Just reported on sportsnet up here in the great white north. They interrupted their live discussion of tonight's Torres' hit on Hossa to announce that Asham got 4 games and Neal 1 game. Panelist Brad May felt that the 4 games was picked because it guaranteed that Asham would not play again in this series (perish the thought that there is 4 more games!). They seemed to feel that Neal's 1 game was a little light, especially because what he did on that one shift was likely worse than what Torres did tonight, but Torres would likely get more as a repeat offender while Neal was not.

The Asham suspension, considering it is the playoffs, seems reasonable. Not sure if Neal getting 1 is enough, but it at least takes out the possibility of immediate retaliation marring what will likely be another gong show in game 4 anyway! Has justice been served? Do the Pens fill those 2 spots with 2 goons? Or do they actually try to play hockey in game 4? Go Flyers!

As the string of futility by Jays 3rd baseman reaches proportions somewhere beyond epic, it has struck me that there seems to be little talk about our starting 3rd baseman as of one week or so before the season started - one Jose Bautista!  We have a few parts on the roster that play outfield (currently Eric Thames comes to mind) but not too much at 3rd base.  His career games played, starts and total innings played at 3rd and in the outfield are almost the same (357/318/2826 at 3rd, 368/326/2959.2 in the OF).  

Why do you think Bautista has been all but forgotten as an option at 3rd base?  Would the change really put his stunning offensive output of late at risk?  And if you were John Farrell would you approach the best player in baseball that somehow some people have still not heard of and see what his thoughts are about playing third once in a while?  Does it seem odd that this isn't more of a topic of discussion?  

I know it's easy to type this now, but as soon as Morrow did not come out to pitch the 8th I told my son we were going to lose and I should have said so in the gamethread.  Unfortunately three observations I made after our last 2 blown games are pretty much entirely appropos again tonight.  The three observations, in italics, lifted word for word from my post 2 days ago are:

1)  At what point do our starting pitchers get to pitch past the 7th inning?  Morrow is cruising at 102 pitches, why not let him see if he gets an 8 or 10 pitch inning.  If he doesn't it's no different than yanking Rauch , Janssen, or tonight's 8th inning mystery guest Frasor after they put guys on base.

2)  (T)onight Scrabble is brought in to do his lefty specialist thing but is left to give up key hits to righties  An instant replay tonight pretty much, as effective as he was early, clearly there isn't a 9th inning plan yet that's any better than the 8th inning "try the next guy" plan.

3) (N)ot having a real 3rd baseman or 1st baseman on the roster right now isn't helping things  We all love Johnny Mac and he may be among the better defensive 3rd basemen out there but the error he made at the time he made it is not something winning teams do (yes it's his first error of the year, I know).  And the Juan Pierre slap hit could not have come as a surprise, Rivera is playing pretty deep and takes a bad angle back to the ball making it nearly impossible for Zep to get there.  Both plays could just as easily have been missed by regular corner infielders but with Lind on the DL we don't have any.

And I'm not necessarily blaming the manager, or the players, just wishing that when a pattern of behaviour results in the same outcome that maybe they change the pattern.  These kind of losses take a lot out of the team and its fans! 

I'll preface my venting by saying I like the overall direction that AA and John Farrell have set for the team and not having a real 3rd baseman or 1st baseman on the roster right now isn't helping things, but there are a few recent things that have ticked me off. 

At what point do our starting pitchers get to pitch past the 7th inning?  The last 2 games we blew were both strong starts that ended far too prematurely.  Our bullpen, while being largely effective, has pitched a lot of innings and clearly a few guys are either being over-exposed or tiring.  Reyes is yanked after 93 pitches against Houston on Friday and Romero is lifted after 100 against the Yankees tonight.  Both guys are cruising, it's almost June, I don't think either guy is historically frail, let them take at least another inning towards finishing what they started.  

And in both recent collapses the handling of the 'pen in the 8th and 9th was less than ideal as well.  Rauch and Francisco are both left in too long against Houston and tonight Scrabble is brought in to do his lefty specialist thing but is left to give up key hits to righties.  And Francisco isn't yet what he was last season, but both times he blows games after pitching the night before, even more tragic in tonight's game against the Yankees because he wasn't needed last night.  I know you want to get him to the point where you can use him twice in a row, but make the first time the one that counts and the second one the non-high leverage situation.

Beyond all expectations the Jays are hanging around the race, and to stay there they have to be able to close the deal on games like last Friday and tonight.  Does it seem like Farrell's background as a pitcher has him over-managing the pitching aspect of the game or are the last two blown games simply a case of bad luck?

Jon Heyman has his list of baseball's best 20 (non-free agent signing) decisions of the past 365 days on SI.com today. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/jon_heyman/06/20/best.decisions/index.html?eref=sihp  Interestingly enough for us Jays fans, two of his top 20 involve our dearly departed JP (namely the Cardinals trading for Scott Rolen and the White Sox claiming Alex Rios) and a third involves our new GM (the Phillies acquiring Doc).  With the recent discussion around designating Edwin Encarnacion and, to a lesser degree what to do with the line-up with Travis Snider returns, it did get me thinking about what our line-up would look like with Rolen and Rios still in Toronto.  In hindsight trading Rolen (234 AB, .299/.360./.573) looks bad, but that will be better judged in 2 years when the team is supposed to contending.  And if Rios was playing like he is now (240 AB, .317/.377/.558 and 20 steals) he obviously doesn't get waived last year either.  But that's all water under the proverbial bridge now. 

 
What would we Jays fans consider Toronto's best and worst moves in the last year?  Do you agree with Jon Heyman that the Rolen, Rios and Halladay moves were good for those teams and therefore bad for Toronto?  Was designating E5 a mistake?  Was trading for Brandon Morrow the best move Toronto has made in the last calendar year?  Or was it picking up Fred Lewis?  Or maybe it was signing Adeiny Hechavarria? Or drafting Deck McGuire?  

 Your thoughts?
 

From the Jays offical website (probable pitchers lineup) comes the updated posting that "Tallet's (last) outing was impressive enough that manager Cito Gaston decided to give Tallet a second turn in the rotation."   So even with an off day Monday, and the chance to go with Marcum/Cecil/ Romero in yet another big AL East showdown series, Cito decides to roll the dice that Tallet can fool Tampa enough to put up another quality 5 or 6 innings in game one of the series starting Tuesday in Tampa.

I don't see the risk/reward in this move.  With the Rays having just seen Tallet, I don't like his chances of catching lighting in a bottle twice and having another good outing.  I see the chances higher for a huge 2 or 3 inning flameout.  And even if Tallet is on and gives us 5 or 6 good innings the 'pen still has to finish the job.  And even a good outing by Tallet comes at the cost of having Romero pitch against Tampa.  I'd rather go with Marcum/Cecil/Romero on their regular rest.  There are still 2 more off days in June if you want to give them an extra day somewhere else.  Also not using Tallet Tuesday means his next start would be June 12th in Colorado (he would pitch there the 13th under the current set-up) and with the use of pinch-hitters etc. his 5-6 good innings would fit in well there.

I know fans here are often hesitant to adjust the rotation to get certain match-ups against certain opponents.  But in this case the rotation is being adjusted to give Tallent an unnecessary start against Tampa and I don't see the payoff.

Editor's Note: Added photo and some quotes, linked to the video, and promoted to the front page.

TSN, the Canadian sports cable network counterpart to ESPN, featured Dan Carcillo today on its supper time 30 minute sports celebrity talk show called 'Off the Record'.  Carcillo was the opening guest in a segment called 'Up Front', and the focus here of course was on his involvement Thursday night with Marian Gaborik. 

Use this link to watch the episode or click the image above. They cover the incident for just about the entire show, and the linked video works in the States as well. Here are some Carcillo quotes from the first segment of the show...

Q: Daniel, if he had not dropped his gloves, would you have fought him?

A: No, no. It was basically a shoving match, I thought that's all it was going to be. You know, I don't know if he lost his glove on purpose or what he was doing but it looked like he was ready to fight, so...

Q: Do you think someone else should have stepped in?

A: Yeah, I mean, I don't know which one of his linemates really could've done much. [Brandon] Dubinsky, we've fought before, he could've jumped in, and then I think it was Prospal, so. It happened pretty fast, we were battling at the net. Like I said, I'm still a little shocked that it happened, but you know, fights happen in a game and just because he's their best player doesn't mean he can't fight.

Q: Prospal called you gutless.

A: Oh did he? *smile* Wow. Um, I don't know. *laughs" I don't know what to say to that. I mean, it's a fight, you know. He dropped his gloves, he came at me. You can watch the video, you can see. He's basically telling me he wants to fight and I'm pretty willing to fight anyone. Even though he's Marian Gaborik I'm still going to fight him.

Q: Dan, in the East in less than a year you've got the Penguins, the Capitals, the Bruins, the Leafs and now the Rangers pissed off. Is that what you're supposed to do? Is the ideal thing for you to say 'every team hates me'?

A: I don't know. I think when teams are saying that I'm probably doing my job pretty well. I don't mind when teams are worried about me because it gives other guys a bit more room to play. It's part of my job to do what I do -- to fight, to be physical. Maybe some other stuff that I do isn't exactly in between the lines all the time, but I'm not gutless, I'm not dishonorable. I play the game pretty hard and I'm an honest player.

Q: You're a tough guy who fights. I'm not a heavyweight. So if I were there and I said 'that is one of the worse mustaches ever', what would you do?

A: *laughs* I don't know, I'd probably just laugh at you.

Q: Would you agree with me?

A: *laughs more* It's pretty bad. It's not the best thing going right now.

Last night's Flyers-Rangers tilt was also the lead topic on the guest panel portion which follows. Interestingly enough, several of the guests (including former Flyer and Leaf Rick Nattress) echo Travis' defense of Carcillo and one panelist, a former NHL scout goes so far as to say, in contrast to Tortorella's and MSG's take on the game, that Carcillo is actually one of the more honourable players in the league.  This panelist also takes a swipe at the New York hockey media.

Carcillo returns for the end of show segment called 'Next Question' where the host asks a string of questions on a wide variety of topics to a single guest.  There are a few classic Carcillo responses there too, like 'you should do the show Tortellini.' It might make a good fan poll to speculate on what it is that Carcillo is planning to do during the Olympic Break that he won't talk about.

The 'Up Front'  segment is approx. the first 6 minutes and the next 4 or 5 minutes discuss last night's game.  Then the final "Next Question" segment is the last 2 and a half minutes or so.

Does Dan get any calls to be an ambassador for the NHL after this show? Is his first stop New York? And while I have no problem with what Carcillo brings to the game, I have to admit as I watched the highlights from last night's games, that I couldn't help but notice Upshall notched his first hat trick...

After basking in the glory of Sunday night's potential season-saving win and reading all the (deserved) kudos going out to Big Ben and the offence, I began to have a growing unease in the pit of my stomach.  Is it possible that  Sunday's win (the good news) has the undesirable effect of strengthening Arians hold on the OC job moving forward into next season (the bad news)?

It seems most sports teams have their organizational "blindspots" - things that seem plain to their fans that MUST be fixed but that the team itself just doesn't seem to get.  Elsewhere in the NFL, the Cowboys have Wade Phillips as head coach and Tony Romo at QB, and everyone knows that this combo will result in more end-of-season heartbreak.  Everyone but Dan Snyder seems to know that the Redskins will never be good till the owner turns over control of his team to a true football man. Ditto Al Davis and the Raiders.  The other teams I cheer for all have these "blind spots".  The Flyers front office continues to spend to the cap to put together a strong team, while saving money on second tier goalies.  The Raptors can't rebound or play defence, yet continue to sign more European perimeter players than anyone in the NBA.  The Blue Jays took 8 years of watching JP Ricciardi spend literally hundreds of millions on the likes of Frank Thomas, BJ Ryan and Vernon Wells before finally firing him this fall. 

The Steelers "blind spots", of course, concern offensive scheme, playcalling, and the offence run by OC Bruce Arians.  Why can't the people in charge see that the team needs to run the ball more, that the empty backfield set is an invite to sack BB yet again,  that someone needs to help our QB learn that it is OK to throw the ball away once a game maybe, that it is possible to have the skill that our offence has and to use that skill more effectively in terms of controlling the clock, using Mendenhall's strength as a runner, blocker, and receiver, and winning ball games, etc. etc.  And the one silver-lining to our miserable 5 game losing streak was that this "blind spot" was now clear not only to all us fans, but to the FO as well. We may be missing the playoffs, we were all thinking, but at least at the end of the season Arians was as good as gone.  Then came Sunday, with Tomlin short-kicking to insure our offence had the ball at the end of the game as this was our only chance to win.  And we won.

The funny thing about team's "blind spots" is how one piece of evidence (like Sunday's win for the Steelers, Saturday's win over the Saints for the Cowboys, the Flyers doing well one year with Marty Biron in net, JP drafting Adam Lind etc.) can somehow overcome all the other evidence that the current way of doing things is not the best way.  We won Sunday with Ben being sacked 5 times, while extending other plays and making big yards out of it, while throwing the ball 46 times and running it only 19.  Heck we even "held" the ball for 35 minutes playing this way!!

I'm still ecstatic that we won Sunday.  I just hope we take the proper lessons from it.  Two teams have scored 21 points or more on us in the 4th quarter in the last 3 weeks - teams shouldn't be getting 3 possessions in the 4th quarter yet alone scoring 3 times.  This wouldn't happen if we had the kind of ball control on offence that this team would be capable of with better schemes, play calling etc.  Let's hope that the organization sees it this way too and doesn't see our win Sunday as evidence that the Arians-BB philosophy of offence isn't only working, it's actually the optimal way of doing things.....

After 5 games (granted a very small sample size) Randy Ruiz has put up good production numbers with a relatively high number of strikeouts.  This is about what we might have expected as an upside for him.  Is 22 games in Minnesota last year, 5 games with the Jays this year, and a prolific minor league batting record enough to convince us that he is in the mix to be the DH next year?  If so would Lind and Snider cover enough ground in the corner outfield spots?  From watching him so far does he look like someone who could defy the odds and have a good major league career after such a relatively late start? On the FAN radio the other day I think it was Mike Wilner who compared him to Oakland's Jack Cust in that respect - but Cust is a little younger and had a few more cups of coffee before becoming a regular.  If that's who Randy Ruiz is (with a higher batting average hopefully) is this a good potential affordable fit at DH moving forward?

Steelers.com has an interview with Coach Tomlin focusing on his take on the Arizona game, training camp performances etc.   When asked about the play of the O-Line so far (a favourite topic of all faithful BTSC readers) here is what he had to say:

Q. When it comes to the execution of the running game in the NFL, for it to be successful is it 50 percent blocking and 50 percent the back?

Tomlin: I’m a proponent of the ball carrier. I am. I worked in Minnesota, and when Minnesota drafted Adrian Peterson all of a sudden those offensive linemen are Pro Bowl players. When LaDainian Tomlinson is running, all the linemen in San Diego are Pro Bowl players. I think a lot of it has to do with the guy who has the ball in his hands.

I thought this comment was interesting.  Like most fans I admire Tomlin's philosophical bent and his way of summarizing profound football truths in easy to digest nuggets (ie. "Together we all eat"). In this case I'm not sure I agree with him entirely.  Yes a pro bowl back makes the line look good.  But he seems to be suggesting the inverse as well, that a poor back makes the line look poor (I'm still with him here), and by extension that the blame for a team's poor running performance should be laid at the feet of the backs.  And it is this implication that I disagree with. Then I got to thinking if this is the coach's take on things perhaps this goes a way towards explaining the team's apparent lack of interest in drafting o-lineman.  Maybe they figure if they have good backs (and I think they do) that the running game will thrive with what most of us consider to be an o-line that needs work.  Am I reading too much into Tomlin's comments?  Does the team really believe that our o-line will be fine if our back's just run better?  Is the back more responsible for the success of a team's running game than the play of the o-line?

  At the end of today's game thread there was a discussion about what Roy Halliday said in his post-game comments.  I suggested he used the term "the pressure is off" to describe the second-half outlook for the team and I interpreted that to mean he believes the team is out of the playoff race.  I then went on to agree with his assessment.  Tom "dismissed" my comment by suggesting Doc was talking about the all-star game being over and that there is nothing new in suggesting "it's over" - people have done that for months.  AAgoodfella felt that Doc was referring to the open discussion about a potential trade meaning that since this was out in the open Doc felt relief.  Someone else pointed out that our team ERA is better than the Yankees (so we must be a playoff team I guess?) 

  However it is VERY clear when watching the interview again in its entirety that Roy was not talking about the all-star game or trade rumours. He was saying the pressure was off because the team was out of the race and could play more relaxed as a result in the second half.  The all-star question came at the start of the interview, as was the trade reference.  Roy says the "pressure is off" after going through some of the good young Jays players and in direct response to a question about his take on the second half of the season.  This happens at the end of the 2:39 clip.  The interview is posted on the Sportsnet video gallery http://www.sportsnet.ca/video/?bcpid=1766638651&bclid=1830063889&bctid=30004493001  Check it out for yourself.

 So if Doc says the team is out of the race, why can't we?  Does it make us less of a fan to come to an honest and reasoned assessment of our team's chances?  We are under .500 and there are 5 teams ahead of us in the wild-card race.  We can all cite specific categories where our team has performed well, but the standings are based on wins and losses (not team ERA, OBA, Expected W/L, number of young pitchers, how Vernon is a second half player or anything else).  The basic wins/losses numbers are not good.  If the Yankees play .500 we have to play .650 to catch them (which is how we opened the season at 27-14 to give you an idea of how well we have to play in addition to the Yankees faltering considerably).  We have 39 of our final 69 games against the AL East and we are 10-20 against those 4 teams so far this year.  We are 11-19 in our last 30 games.

  All those who think the Jays are going to make the playoffs this season: now is the time to state your case.  And even though this is my first FanPost, don't be gentle!  I want to understand the source of your optimism.  Platitudes about our good young arms, how well Lind, Rolen, and Hill are playing, etc. (all of which keep me watching and give me hope for the future) don't get us the wins we need to be in the playoffs this season.  I'm with Doc, the pressure's off because we are out of the race. I wouldn't be surprised if we have one or two more good winning streaks left but we are not a playoff team this year.