The Jays score 5 runs in a winning effort and some are cautiously about to proclaim a return to normalcy. And not only that, Matt Stairs might like hockey even more than Justin Morneau! We Canadians are sometimes little more than a caricature of collective selves.
On the subject of hockey, here's the anatomy of Scott Rolen's 15-pitch at bat with Kevin Slowey. The Toronto press corps has given him an assist on Matt Stairs' home run for scrappily wearing down the Twins pitcher and setting up the following batter quite nicely. Rarely do you see so much praise in print for a man who went 0 for 5, but everyone who watches this team on a regular basis is developing a serious man-crush on the newly acquired third basemen. I'd probably go so far to say that his approach and execution top to bottom are the exact blueprints I'd want every player on my team to follow.
Also, Dave Purcey will indeed start on Friday night. Why you ask? AJ Burnett was pushed back a day because of the rainout on Sunday and he is not one to risk pitching on short rest.
Blair doesn't believe that JP is actually finished tinkering with his imperfect ball club just yet. And if we've learned anything, when JP says he's doing one thing expect to find him doing the exact opposite.
Doc-Bonser tonight at 8-ish.
ELSEWHERE:
* Have you ever wondered why cappucino-sucking, beret-wearing Bolsheviks decided to make revolution and murder the Tsar and his family in 1917? Jim Caple expects that someone (code for the Bosox or Yankees) will pay a $75 million posting fee just to talk with Japanese phenom Yu Darvish. He's half Iranian, so hopefully Homeland Security will refuse him entry to the United States.
* That the Yankees have had awful starting pitching and some of their creakier old veterans have spent time on the DL has been surprising to one man alone: Hank Steinbrenner, now villainously reprieving his father's role as meddling destructive owner during the '70s and '80s.
"This is going to get turned around," Steinbrenner said. "If it's not turned around this year, then it will be turned around next year, by force if we have too."
You might consider that a warning shot over the bow of the front office, including GM Brian Cashman.
Did he just invoke the Bush Doctrine? Ken Rosenthal has previously speculated that Cashman won't bother extending with the Yanks because of the lunacy of the new ownership group. It's hard to evaluate what sort of GM he really is since he operates with an unlimited budget, but by most accounts he's a competent one. And we might have a GM vacancy at the end of this year...* Bonds back in court in June? More fodder for those who deem him unemployable.
-- Johnny Was
2 comments:
Did you happen to read the part in Blair's blog mentioning that he has his doubts about Snider with his injured elbow. What the hell exactly happened to his elbow, because during spring training JP called it a minor strain and he'd be good to go in a couple of weeks, seems to be far more than that.
That is just speculation from Blair b/c I'm certain he hasn't seen Snider since spring training. Marc Hulet at fangraphs has argued in the past that JP will rush Snider to prove that he can draft high impact prospects, but I would be shocked if they took the risk of having such a precious commodity play through a semi-serious injury. But then again you can't really put anything past JP, can you?
JW
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