Late Evening Early Morning Semi-Drunken Roundup

Anddddd we're baaaack!

We're switching formats here at The Southpaw. When we started up in February we cleverly chose a name that did not imply any particular allegiance to one club but rather the whole concept of left-handedness, leaving room to switch formats/bandwagon jump mid-season to a more successful club. Hedging bets, we're now an Arizona Diamondbacks blog!

Note to readers: I am not left-handed, I'm pretty sure Twitchy isn't. Will definitely is and I would like to think he knows how to throw a mean knuckleball, but we've never actually played catch...

I somehow ended up getting MLB Extra Innings for free from Rogers, so I've been watching bits and pieces of about 3 games a day over the past few weeks. Standings aside, it's abuntantly clear that the Deebax are the club that everyone aspires to cheer for. Ludicris amounts of boner-inducing young talent, a reasonable payroll, weak divisional rivals to pound on. "Tabarnak ma calisse!" as they say in la belle province.

Why else should you love the Deebax? Trailing badly early this afternoon, they clawed back to within 2 of the Astros in the 6th when they called tomorrow's starter Micah Owings to pinch hit. Predicatably, he socked a two-run dinger to tie the game and AZ went on to win 8-7. At 20-8, the Deebax have slam dunked their way to the best record in the ML through April. Tits! That's awesome on so many different levels!

Are you saying that you'd rather listen to suck rock rather than join the country and western movement that's sweeping the nation?

Fine, Jays shit.

I will go on record saying that the listless 11-17 April the Jays just had has probably finished them for the year. Again, early. They saw the soft underbelly of Texas (5 games), Kansas City (3 games), Baltimore (2 games) , Oakland (3 games) and faced a weakened Boston squadran at home (3 games, swept em) yet decided against feasting on a tasty intestine sandwich. They've yet to win a game started by a lefty, which was the one constant last year. I throw my hands up in the air.

This free tang was rejected and there's no plausible explanation for rejecting free tang. None. Whatsoever.

I don't think this is a regular year baseball-wise; with 4 competitive teams in the AL East our division could be won by 90 games or fewer. The Wild Card likewise. The stickey wicket is that a 90-win finish would require at minimum a 79-55 record from the Jays from here on out. Not impossible, but I wouldn't bet a Scottish fiver on that outcome because I dislike losing the few bills that come my way. At the end of the year the eternal optimists will be taking solace in the fact that we staved off the Rays by a game or two. It's not looking good going forward if that's all we've got to cheer for. Piss! Cunt!

I know that this line of thinking is probably disagreable to Will, who puts great stock in the unexpectedly wonderful. It's hard to go against a rabid Jays fan from one of the remoter corners of the Pleasant South. I hope he retorts to this post with ten reasons why my head is stuck firmly up my ass because when we first got going he was supposed to be the brains of the operation.

I will nod my head to each of his arguments, because deep inside I want to believe that the impossible is quite indeed possible. Ironically, I started really watching baseball the very year that the Jays took a 12-24 start and turned it into a 89 win AL East-winning season. They were bulldozed in the ALCS by the A's, but that's another matter.

Should there be less relevant baseball material to write about as the dismal spiral continues, I'll have no alternative but to delve into matters of a personal nature. Coolness: Blair out-ed me in a non-sexual way when he wrote:

And now, while I'm listening to Stiff Little Fingers sing "Johnny Was" here are your lineups ...

My handle does indeed come from an SLF tune, which frankly should go down as one of the greatest songs of all time in my humble opinion. Seeing SLF live (as I did in Leeds, England back in 2002) makes you cool in the eyes of The Dropkick Murphys, and they're 100% punk rock behind the Bosox. I've been soft on Cathal Kelly of the Globe because of our shared Fenian heritage, and frankly, I'm humbled and deeply respectful of Blair for burying this random song reference in his blog.

You sir, merit a tip of the hat.

As I write this no punk rock bands or anyoneworth raising an eyebrow for is behind the Jays. If the Bostonians do Sweet Caroline collectively, how many tears would I shed if we here were capable of doing this one together en masse 30 g strong? The answer is "all of them."

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

First, the apologies.

Perhaps I was overly quick to assume that Gibbons was rotating his few good players through rest days for no particularly good reason, but it came out yesterday that there's been a flu bug going through the clubhouse. Why this wasn't stated a few days ago is unclear, but anyway, perhaps Gibby should team up with Don Cherry to shill for Cold fX? Sorry, skip! I'll never doubt you again.

Last night's JaysTalk was pretty solid because there was actual stuff to talk to JP about rather than the typical nitpicking/Chicken Little routine of most callers. John Lott of the National Post provides a quick and dirty summary here. The good news is that Scott Rolen will most likely be activated tomorrow. The bad news is that JP really sees no rush to promote Adam Lind (hence the above pic) and will leave him to demolish AAA pitching while Shannon Stewart trolls for walks, interspersing them with the rare single, on the big club.

Yes, and true to my prediction yesterday, he did mention that Shannon Stewart is a "lifetime .300 hitter."

Now, JP has a weird thing about not wanting to make players feel like they're entitled to anything for fear that it might undermine their work ethic or competitive drive. I don't mind that. It is, however, blatantly obvious to all that Lind is "the guy", but I suppose we're going to have to wait for an injury for him to get his turn. If, as JP admits, the team is getting on base at a great clip but isn't scoring because of a low SLG%, you'd think there'd be all the more reason to callup a youngster with a 1.000 OPS in AAA. I find this massively disappointing.

Wilner has been one of the loudest voices in the draft Barry Bonds movement, so it's no surprise that he concludes that JP probably wants to sign him, but Godfrey and Ted Rogers/money are obstacles. Overbay's struggles were mentioned, but in his case--not Frank Thomas' of course--20 games is too small a sample size to jump to any conclusion. Mmmhmmm.

Jesse Litsch is not about to lose his job, according to Bastian. When Gibby blew up on him the other day it was kind of like a dad finding out his son has been smoking weed: he felt really let down, but he'll probably let things slide, because, you know, they're blood. And because everyone goes through that phase.

Blair reveals that the press in TO and TB, the players, and everyone aside from a less than sellout crowd thinks it's an awful idea to play regular season games at a spring training facility. It's actually kind of offensive, really. The Bosox and A's get to play in front of 50, 000 screaming Japanese fans in Tokyo, the Dodgers and Padres get to play the first MLB exhibition game in China, and we play in front of a crowd that's possibly 50% under the age of 10. Just a detour on the way to Space Mountain.

Blair also shares our concern for the precipitous decline in Lyle Overbay's power production.

Are the A's going to sign Frank Thomas or what? MLBTR says there's more than one team expressing interest. It would amount to a massive bitch slap to JP from his mentor Billy Beane if the Big Shit Disturber did indeed go back to Oakland.

On a related note, Marc Hulet at Fangraphs expects the Jays to promote Travis Snider aggressively. He figures JP wants to prove his drafting prowess to one and all, adding a second impact player drafted under his watch to the roster (Aaron Hill being the first). There's that Marcum guy, too, but interesting nevertheless.

ELSEWHERE:

* We were lucky to play the Tigers when we did, because now they're wringing the necks of the opposition like supper chickens.

-- Johnny Was