The Mockingbird

No word from any of the more reputable outlets, home pages, talking heads. No roster moves. But a Syracuse Blog is reporting that the reason Adam Lind was removed from yesterday’s game was that he has been promoted to the major league club:

Lind, who entered Friday with a .330 batting average, six home runs and 50 RBIs, was removed from the game after the third inning. Toronto had promoted the 24-year-old outfielder.

Kind of odd that what should really be headline-grabbing news is hidden on the second page at the end of some generic quotes from Lind and Jordan DeJong, who don’t mention it directly. But then their manager makes a denial that anything has changed which really sounds that a confirmation that something major has:

We’ve got the same group of players. They may choose to take somebody up there to help out at this point in time, but these guys are here to further their career and create an opportunity somewhere. “That’s something that’s not any different today than it was yesterday.

I’m running with it. (Out of sheer desperation for it to finally be true).

We all know how paramount the manager is to the player’s performance on the field. A good skipper can take a team on his back. Why, the estimable Richard Griffin recently confirmed phone-in callers’ deepest help beliefs when he judged there have been:

“approximately eight to 10 games that the Jays should have won that they allowed to slip away.“

That’s right. The Jays should be 45-30 right now. A half game back of Boston, and with the third-best record in the league. Forget the fact they have the 5th worst offense in the majors, and have scored 1.2 fewer runs per game than the Bosox. The real problem has been slippage. Managerial slippage.

And clearly after one game we can say that Cito is not the answer. Unbelievably, his familiarity with the game (hey guys, where are all the ‘roids?) has faded somewhat in the decade since he last had a job. Because the old Cito, the perfect Cito that in burnt in my memory alongside the absurdly amazing lineup card he used to fill out, would not have thrown away the game in the 12th inning last night with such a bonehead blunder.

“It’s a little different and I made some mistakes out there but we’ll see if it gets better (today),” he said of the job he did. “I walked off the mound tonight to give the umpire the name of the pitcher and once you walk off you can’t go back so when Frasor came in I couldn’t even tell him anything.”

Who knows what he could have passed on! Maybe “don’t walk the first guy you face on four pitches”. That would be fresh. Or “don’t induce a routine hopper to the best fielding shortstop in the game, I intuitively sense he’s a little rusty from all the time on the bench”. Instead, he abandoned Frasor on the mound and has no doubt now ‘lost control of the clubhouse’.

Cito also showed zero ability to inspire any runs in his first 11 innings, so clearly the players won’t play for him. After the game he spouted cliches to take the heat off his team instead of cussing them out on national TV, so he’s too laid back. Bottom line is he’s just not getting results. Beating teams that should be beaten. We need a new direction. Someone who can light a fire under the team. Think: blogger.

Credit where credit is due

Rance Mulliniks has taken a lot of heat in these parts lately. And I still want to live-abuse a broadcast he’s sitting in on (I’m just not ready to unmute him yet). However, there’s probably something to his use of the word “aggressive hitting”, albeit coming in all situations and all counts and with all hitters against all pitchers.

Inside Edge (a rather brilliant scouting company) has confirmed for ESPN that the Blue Jays this season have swung at fewer pitches than any team in the league, both overall and in hitter’s counts. Normally I would just rip off the entire article, but errrr…I can’t. Go buy ESPN Insider. It’s worth it alone for IE’s surprisingly high amount of Jay-nerd coverage.

Don’t read this paragraph

I’ve been sitting on this for a while, honestly. As you know, I get my kicks by having readers hooked on the pitch f/x skag I deal out in small quantities. And I worry about what this might do to those of you that harrass me every time someone gets rung up on an outside fastball, really I do. But the time has come that eventually comes for all of us- I have been replaced by a far superior machine. Named Dan Brooks.

But can it spew out smarmy, sarcastic, and increasingly bitter comments to go alongside the umpire reports and whatever new pitch A.J. Burnett is experimenting with today? What? That’s due in the next version? Arrrrgggghhhh…

Completely unrelated to my newfound interest in Insurance is that the Mockingbird now has a $50 mlb.com gift certificate to give away. Keeping with the theme of home runs, but altering it more suitably for the Jays to the total @#$@#$!! lack thereof, (49 in three months = 27th in the league) here’s what we’re going to do:

Guess the longest home run drought, in innings, for the next three series. Starting on Tuesday, the Jays face Cincinnati (2nd in the majors with 98 HR allowed), Atlanta, and Seattle. Whoever comes the closest to predicting the longest powerless stretch between then and their Thursday day off wins the fifty.  You can send me an email if you don’t want to get scooped/squeezed, or just drop your guess in the comments.

Come to think of it, I could use a new hat. My guess is a cool 81 innings…

I would like to inform all of you car-driving types about the Call Your Shot consumer promotion taking place at the State Farm Home Run Derby (which after what it did to Alex Rios, thankfully will not feature any Blue Jays this year).

You can enter the consumer promotion until Tuesday, with a chance to win a fabulous grand prize that will make all of your dreams come true:

• An All-expense paid trip for four to the All-Star Game and State Farm Home Run Derby
• First class hotel accommodations in New York
• Tickets to a Broadway show
• A $1,000 MasterCard gift card

The winner will also get the chance to pick a spot to which two of the Home Run Derby players must compete to try to hit a ball. If either player succeeds, the fan receives a 2008 Chevrolet Tahoe hybrid vehicle and a 2009 season-ticket package for any team. There are also 10 $300 MLB.com gift cards and 25 $100 MLB.com gift cards to be won. Woo!

I’ve been curled on the floor in hysterics most of today, but here’s a belated look at A.J. Burnett solidifying his case to be the Jays’ fifth starter: (If this is Greek to you, click here).

Down and in is simply the worst location for a pitch ever. (Not a lot of strikes, either).

Holy crap! Cito’s back! And Peavy, Whitt, and Denbo have all been axed along with Gibbons. to be replaced by the old-time Gaston-era staff of Gene Tenace (hitting coach) and Nick Leyva (third base). Sliding into first base is Dale Murphy. He was the second guy who was interviewed along with Denbo for the job this year, and the Jays roving minor league hitting instructor. The first base coach is usually pretty useless, but now the Jays have two capable hitting coaches on staff.

No news yet on whether the powder blues will become the full-time unform.

Update: Baseball Digest Daily (did I mention their superb email alerts for cases like this?) is now reporting that Wilner (did anyone hear it first hand?) says a press conference is scheduled for this afternoon and Gibby is gone before tonight’s game.

I don’t even know who wrote this Sportsnet preview saying the J.P. has the green light to fire John Gibbons, but it’s on Sportsnet and Rosenthal’s head is next to it. That’s more legit to me than Marty York’s sources, who took the trouble to call and tell him that the manager could be fired. Or the GM. Or both. Oh, the insight! The access!

Every hack of a sportswriter is now scrambling to post something self-righteous about how this is a long time coming and they never liked him anyway because he doesn’t cheer on the players loud enough….yawn.

To me, firing the manager is rarely anything more than an attempt to placate the fans. Passing the royal scepter inside the dugout from Gibby to Butterfield or handing it to any of the mediocre replacements without jobs out there has about as much effect on the team’s offence as changing the flavour of Gatorade in the dugout. I hear grape ‘fires you up’ more…

• While praising Gibby’s character, Scott Rolen does point out that “He has had zero clutch hits for us and he hasn’t struck out anyone”. Backstabber!
• The Indians just traded for Sal Fasano and his .193 AAA average (Victor Martinez is out for a month and a half). No word on their facial hair policy.

Ricciardi said on Thursday evening that he called Walt Jocketty, the general manager of the Reds, to apologize to him, and he was in the process of contacting Dunn directly. “I let my guard down” said Ricciardi. “I apologize to him. I have to be better than that… Unfortunately, you get caught in the heat of the moment. I don’t even know Adam Dunn.”

Did I mention there’s some really excellent soccer being played? The Jays plunged to new depths today when the decidedly mediocre Dave Bush took a no-hitter into the 8th. I guess you could call it a victory that the guy we traded him for, Lyle Overbay, broke it up with a triple, but I was really rooting for Bush if only for tragic/comedic value…such as that provided by Alex Rios, who turned a Prince Fielder double into an inside the park home run by claiming it rolled under the fence and then picking it up off the ground as the umpire was running out to check. (Why even bother claiming the ground rule anyway? It’s Prince @#$@#$ Fielder and you have a cannon…)

A.J. Burnett was also embarrassing and I’m really, really, serious now. He is nowhere near being classified a type A free agent at the end of the year, but will still probably opt out. That would be a disaster, costing the Jays a first round pick.

At least J.P. Ricciardi attempted to provide a little more entertainment than there was on the field last night by claiming that Adam Dunn “doesn’t like baseball that much” (at this point, I sympathize). A recap of the sordid affair, including Dunn’s reply: “I don’t know the clown” is over at BDD.

Wilner also has the following reply to the ‘Lind question’ on his blog:

Ricciardi again answered the question about Adam Lind’s absence from the major league line-up, though he didn’t give a specific reason, other than he likes Wilkerson (who led the club in RBIs in May) and that the fans want Lind because they haven’t seen him and therefore he’s the next big thing, and the fans always want the next big thing.

Silly me, I thought it was because after assessing the Jays’ production from left field (OPS: .622) and DH (OPS: .687) this year, and taking into account what is usually a pretty predictable performance drop from AAA to the majors, along with what a small army of scouts have said about Lind’s swing, I came to the reasonable conclusion that a guy with a .916 OPS in the minors could not be any worse that what has been out there or how badly Wilkerson has been hitting for years now. I never realized it was just that I like a new face, even if he’s going to be totally useless until we hand him the left field job full time next season!

Update: Wow, they certainly made me eat my words with some late excitement courtesy of a Joe Inglett grand slam in the ninth. Woo-hoo! Another 1-run loss!! That makes Rios’ boner even more painful! Gaaaaaaaaaaah!

Remember last year when Mickey Brantley was history’s greatest monster for his “swing for the fences” philosophy, and having two walk-or-strikeout guys in the middle of the lineup was every hack’s favorite reason for why the team couldn’t hit with RISP? (even though they could). Shorten that swing, keep things moving by spraying balls to the opposite field, that’s the way to run an offense! Boy did a lot of fans get their wish, and boy does a team that can’t hit home runs to save their life suck.

Anyway, the poster boy for the Jays’ power outage this season has been Alex Rios, who is single handedly breathing life back into the home run derby curse. In 569 at bats since he came in second last year, he has 10 home runs. Not that the homer is everything, but his power has completely vanished to the point where he is a substantially below-average right fielder at the plate (OPS of .708 compared to league average of .824). To put things in perspective, Vernon Wells’ OPS was .706 last year. We are looking at a Wellsesque collapse in the outfield, again.

So, in a series of posts over the next few weeks I’m going to painstakingly analyze Rios’ contact, misses, HR and BABIP rate for every quadrant using pitch f/x…no, wait. I’m just going to rip off Fox Sports:

Maybe we should start calling him the “little hurt”, because just a hunch- he might be having trouble reaching the outside half of the plate.

As everyone has noticed this year, Rios is starting his swing from a much deeper crouch. Now I’m no batting coach (and I think it’s stupid the way people think they can sum up all his mechanical problems with a hitting cliche like “weight transfer” or “driving off the back foot” from TV replays), but I’m pretty sure the idea of the power crouch is that you end up in the same hitting position on contact that you would normally. But look at Rios’ front leg and torso on this upper deck drive from last season:

And then this one (his pinch hit HR) that just crept out over the wall this year:

Again, I’m no hitting coach but I don’t think that can be good for a power hitter. This was in no way an outside pitch, and it looks like he’s bending over rather unnaturally to reach it instead of leaning over the plate. It’s a slightly different camera angle so it’s hard to get an idea of how far he is from the plate (and that’s going to be a matter of inches anyway).

These two things have to be related. I would give my right arm for a sit-down session with Gary Denbo to talk about what he’s changed with Rios since last season, why he thinks he’s slumping so far and where to go from here. Forget Gibby and his wacky lineups- if you really want a goat, go for a much more important (but still probably meaningless) figurehead, the guy who is shepherding what should be a franchise player hitting his prime on his way to a 6 HR season.

It wasn’t actually meant for this particular string of heartbreaking one-run losses, but this post by the Southpaw struck me the same way as when you hear a song/read a book/watch a movie and suddenly realize that maybe those thoughts and sentiments you keep locked away aren’t really so unique and bizarre as you think just because you don’t encounter them in the MTV/Oprah book club/Hollywood mainstream.

Ok, that’s a little much. But look. The Jays lost one-run games really badly for a month (luck), then won them at an incredible pace for a month (luck) until everything evened out and they were right back in the mix. Now they’ve been losing them all for June (luck) and apparently it’s time to give up on the season.

Not to deny the mind-boggling, insanity-inducing sensation of losing a series to the worst team in baseball, (largely due to Miguel Cairo, the worst @#$@#$ player in baseball) but I’m with the Lefties in attempting to tune out the inevitable emotional hysterics, irrational hatred for the player who has been a letdown this week, theories that the Jays can’t handle success, questioning of the Jays moral fiber and cojones, sweeping statements that they are a .500 team for all eternity, and urgent demands for a fire sale/new batting coach/manager/attitude/mascot blahblahblahblahblahblahhhhh….

I think part of it is because I used to play poker full-time. And when you do, eventually you realize that no matter how good you are (even though in the long run it is unquestionably a game of skill) there’s enough luck involved that crazy, seemingly impossible runs happen. You sit down at a table full of monkeys one night and lose 2 grand. You lose every coin flip for a week. Sick, twisted, gut wrenching things that tear your heart out happen again and again until it seems the universe must be conspiring against you and only you.

And then you hit a good run full of river cards and suckouts and end up right back where you should be, and in that blissful, universe-comprehending state suddenly realize that despite all the noise this entire time you’ve actually been on a straight line directly related to how good you are, and have a good chuckle at what a crazy game it is and the deep existential torture it inflicts on those who are unable to handle the reality of the game. About a week later you’re back to throwing cards at the dealer and cursing, but repeat the cycle about 10,000 times and eventually you get used to it and just smile and say “nice hand” (or “good game”) when the frat boy next to you makes some moronic play and takes your lunch money because you know it’s coming back eventually.

I’m sure that makes me a pretty damn uninteresting commentator because most fans just want to go bezerk or watch someone go bezerk on their behalf to let out their frustrations every time baseball does what it does, but that’s where I’m at now, shrugging off a seemingly endless streak of 1-run losses like a string of bad beats.

Is the Jays’ pitching good enough to carry a weak offense even if it starts breaking even? Who knows! But it’s amazing- the best in years, and fun as hell to watch Shaun Marcum tie batters in knots on a nice summer day. Will the inevitable batting average with RISP/1-run game record/return of players to career averages turnaround come in time? Who knows! But that’s baseball and there’s plenty of it left to play.

The Jays are in the pack and the Rays are about ready to start their collapse, leaving New York as the only real team to fight for the wildcard. As it should be! So please, relaxxxx and try not to tear too much hair out until the next euphoria-inducing, they-should-not-be-winning-all-these-games month comes along…because it’s alllll just a ride.

Edit: This rant wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with Tothlinergate (which I just read) but I guess just goes to prove that all Bloogers are Wilner sycophants who love to watch .500 ball and are apologists for mediocrity. Guilty, guilty, guilty!

Thanks to Tito and Torgen for pointing out the following quote from Barajas about tonight’s Ryan debacle:

“I felt like the second pitch to me was a ball off the plate and he called it a strike. That’s fine, I’m OK with that,” said Barajas. “Then I see B.J. hit the same spot and it’s called a ball. It’s a little frustrating.

“What you don’t like to see is the strike zone change and for me, from my at-bat to going behind the plate and working it seemed like it changed a little in the ninth.”

Here are all the pitches from Felix Hernandez tonight. If anything, he got hosed a few times (not unusual for a power pitcher). The pitch f/x system went a little wonky for the first pitch of Barajas’ at bat, but the second pitch that he refers to was a rulebook strike 9.75 inches off the plate (the edge of the strike zone is 10), and would even be called another inch or two outside usually because it’s right at the belt. I guess pitches look a little different from the batter’s box, because that was not the same spot or a different zone from Beej’s in the ninth.

How depressing. I want someone to blame, #$@#$@#$!!!. Stupid technology.

I’m still trying to decide if being called “intellectually honest” rather than a die-hard Jays homer by the Tao of Stieb is a compliment or not, but here we go again: B.J. Ryan really was not being squeezed at all by the ump this afternoon. Totally his bad to give Miguel @#$@#$ Cairo a free pass and face the Mariners’ cleanup man in a critical situation.

Today’s fun fact of the day: The 2008 Toronto Blue Jays are on pace to break…well, let’s call a spade a spade…SMASH, the all-time record for grounding into double plays with 186. The Red Sox are the current holders with a mere 174 in 1990. But good news- they made the playoffs!!! (And were swept in the first round by Oakland).

Kinda funny…although when I was 12 I think I had a better repertoire:

Just a few loose ends…

• John Parrish just broke a Chiefs record by going 9-0. Remember the days of Jeff Tam, Juan Acevedo, etc, etc, when every bullpen reclamation/”lightning in a bottle” attempt of J.P.’s went to hell? He seems to have found his Midas touch (if only it worked on castoff outfielders) and the Chiefs have the best ERA in the international league on the backs of all those mediocre arms we all wondered why the heck the Jays were stockpiling in spring training. It’s scary to think how much an early-30’s, mediocre but decent peripheral Lefty starter like Parrish would cost on the free agent market. Heck, the team is paying Gustavo Chacin over a mil for an +8 ERA in AA just because he’s a southpaw with some wins.

• Parrish isn’t just racking up the most useless stat (W’s) in baseball, he’s also second in the league in K’s. David Purcey however is third, and has fewer walks. Despite his 5-4 record, he’s actually having a much better year and we would all probably be going crazy at him finally putting it together as a legitimate prospect waiting in the wings if the Jays’ rotation wasn’t already stellar. I know, I know…he had no control in his short time in the bigs and some people think his control problems haven’t gone away. But 22 in almost 70 innings? I’ll take 10.

• Speaking of short stints, Adam Lind is still crushing the ball, leading the International league in average, with power. But don’t worry, Stew and his .628 OPS will be back to fill the recent vacancy in LF in 15 days or so, and until then Brad Wilkerson and his .658 OPS is actually an improvement (*shudder*). Maybe we can even give them some more time at leadoff because these guys need to get as many AB’s as possible so they can magically regain their form of 3-4 years ago. #@$@%!

• Gregg Zaun is almost ready to return. Yay? I think it’s self congratulatory time…I seem to recall when he was signed, Wilner made a crack about Barajas being a minor upgrade over Fasano, and Griffin chirped up about the message this sends because the moustachio man was unhappy. Only your dear Bird (and a Drunk or two) pointed out that maybe career numbers weren’t the way to go here and Barajas wasn’t such a terrible (or meaningless) cheap pickup.

Not that I am in ANY WAY suggesting that Barajas is going to keep anything resembling his current pace up, but in a giant fit of I told you so, I’d like to point out that Sal Fasano is currently hitting .186 in AAA. And what’s worse, he’s even shaved his upper lip and now looks like an old, sad man.