Toronto Blue Jays

With the MLB playoffs set to begin, there is a subtle difference in the air compared to start of any other postseason. In the NHL, fans can potentially look forward to a great Canadians/Bruins series that is not only exciting, but has a historical kick to it. Likewise basketball fans always have the chance to see if the Suns can finally get past the Spurs and football fans love seeing the rivalry of the Eagles Vs the City of Philadelphia when the Eagles so much as get tackled for a loss.

Continue reading "The Ups and Downs of the MLB Playoffs"

Entrance into the Hall of Fame is the highest individual honour that baseball has to offer. Getting into Cooperstown means that without a doubt you are one of the greatest players of your generation and have earned the right for children to stare at your plaque as parents tell tall-tales of your abilities for years to come.

Continue reading "What makes someone a hall of famer?"

Dear God I love the Blue Jays. After all, what’s not to love? Sure, they may blow crucial games in crucial series, 90% of the time they can’t get a hit in extra innings to save their lives, they don’t steal bases and have never been able to beat the Rays (Devil or not), but after that, what else? Oh yeah, they can never seem to beat rookie pitchers, take advantage of bases loaded situations and every pitcher not named Halladay seems to start every at-bat with a ball. But still, every day I try to catch the opening pitch and every night check the standings… What’s wrong with me?

Continue reading "Why I watch the Jays"

But with one of the best fielding percentages and team ERA’s in the league, the Toronto Blue Jays are competing.

In the end, however, the best pitching and defense can ever do is keep you in a game long enough for your offence to pull you out. After all, it’s impossible to win a game 0-0 (although the Dodgers proved this season that you can win without a hit).

Continue reading "Why the Jays won't compete: the importance ..."

    With two outs in the top of the eighth inning it looked like the Mets would leave Philadelphia last night with their collective tail between their legs.  Brad Lidge, who still hasn't blown a save all season, was warming up in the Phillies' pen, and the New York offense had only mustered two runs and 12 hits in the previous 16.2 innings, going back to the fifth inning of Tuesday's game.  But Carlos Delgado, who had homered in the sixth to cut Philly's lead to 3-2, sliced a liner over the left field fence to tie the game at three and spark the Mets's offense.  Carlos Beltran followed with an infield hit, and stole second.  With first base open, Brad Lidge walked Ryan Church intentionally, but Daniel Murphy made him pay, doubling down the right field line to bring home Beltran with the go-ahead run.  The hit parade continued with Brian Schneider's flare to left, which put the icing on the cake.  New York's four-run eighth inning clinched a two-game split in Philadelphia, and catapulted the Mets back into first place by a half game.

Continue reading "Delgado's Two Bombs Save The Day"

if the offense heats up.  This will likely be the end of a 13-year playoff run in the Bronx.

Toronto Blue Jays (68-63), 4th place in AL East, 4th place in AL Wild Card:  OUT  A dreadful offensive season has the Blue Jays in a rut despite a pair of 16-game winners (Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett) and the best bullpen ERA in the majors (2.92).  They sit eight games behind Boston for the Wild Card, with five teams in front of them, and that's too big a deficit for a stagnating team to overcome.

Continue reading "Seven Runs: Too Little, Too Early"

Just picture it: it’s the top of the ninth inning and the Toronto Blue Jays are holding a slim 2-1 lead over the New York Yankees. Up to bat is Derek Jeter with Bobby Abreu and Alex Rodriguez on deck. Cito Gaston, in order to shut the door on the game and the series gets on the phone and brings in the big gun, Pedro Luis Lazo, winner of two Olympic Gold medals with Cuba and current closer of the Blue Jays. And even if he gives up a run its okay, because leading off the bottom of the ninth for the Jays is Alexei Bell, who hit 30 HR with 100 RBI with Santiago del Cuba last year.

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    The mystery of how Jerry Manuel will manage the bullpen was put on hold for a day, as Mike Pelfrey pitched his first career complete game Wednesday.  Pelfrey didn't even seem to have his best stuff, but he worked economically throughout the game and kept his pitch count down.  He only struck out three batters, mainly relying on aggressive Braves hitters putting the ball in play early in the count.  The only blemish was the sixth inning, which still could have been much worse.  Atlanta loaded the bases on a bunt single and two walks, but Pelfrey induced a double play grounder from Brian McCann, and he had a chance to escape with only one run allowed.  But he bounced a wild pitch to the next batter and Yunel Escobar scored from third, before Mark Kotsay lined out to left to end the inning.  Pelfrey settled down thereafter and cruised through the next three innings, retiring all nine batters on just 25 pitches.

Continue reading "Pelfrey Goes The Distance"

    The trade deadline is approaching and the Mets still have some needs to fill.  It's still unknown whether Ryan Church will be able to come back and play everyday, so a corner outfielder is certainly a priority.  On Monday Jerry Manuel named Fernando Tatis the everyday left fielder, but his red-hot month may not, and probably will not, last.  Even if Tatis remains decent as a starter, the uncertainty surrounding Church's health calls for a stronger bench.  Endy Chavez is an excellent defensive replacement outfielder, but when he plays everyday he eventually gets exposed offensively, so he is really more suited to a role as a fourth outfielder.  Casey Blake would have been a good fit because he can play both corner outfield positions as well as first base, but he has already been traded to the Dodgers.

Continue reading "Trade Market: Will The Mets Be Involved?"

    Monday night in Miami was an all-around bad experience for the Mets.  John Maine cruised into the fifth inning with a 2-0 lead, and looked just fine to the naked eye.  But after Maine missed with a 1-0 fastball to John Baker, Jerry Manuel, Dan Warthen and Ray Ramirez, the trainer, jogged out to the mound to consult with Maine.  He appeared to say he was fine, and stayed in the game for the time being.  But after his next pitch to Baker left the yard for a solo home run, and his 1-2 pitch to Marlins pitcher Ricky Nolasco chased Endy Chavez to the warning track to make the catch, Manuel and Warthen decided they had seen enough, and pulled Maine in favor of Carlos Muniz.  Maine is listed as day-to-day with shoulder stiffness, and Warthen said he was most concerned that Maine might develop further injuries if he tried to compensate in his delivery to protect his shoulder.  In all likelihood Maine will miss a start in order to rest his shoulder, and hopefully pitch again next week.  After the game Manuel was adamant that Maine will not pitch through any pain.

Continue reading "Mets Fried By Fish, Maine Leaves Early"

    This time last week the Mets were 4.5 games behind Philadelphia entering their pivotal four-game series with the division leaders.  After Johan Santana gave up a 2-0 lead and Duaner Sanchez allowed the winning run in the ninth, the horizon looked bleak for the orange and blue.  However, since that devastating defeat, New York has racked up six straight wins and the Mets now find themselves just 1.5 games back of the Phillies in the NL East.  During the winning streak the Mets have scored an average of seven runs per game while yielding only three per contest, including back-to-back shutouts of the Giants on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Continue reading "Mets Go For Seven Straight Tonight at Shea"

hat package would be enticing enough for interim GM Lee Pelekoudas.

3)  Shannon Stewart, LF, Toronto Blue Jays:  Although Stewart is the most lackluster name on this list, he will probably be the easiest for the Mets to get.  The 34-year-old no longer has the speed to steal bases the way he did when he averaged 33 from 1998-2001 but he stole 11 last year and still hits for average and gets on base at a decent rate.  He could fill the number two spot in the Mets batting order and plays above average outfield defense, and could platoon with Chavez in either corner position if Alou or Church are in the lineup.  The Jays are unhappy with their middle infield situation and might be willing to give Argenis Reyes a shot to compete against John McDonald, Aaron Hill and Marcos Scutaro for playing time if they trade David Eckstein as has been rumored.

Continue reading "Pelfrey and the Mets Finally Make It Easy"

 The country's favorite rivalry of all sports is entering Game 4 tonight, with the Red Sox having taken 2 of the 3 first games in Yankee Stadium. What used to be national news is a mere afterthought at the moment, and the question is why?

Continue reading "Yanks-Sox Rivalry...Just missing something."

os of yesterday’s blog about what a last-place team should be doing, let’s look at the Toronto Blue Jays, in a similar situation as the Mariners, if not nearly as dire. In last place in one of baseball’s toughest divisions, the 38-43 Jays canned manager John Gibbons on June 20, replacing him with veteran Cito Gaston.

Continue reading "The New Jays"

Much exuberant ink has been spilled over Asdrubal Cabrera's unassisted triple play in yesterday's Indians-Blue Jays game, only the fourteenth in MLB history. That rarity makes it memorable, but I'm not sure there's a ton of athleticism involved--the Unassisted Triple Play (or UTP for short) is more luck of circumstance than anything.

Continue reading "The Not-So-Unassisted Triple Play"

I've been a Yankees fan since the early nineties, pre-Showalter, pre-Torre, pre-post-seventies-World-Series-victories days, and it seems to me they're as vulnerable as they've ever been. I like Girardi, I like the New Steinbrenner regime that doesn't look to scour out every single prospect for the possibility of Winning Right Now--but I think they are (dare I say?) approaching those dreaded Rebuilding Years.

Continue reading "Rebuilding the Yankees--A Good Thing?"

It's the ninth inning of a scoreless game between the Red Sox and Blue Jays. Roy Halladay and Jon Lester had both pitched brilliantly, holding the other team scoreless through eight innings. Papelbon came on to help Lester, but with the shay back end of the Toronto pen--closer B.J. Ryan coming off TJ surgery, setup man Jeremy Accardo with an ERA over 8--the game was Halladay's to win or lose.  Three times already, he'd gone the distance, but had lost two of those games when Toronto failed to muster enough offense to give him the win. Would this time be the charm?

Continue reading "Roy Halladay's Heartbreak"

Two weeks into the 2008 season and the Boston Red Sox must be pleased with how the season has gone thus far. Granted they are only two games over .500 at 8 and 6 and have split their last 10 games, but things could be much, much worse. When the Yankees went to Japan to open the season, they proceeded to go 11-19 in the first month of the season before finally snapping out of it and going on to win the division. Boston is only half a game out of first place in the tightly packed American League East which is currently lead by the surprising Baltimore Orioles who do not figure to hang around much longer.

Continue reading "Red Sox Should Feel Good About The Season So Far"

Remember what I said in my last post about not getting too excited that the Boston Red Sox opened the season with a 3-1 winning series against the Oakland As? Well, they demonstrated why, over the weekend in Toronto, where they dropped all three games, essentialy limping home for the home opener on Tuesday.

Continue reading "The Boston Red Sox; faltering in ..."

           If you’re a baseball fan (any team), you know better than to get excited about the results of any single series of games. If you’ve been a Boston Red Sox fan for longer than (say) 10 years, you know better than to get excited about almost anything until (say) mid-September (and even then. . ).

Continue reading "Don't get too excited. . .but the ..."

le of the Tampa Bay lineup and help make the Rays into a team that others can no longer overlook.

Toronto Blue Jays

Can Vernon Wells rebound from and awful 2007 campaign?

The Blue Jays su

Continue reading "MLB 2008 Season Preview: American Leauge East"

e of the events that transpired prior to the start of yesterday’s pre-season game against the Toronto Blue Jays, because we weren’t there. What we heard was that prior to the game, Boston Red Sox players voted unanimously not to play the game or board a plane to Japan for scheduled exhibition games against Japanese teams and two regular season games against the Oakland A’s, unless the team’s coaches were compensated for the trip.

Continue reading "An attack of the 'warm and fuzzies' ..."

The Red Sox and Yankees would battle for first place, Toronto Blue Jays would finish in the middle of the pack, the Orioles would be afterthoughts and the only question with Tampa Bay was whether they would lose more than 100 games or not. This seasons looks like it could be entirely different and the division is experiencing more depth than it has since the mid 1990's when Boston, New York and Baltimore were all contenders.

Continue reading "American League East is a Beast of a Division"