Meatloaf was wrong

• Jaze winned wun, an den losed wun.


• Tallet settled down nicely after some early trouble on Saturday.


• Tu bad Romero kudnt on Sunday. Uv kors da bats didnt help.


• Last time we faced Lester he got a favourable strike zone, as shown by The Mockingbird. I think it happened again. (Edit: It did.)


• Bullpen wuz gud Friday an Saturday, but was not so gret on Sunday, aktualy.


• As we discussed, there were some moves that should have been made, and they weren't. Wolfe came in to face a bunch of righties again, and got shelled. At least he didn't give up a lead, but it would have been nice to keep it close. Over a period of 9 right handed batters, Wolfe gave up two singles, a homer, a double, a bunt, two more homers, and another double. That's not getting it done.


• At leest da Jaze proofed they cud win a sereez agenst Boston wifout Halladay.


• Who did they need to prove it to? ESPN? Certainly it was important to win the series, but proving they could has no value--if anything it has negative value, because they'll less likely to be underestimated.


• Ur shur suckin the fun out uv a series win.


• Going into the series, sure you could say it would be great to get a series win, but once they won the first two it became a one game series, and they lost it.

All Bad Things Must Come To An End

• OMG, Jaze finly winned!


• If you're going to jump up excitedly you're going to have to let me trim your claws.


• But the trimmer is scary... wait, Jaze winned! Iznt there betr stuff to talk about?


• Really it's the same stuff we were talking about when they were losing. It's just that whether they did the thing or not is reversed. They got extra base hits. They got 2 out RBIs. The bullpen didn't give up 8 runs.


• Dey didn't hit a homer.


• Rios hit one that came close to going out to straightaway center field.


• So did Ortiz.


• Fair enough, although Ortiz's one was more of a fly ball than a line drive and the extra hang time gave Wells enough time to get under it.


• If ur not upset about him almost giving up a gran slam in the furst, are u at least worried about the 11 hits Janssen gave up?


• That included 4 ground ball singles. On average the BABIP on a ground ball is about .150, so there was some bad luck there. 7 real hits in 7 innings isn't too bad against a tough lineup. Obviously he could help himself out by striking out a few more guys. In 2006 as a starter he had 4.2K/9, and as a reliever in 2007 he had 4.8K/9, so we know he has it in him.


• I gess winning fixs evrything.


• Or does fixing everything cause winning? Sometimes you break a losing streak by lucking into a win, but everything that was a problem during the streak is still a problem after the streak, except for the stress of being on a streak. This time they got a decent start from an unheralded starter, scored some timely runs, and the bullpen locked it down, just like they were doing before the losing streak. That seems to me like a sign they can keep winning, instead of falling into another losing streak.


• Dat means ize gonna be jumpin for joy moar offen when u come home.


• And that means I'm gonna trim your claws right now.

Not what we're accustomed to seeing

• Jaze losed again.


• *sigh*


• Ize sorry. I wuznt trying to rub it in. Here, want to watch me play wif jingly ball? Ooh, jingly! *paw paw*


• It's okay. It's just that the thing that was obviously wrong with the team during this losing streak finally got better, but something that was fine at the start was becoming a problem as it went on without really attracting any attention.


• Iz easy to dismis bullpen making leads bigr when u can not has scoring anywaze.


• Since they have an off day today it would be a good time to fix the problems in the pen.


• Mite be moar problemz than dey can fix.


• I hope not, but if you can fix most of the problems it's easier to hide the rest. The first thing is to lock in Downs, Frasor, and League as the late inning trio.


• So evrywun else is expendabl?


• There's roles that need to be played and they're not playing them. Out of Wolfe, Ryan, Camp, and Carlson, Wolfe and Carlson still have options, so if you're that worried about losing someone those are the two you send down first, but really, if you put Camp on waivers at this point, who are you worried about claiming him? Maybe the Nationals.


• Who replacez dem?


• Carlson is supposed to be our lefty specialist and he's given up a game losing homer and a game-tying homer to lefties in the past few weeks, plus yesterday's disaster which included a few lefties. Looking at the stats in the high minors, there's one reliever who's been good at getting out lefties, and it's Jeremy Accardo.


• Yu want a right-handed LOOGY?


• When he was closing in 2007 he was more effective against lefties than righties, probably because his splitter was better than his slider. He couldn't find the splitter last year, but it looks like he's got it back--or at least something that lefties can't hit. Also it makes him effective against switch hitters, because they'll probably bat left-handed against him without realizing they're making their odds worse.


• Brett Cecil wuz a closer in college.


• The Jays see him as a starter long-term, so moving him into short relief now would probably stunt his development, especially considering that they were overzealous in limiting his innings last year. If he's going to start for the Jays in 2010, he can't relieve in 2009 unless it's at the very end of the season. Besides, they sent him down too recently.


• Wut about Wolfe?


• He's supposed to be a righty specialist, but he hasn't been very good against them. The guy who stands out in AAA as being good against righties is Jonah Bayliss, who we apparently got from the Pirates last year and resigned as a minor league free agent. I certainly don't remember hearing either piece of news at the time.


• How do you know he can do it for the Jaze?


• My best argument is that the Pacific Coast League is a hitter's league, so if someone has success there they must have something.


• So wut do u do wif Camp and Ryan?


• Camp only pitches in blowouts--basically the job that Tallet used to have, although I'm not quite expecting Camp to do it as well. Ryan, I don't know. Lefties light him up, and righties light him up worse. The scouts say he sucks, and the stats say he sucks. He can't pitch multiple innings and you can't use him for one inning that matters. If the team needed the money this year or next I'd be talking to his agent about deferred money, but when his currrent contract ends is when some of the other contracts balloon and when they need money to extend Halladay. I don't think you release him jsut yet because the optics of that are really bad. Maybe he finds another fake injury you can put him on the DL with.


• Wut r the odds of any of dis hapning?


• We might hear rumblings today, but I figure the players get their off-day today and any transactions come before tomorrow's game. For the players coming from Vegas, they might put them on a plane today rather than having them arrive the day of the game.

Eight is more than enough

• Jaze losed again.


• Were you waiting by the door just to say that to me?


• No, I wuz wating by the door for u to give me noms.


• If you were that hungry there's a bowl of kibble just for you to snack on.


• Sumtimes I has trubl finding the kitchin without ur help.


• Okay, c'mon. So they still aren't hitting with power and went 2 for 13 with RISP. Here's your fancy feast.


• Nom nom nom


• At least Lind got an RBI. It had been a while since he had one. Also he was hitting third with Rios getting the day off, so that's production from that lineup slot we haven't been getting, but with Hill only managing to extend his hitting streak with a broken bat ground ball single in the 9th, he wasn't getting as many chances as he should have. We still should have driven in Scutaro's second leadoff double of the game.


• A Jay got a lucky hit? Deys been unlucky on evrythin they put in play this trip.


• It certainly seems that way. Big League Stew is the closest thing to a major media outlet to pitck on the Jays' lack of off days. I thought it was going to be a problem when I saw the schedule in the first place, even when everyone was saying the Jays had an easy schedule.


• Dey has a hard schedule aganst ezy teems?


• That's what I thought. I guess we'll see on Friday when they've had a day off.


• Hopefly theyl be on a wun game winning streek by then.

The Jays Don't Know Where Their Towel Is

• Jaze losed again.


• At least Vernon had an RBI.


• Iz it gud that he has one, or bad that it didn't matter?


• Obviously it would be silly to blame one player for the losing streak when the entire team stopped hitting for power. Rolen hasn't driven in a run since the series against the Yankees and nobody's getting on his case, and he's actually getting paid more this year than Wells.


• But if dey fixed Vernon, why dont dey do the same to evrywun?


• It depends what the problem was. Since everyone started struggling at the same time, isn't it more likely that one thing affected everyone than that everyone started to struggle at the same time for different reasons? I mean, there's no reason word would have got out on how to pitch to everyone at the same time, and even if it had, the Jays have seen their share of mistake pitches during this streak and failed to capitalize on them.


• Sumfing like bad noms?


• Sure, everyone eats from the same postgame spread, so they could all have been affected by a case of food poisoning at the same time. Also, they spend a lot of time together, so if one of them was sick it could spread to everyone, especially on a road trip because they don't have any choice but to travel together. And the team hasn't had many days off compared to the other teams in the division, so they could just be tired


• Wut about da nuklball hangover?


• It's not like they had many hits against Clayton Richard the game before the road trip, and even Rios's game winning triple was just a bloop single the center fielder missed trying to make a do-or-die play to keep it a tie game. Anyways, they beat Wakefield at the start of a 5 game winning streak last year, and later in the year when he shut the Jays out, they won the next game 8-1, and this is basically the same group of players. Why would it happen to them now?


• Even Cito sed yung guyz can has their swing screwed up by the nuklr when he benchd Snider.


• Well if it is the knuckleball hangover then the Jays are in trouble, because they'll face Wakefield first in the next homestand. I suppose this all sounds like rationalizing, since there's no way for anyone outside the organization to know for sure, and they'd never tell their opposition what their problems were.


• Yu seem pretty shur dese arnt the real Jaze.


• If these are the real Jays then they're the worst offensive team in history relative to their era, and even the most pessimistic projections thought the team's problem would be starting pitching depth. Maybe the first six weeks weren't the real Jays either, but they can't really be this bad.


• Nobodyz as bad as dey luk wen deyr losing.


• Exactly.

The Paradox Explained

• Torgen, I can has a bedtime story?


• That depends, Archimedes. Are you really going to go to sleep if I--


• A mouse! I has it for noms!


• Ouch, my toe! If I tell you a story, will you at least stop biting my feet?


• If Ize asleep I kant nom mouses.


• Well I can't say I've ever heard of a cat that needed help getting to sleep, but okay. I'll tell you a story about baseball. Once a baseball team was coming to bat leading off the inning was the designated hitter, Tor--


• Torgen?


• I was going to say Tortoise, but okay, his name can be Torgen. Many people were impressed by his plate discipline, but many others more interested in actually observing his play on the field knew that his strike zone was smaller than the baseball. Needless to say, he drew a leadoff walk. When he reached first base about five minutes later, the inning continued. The next batter was Achi--


• Archimedes?


• ...sure, I guess you wouldn't get the reference anyways. So Archimedes hits a ground rule double, which is a pretty good thing for his team because Torto--I mean Torgen was a pretty safe bet to get forced out at any base.


• Ize small like a tortis. Why can I not has a walk too?


• Are you known for your patience? Besides, it wasn't you, it was a guy with the same name as you. And a ground rule double is better than a walk!


• A dubl is defens dependent.


• Well I'm telling the story, and you hit a ground rule double. Anyways, the next batter hits a single. The runner at second tries to score. First he runs halfway to home, which is third base. Once he's there he runs halfway home again, which puts him a little past the coaching box. Then from there he runs halfway home again, which puts him near the dirt cutout, and then halfway home again, which puts him near the batter's box. But since he can't go somewhere without first going halfway there, he never reaches home and thus never scores.


• Oh noes!


• It gets worse. The runner at third tries to score too. To get home, first he has to run halfway home. To run halfway home, first he has to run a quarter of the way home. To run a quarter of the way home, he has to run an eighth, and so on. As a result he's never even able to leave the third base bag. Thus, not only does Archimedes not score, he gets called out for passing the lead runner.


• Iz dat why the Jaze has lost six gamez in a row?


• No, that's because the Jays have only hit one home run on this road trip.


• Mebbe deys havin the same problem. If Wellz wants to hit a homer to leff feeld, he has to hit it 380 feets, rite?


• If it's to the power alley, and depending on the ballpark, but okay.


• An to hit it 380 feets, first it has to go 190 feets


• I think I see where this is going.


• An before it goze 190 feets it goze 95 feets, where its a eezy play for the shortstop.


• I was wrong. Anyways, are you ready to go to sleep now?


• Yes, Ize been kneading a comfy spot all dis time. Nighty-nite.


• Wait, not on my lap!


• Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


• Now how am I supposed to get off the couch without waking you up?