The Star
Rainout can’t dampen new Blue Jay’s excitement
Thames, called up on from Triple-A Las Vegas after Adam Lind was retroactively placed on the 15-day disabled list on Monday, had been slated to fill the seven hole as the designated hitter on Tuesday. And given that Wednesday’s opponent, the Rays, are expected to start right-handed pitcher Jeremy Hellickson, there’s a decent chance Thames, a much-needed left-handed bat on a roster short of them, will get an opportunity, sleet or shine, in Toronto’s domed home.
“Any time you bring a young hitter to the big leagues, we’re not bringing him up to sit. We want to get his bat in the lineup,” John Farrell, the Blue Jays manager, said of Thames. “He earned his promotion on his production and his performance, and the fact that we’re obviously heavily right-handed with our lineup.”
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Farrell said that Snider, 23, was passed over in this instance because he is still implementing adjustments to his swing; the club, the manager said, didn’t want to “interrupt (Snider’s) progress” in Triple-A. No matter the explanation, there’s clearly a message in Thames’s promotion.
“The value in all this is how (Snider) responds. He has total control. We don’t think he’s going to take this negatively,” Farrell said. “He’s a very upbeat person. But the only thing they have control over is their actions day to day, their attitude, how they come in and put forth a day’s work — and how he uses this as further motivation.
“Yes, this can be a positive, as long as (Snider is) willing to make it that ... Knowing Travis as we do, I think that’s how he’ll respond to it.”
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“When I tore my quad, it was like, ‘I guess I’m done.’ It was crushing. It was such a big injury, a rare injury for a baseball player. I didn’t know how I would rebound from it,” he said. “I saw the doctor after about a month, and he said I’d get back to full strength. And then I said, ‘Okay, I’ll believe you.’”
Former Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi believed in Thames’s recuperative powers enough to take a chance on him in the seventh round of the 2008 draft.
Jays manager Farrell headed to all-star game
Toronto Blue Jays manager John Farrell will serve as a coach to American League manager Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers at the 2011 all-star game.
Cleveland Indians manager Manny Acta will handle the other American League coaching position at the July 12 game at Chase Field in Phoenix.
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Farrell was a pitching coach at the 2008 all-star game at Yankee Stadium while he was in that role with the Boston Red Sox.
The Globe and Mail
Blue Jays-Tigers rained out
“Eric earned this spot by his performance in Triple-A, but we can also use a lefty in our lineup,” Farrell said.
Thames was hitting .342 in Las Vegas after a strong showing in spring training.
“I pride myself on my hitting, and I work very hard on it,” he said. “I listened to the veterans in spring training, I applied what they told me, and so far, it has been working in my favor.”
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Tuesday, while the rest of the team waited out the rain, setup man Joaquin Benoit lost his job.
Tigers manager Jim Leyland told the media repeatedly before the game that he wasn't going to answer any questions about Benoit's status, but changed his mind a few minutes later.
While recording his pregame radio show with Tigers play-by-play man Dan Dickerson, Leyland confirmed that he was going to take Benoit out of the eighth-inning role. He did not announce a replacement.
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“Obviously, he's struggling,” Leyland said after Benoit lost Monday's game to the Blue Jays. “It's not velocity — his velocity is still good. He's just not able to locate the ball when he throws it.”
Toronto Sun
Finally, Jays have options
The arrival of OF Eric Thames and return of INF Jayson Nix is a boon to Blue Jays manager John Farrell as it gives him more options in his lineup. Unable to use Adam Lind due to his lower back problems the past eight games, the Jays have been playing with 24 players. The addition of Thames will reduce the playing time of Juan Rivera, who has been unproductive. He is mired in a 4-for-37 (.108) skid.
“The fact that Eric is here hasn’t caused us to not keep everyone involved,” Farrell said. “Now we’ve got 12 position players and there will be times where we’ll use a little bit of a rotation through the outfield. It gives us some options and gives another left-handed bat (Thames) that we’ve been needing.”
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Overlooked in the Blue Jays’ 4-2 victory Monday was the fact that when closer Frank Francisco gave up a solo home run to Jhonny Peralta in the ninth inning, it snapped a string of 15 consecutive scoreless innings by the Jays bullpen that spanned the past six games. The bullpen, by the way, leads the major leagues with a .202 opponents’ batting average and leads the American League in both innings pitched (139 1/3) and strikeouts (118).
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LHP Brett Cecil continues to cruise along at triple-A Las Vegas. On Monday he picked up the win over Round Rock, his fourth consecutive win, as he allowed three runs on six hits over six innings. However, there has been no up-tick in his velocity and Farrell seemed less than impressed with the reports.
“Similar type stuff,” Farrell said. “The overall velocity, the execution of pitches was average, I would say. He pitched up in the zone more than he had his previous three starts so that’s still a work in progress.”
In other words, don’t look for him to be back soon.
Thames Jays' new golden boy
It wasn’t quite a ‘The King is dead, long live the King’ scenario, but close.
Arriving on the wet and dreary scene in Motown on Tuesday — hours before the Jays-Tigers game was scrubbed on account of rain — was Eric Thames, the Blue Jays latest golden boy, whom it appears has supplanted former golden boy Travis Snider in the organizational pecking order.
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Manager John Farrell didn’t quite say “Travis who” when asked about Snider while waxing poetic about the abilities and high ceiling that Thames, 24, brings, but it was apparent which player is now the apple of the organization’s eye. He’s the guy with the ‘fro.
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“A very confident hitter, a lot of bat speed, it had a tendency to have a little bit different sound when the ball came off the bat,” Farrell said when asked what he saw from Thames in the spring. “And just the confidence in the box. He’s a pretty advanced hitter even for his relatively short pro experience.”
A seventh-round pick in the 2008 draft, Thames didn’t play in 2008 due to his recovery from surgery to his right quadriceps muscle which he tore while playing in the final series of the 2008 college season with Pepperdine University. Thames would have been a first-round pick but for the injury. He played just 59 games in the Jays organization in 2009, then 130 at double-A New Hampshire in 2010 and the 36 at triple-A Las Vegas this year. That’s it.
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We’re hopeful that his welcome is a long one,” Farrell said. “He’s got an opportunity to impact just how long that is.”
Those were the words that once surrounded Snider.
“Travis is starting to take some of the adjustments that he’s worked with and have been outlined,” Farrell said. “He’s starting to show up in games but it’s not consistent yet and we don’t want to interrupt that progression.
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When pressed about Snider, Farrell said it isn’t a case of the organization giving up on the player and no longer viewing him as a prospect. After all, he is just 23.
“He’s got every opportunity to get back here,” he said. “Travis, we still view him in the same light that we did in the off-season. The fact that he’s had some scuffles here doesn’t deter us from that and we are confident that he’s going to be that player that we view him as.”
Can it be good for Snider to see a player overtake him a bit?
“I think the value in all this is how he responds,” Farrell replied. “He has total control and we don’t think he’s going to take this negatively. How he uses this as further motivation, yes, it can be a positive as long as he’s willing to make it that.”
If you’re Snider, it’s hard to look at it that way.
SS Girl
RGM Girl
That's it guys.Hopefully Thames has a successful debut tonight, I won't be watching it though because I'm seeing Thor for some reason. Have a good one.
