...and now we know

Is it possible to roll one's eyes completely out the back of their head?

I feel I must try.

As if we didn't have enough to shake our heads about with our erstwhile manager and his loopy explanations for his illogical actions, we get this, from Cito yesterday concerning his reasoning for STILL sitting JPA even though Baltimore is no contender (you might remember his LAST excuse was he had to play vets against contenders out of respect to the pennant race):

"The thing I'd like to see is to give Buck every opportunity to get his 20th home run," Gaston said. "The sooner he gets it, I can do something. That's pretty much what it is."

Uh . . . excuse my crudeness but WHAT THE FUCK?

SERIOUSLY?

It was bad enough when he was playing vets for their next contract - hell he can even crow about that given that Overbay came out of his early season slump - but at least there wasn't a prospect losing at bats to Overbay. But playing a guy for a very ordinary "milestone"? ARGH!

Note well, he didn't say "one of the reasons" or "it's A consideration" he said "the THING is" - singular. he said "that's pretty much it" which doesn't leave room for that plus something else.

then, as if he realized for a second what a fool he sounded like, he amended his remarks thusly:

Gaston said another consideration for the 24-year-old Arencibia's lack of playing time has been the Blue Jays' young pitching staff, which has grown accustomed to throwing to Buck.

"We kind of owe them something, too," Gaston said. "Not to say that [Arencibia] is not a good receiver back there -- he is a good receiver -- but you want to put the best lineup out there for [the pitchers' sake], too. They're really responsible for us even having [73] wins."

let's break this down - there's only three potential considerations for what it means to "put the best lineup out there"

1. Offense - so, the same man who starts Mike McCoy over Snider in left field, or John McDonald at 3B, feels obliged to put the best hitters out there every day? As Daffy duck would day "it is to laugh!"

2. Handling pitchers - the argument might be made that the pitchers had rather throw to Buck. first, that's stupid since none of them have thrown to him more than twice and most haven't at all. Second, he's the guy they will throw to next year so they might as well get over it. third, the argument might be made that Buck is "helping the young pitchers" but the counter-argument is - if they haven't learned everything Buck has to teach them in 25+ starts, what are they going to learn in the last 2 or 3? At most this argument only applies to Drabek.

2. Other defense - throwing out runners, blocking the plate, et al. again, JPA is gonna have to do that in 2011, what long term goal are we sacrificing to see if he can do that NOW (more than what we already know from his minor league work). and if the difference beyond marginal enough that we have insulted Ricky Romero (for instance) more by doing so than we do by starting a short stop in left field?

It's utter bullshit. On every level.

Now, let's be fair - there IS a good reason why JPA might spend his time sitting upon recall - the learning curve for a young pitcher in knowing how to pitch to all these unfamiliar players is incredibly steep. But if JPA were only going to start in September in games that didn't affect the pennant race, he'd only need to study FOUR teams. If he can't learn that in two weeks we have a problem.

But that's irrelevant because Cito didn't SAY "Arencibia needs time to learn the hitters in this league and we have him working on that." Which would have been a perfectly rational and reasonable argument, even if you think it overstated.

Cito, as usual, gave us some irrational nonsensical bullshit.

Let us remember that, for the previous five years or so at least, that the hue and cry about JP Ricciardi was what a liar he was (among other things) - where are those people now?

A GM arguably has far more reason to lie to the fans than a manager does, so why can't Cito be straight with us?

I mean, sure, he MIGHT be telling the truth - but if he is, he has no business in the job on the face of it. His stated reasoning is often wildly irrational. so I prefer to think that his actual reasons are not what he chooses to say into a microphone, because anyone that irrational shouldn't succeed to the extent he does.

Personally, I'd take it a LOT better if he just came out and said "Veterans have earned the right to start and kids can damned well wait their turn" and let the chips fall where they may. I might disagree, but I could respect it.

Seventeen days . . . and most a-frakin-ssuredly counting.