringing in homegrown talent

Why Pittsburgh should want Lind:

* 2/3 of the Pirates OF (Bay and Xavier Nady) are on their way out this year because of budgetary restraits and someone has join Nate McLouth and Steve Pearce as the inheritors of the Barry Bonds/Bobby Bonilla/Andy Van Slyke legacy
* PNC favours lefty power of the sort Lind provides
* Adam Laroche, the lefty first baseman brought in from the Braves for last year, has rebuffed club efforts to extend him with extreme prejudice, which means the club will be without the sort of lefty middle of the order presence its park demands
* the Buccos want Chase Headley of the Pads (3B/OF) ever so much, but have been thus far unable to pry him away from Kevin "not Josh" Towers; it's time to start looking at secondary trade targets, Huntington

I feel better getting that out of my system and will leave it be from here on out. A Lind-Bay deal makes emminent and imminent sense to me, but I realize a good number of you would be strongly opposed. We'll just agree to disagree then even if I secretly know that I'm right and you're wrong.

-- Johnny Was