TDIB 23 May 2008

Friday, May 23 2008 @ 05:09 AM EDT

Ho hum. The Jays show what they can do with a couple of timely hits and pull out the finale against the Angels, 4-3. The Jays allowed only 10 runs during the three game set, but of course its the Jays so they scored only 7 and won just once.

The Jays are in fact the second lowest scoring team in the AL at the moment, averaging 3.78 runs a game (the Royals are worst, at 3.77). Anyway, enough of that. Lyle Overbay was the hero tonight, cranking a no doubter into the right field stands to give the Jays a 4-3 lead they would not relinquish. Over his last 16 games Overbay has is hitting .315 with 7 doubles and 2 home runs; he's also drawn 9 walks. That Overbay is seemingly better after struggling for a long time with the after effects of his broken hand from last year is a big plus.

Elsewhere:

• The White Sox win their 8th straight. I thought they would do poorly (and I know Magpie has struggled in Soxology as well) so go figure.
  
• MLB is thinking about instituting instant replay in the Arizona Fall League as a precursor to using it in the bigs next season. It seems about time at this point, and has been said elsewhere, in the time it takes the Umps to huddle and make the call, video replay would solve the problem. Baseball is still about 20 years behind football in most things, as with this...
• There is also going to be more of a concerted effort to speed up baseball games, with umpires calling pitchers on the 12 second rule, batters not being allowed to lollygag outside the box, etc. Of course if they were really serious about this they would limit mid inning pitching changes, have umpires not grant 5 requests for time an at bat, and perhaps even limit throws to first. Of course that would involve actually doing something proactively, so fat chance of that.
  
• JOBA will make his debut as a starter soon - he's being stretched out. Makes sense I suppose - there is only so much value in 60 reasonably high leverage 8th innings, and all this 'bridging' the gap to the 9th inning stuff is overrated. Also, Joba conveniently will only pitch 180 or so innings (at a guess) maximum, as to avoid overworking him.
• It's unclear when David Eckstein will be back - he suffered a setback on Monday, and didn't play Tuesday or Wednesday.He is, however, eligible to come off the DL.

46 comments

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20080523050927461