ST: Toronto Blue Jays vs Tampa Bay Rays (April 17 - 19)

[BigLeagueChew]

Every half inning with Frasor pitching takes about 30-45 minutes

[Brinbe]

This ****'s over.

[JMH]

well a 9-3 spanking is fun

[jrsmith]

Abused by the rays, ouch. Humiliating series.

[spykelee]

D'oh, lost a series at home to B-more, and then lost to Tampa... I thought with us losing to baltimore, we where finally going to win against Tampa... who are we supposed to beat up on this year? yankees perhaps?

[Waylon Mercy]

Ive turned off the game early twice the last 2 days

[jrsmith]

What's with Rodney's hat? He looks like a moron.

[Leolovinliberal]

Off note: id' never have thought at a given moment that Baltimore would be sitting atop the AL East standings

I made my bet one year too early.

[Yosemite Dan]

D'oh, lost a series at home to B-more, and then lost to Tampa... I thought with us losing to baltimore, we where finally going to win against Tampa... who are we supposed to beat up on this year? yankees perhaps?

Season is going as planned. Were a .500 team and we are playing like it. TB showed us the last 2 days they are a vastly superior team than us and we sure aren't better than the Yanks so lets just enjoy another 83 win season......again.

[SmoothTofu]

Oh how you troll us Arencibia...

[tsherkin]

All-right. "This mindset baffles me" is a platitude of the first water.

Is that clear enough for you?

I question the validity of calling that phrase a platitude; it doesn't purport to be original or ground-breaking, it's merely a direct description. I suppose he could have said "this attitude confuses me," but they are the same thing. It's no more a platitude than the aforementioned phrase. There's no implication of the profound, so it's really not a platitude.


ANYway...

This game... sucked. Hendo got destroyed with the long ball and we couldn't get the big inning, and then we loaded the bases and SUCKED in the 9th. 13 runners LOB was a killer here, and then of course giving up more runs in the top of the 9th. Crawford was awful this outing; no judgement about him going forward, but in this specific game, he came in and stank it up.

I liked Alvarez's fielding, and the movement on his fastball is sick; that downward and arm-side break at 94+ mph is just nasty.

And of course, Adam Lind played some rough ball as a fielder. The foul, that grounder... Bleh.

Also, WTF? How in the Hell was that Bautista's error? He threw a laser to the plate and JPA screwed it up. I like that JPA is starting to get some hits, but man, every time I watch Napoli play, I wonder WTF we're doing... He did have a good game at the plate, but man...

As per usual, Lind delivers his usual effort in the clutch.

Schad, I knew you'd contest.
He basically invented the modern bullpen.
Plus I hear he prefers brandy.

I think the point is valid, though; whether or not he invented the modern bullpen isn't reflective of whether it remains effective. Closers get paid an obscene amount of money for a minimal amount of in-game work and I think we may be ADDING unnecessary pressure to the closer by calling him that instead of inserting whomever else from the 'pen in there.

It's a contestable point, in any case. Also, it isn't factually correct to say he "invented" the modern bullpen. You could go back to Bruce Sutter, among others, as a specialty reliever and that wasn't on a TLR team. He certainly popularized it and refined it, showed some really clever strategy with it, but he didn't really invent the idea. And I think it would be useful if teams looked at precisely HOW he set up his closer, as I don't think they necessarily approach the usage of relievers quite the same way now, but still.

Through like 4 innings, this was a good game; Hendo got beat around a little early, but he was doing OK. He recovered after the early runs, but the 5th inning just sank us and the offense couldn't get nasty after that. Tampa's really good, that's not news, so it does take the sting out of the loss a little...

But c'mon, we've given up 21 runs and committed 3 errors over the last two games. Our starters have BOTH given up 6 runs in the first 5 or 6 innings in each of the last two games, posting game scores under 40 (39 from Hendo, 31 from Morrow).

C'mon, Drabek! You've got to help us out.

[LittleOzzy]

Still looking for a series thread...

[evilRyu]

Still looking for a series thread...

I'd do it but I'm at work so can't make it pretty. But still time for someone to do it before first pitch

[LLJ]

D'oh, lost a series at home to B-more, and then lost to Tampa... I thought with us losing to baltimore, we where finally going to win against Tampa... who are we supposed to beat up on this year? yankees perhaps?

I had a dream last night where Baltimore won the World Series this year. Woke up really pissed.