The Jays are 7-2 in their last 9, and on a roll. They trounced those dastardly Yankees last night, and tonight face the even dastardlier Red Soxs. Marcum takes the bump against Paul Byrd, followed by Litsch/Lester and AJ/Dice-K.
If the Jays can sweep, then things get sort of interesting.
The Jays are seven back of the Red Sox for the wild card, and have the benefit of playing ten more games against them. They're already 6-2 against them on the year, the most success they've had against any one team they've played more than four games against (they are 4-0 and 3-0 against the other Sox and Twins, respectively). The Jays toughest opponent this year? You should be able to figure it out - they lead the AL East, and the Jays are 3-9 against them. Well, and they are 1-6 against the Cleve as well.
Jose Bautista! Take it away Richard Griffin! Well, it's a pretty reasonable take, really. Bautista has 12 home runs this year in some 320 at bats; Scoots, X-Factor, Johnny Mac and Voodoo Joe have 8 in 1,001. Not so great.
Cliff Lee won again last night, and it's hard to imagine he doesn't have this Cy Young business locked up. He and Halladay have been roughly as valuable, with Lee's slightly better performance offset by Halladay's increased workload. Halladay leads in terms of PRC, 114-113. Hard to fault the writers for eventually giving it to Lee - his numbers are pretty shiny, and really he isn't such a bad choice.
Speaking of winning award, Grady Sizemore had 7 RBI last night, and would be a legit MVP candidate if the writers gave awards to guys who had teams that didn't win a bunch of games Sizemore is hitting .272/.384/.530 and is 31/34 stealing bases while playing CF. He leads the AL in RC. But hey, I'm sure Carlos Quentin is a much more deserving choice. The defensive spectrum, meh!
Instant replay is here. The linked article has a headline indicating that game lengths are going to increase, and then the piece contains several quote from players explaining how they don't think the length of games will increase. Apparently on disputed home run calls up to three umps will go off the field to a monitor to determine what happened, then come back and give a ruling. Why they just wouldn't have some people in New York watching on TV and calling is beyond me, or they could show it on the scoreboard on somesuch. I guess it's important that they get it right though. No word yet on whether Lou Pinella will get irate and throw a tv monitor on a disputed homer getting overturned...
The Jays have the same run differential as the Angels, +58. Playoff berth, please!
Thhhhaaaaatttt's all, folks.
If the Jays can sweep, then things get sort of interesting.
The Jays are seven back of the Red Sox for the wild card, and have the benefit of playing ten more games against them. They're already 6-2 against them on the year, the most success they've had against any one team they've played more than four games against (they are 4-0 and 3-0 against the other Sox and Twins, respectively). The Jays toughest opponent this year? You should be able to figure it out - they lead the AL East, and the Jays are 3-9 against them. Well, and they are 1-6 against the Cleve as well.
Jose Bautista! Take it away Richard Griffin! Well, it's a pretty reasonable take, really. Bautista has 12 home runs this year in some 320 at bats; Scoots, X-Factor, Johnny Mac and Voodoo Joe have 8 in 1,001. Not so great.
Cliff Lee won again last night, and it's hard to imagine he doesn't have this Cy Young business locked up. He and Halladay have been roughly as valuable, with Lee's slightly better performance offset by Halladay's increased workload. Halladay leads in terms of PRC, 114-113. Hard to fault the writers for eventually giving it to Lee - his numbers are pretty shiny, and really he isn't such a bad choice.
Speaking of winning award, Grady Sizemore had 7 RBI last night, and would be a legit MVP candidate if the writers gave awards to guys who had teams that didn't win a bunch of games Sizemore is hitting .272/.384/.530 and is 31/34 stealing bases while playing CF. He leads the AL in RC. But hey, I'm sure Carlos Quentin is a much more deserving choice. The defensive spectrum, meh!
Instant replay is here. The linked article has a headline indicating that game lengths are going to increase, and then the piece contains several quote from players explaining how they don't think the length of games will increase. Apparently on disputed home run calls up to three umps will go off the field to a monitor to determine what happened, then come back and give a ruling. Why they just wouldn't have some people in New York watching on TV and calling is beyond me, or they could show it on the scoreboard on somesuch. I guess it's important that they get it right though. No word yet on whether Lou Pinella will get irate and throw a tv monitor on a disputed homer getting overturned...
The Jays have the same run differential as the Angels, +58. Playoff berth, please!
Thhhhaaaaatttt's all, folks.
