Well, 8 not so good games in and the Jays are 3-5, 2 games out of first, 1 game behind the Yankees who are missing many of their top players.  ugh.

Fister vs Johnson today.  Fister has been good his last 5 vs Toronto - 3.77 ERA 6 BB vs 23 K in 28 2/3 IP.  Johnson has never faced Detroit.  Fister has a 115 ERA+ lifetime, but 138 and 122 the past 2 years - Trivia: Detroit acquired him as part of a trade that involved new Jay Casper Wells. 

FYI: If the season was over today... boy that would be a short season.

Boston-KC-Oakland lead the divisions.  Texas leads the wildcard while 4 teams are tied for the 2nd wild card (4-4 record).  Jays just 1 back.  IE: far, far, far too early to panic.

8 games in, and JA Happ is the only starter with a win. Adam Lind is tied for second on the team in stolen bases.

Meanwhile, Mark DeRosa has already exceeded his home run total for the past two years, which is a nice sign his wrist may finally be better. He may turn out to be a solid pickup after all, even beyond Veteran Clubhouse Leader.

The Jays are 2-0 when Buehrle gives up 6 runs.

Hey, Buehrle pitches to the score don't ya know.

If Steve Delabar doesn't have a meltdown, Buehrle's only credited with 3 runs, not 6. Even with the 6 runs accredited to him, I think this was a better pitched game - just not that lucky.

I thought that the Jays caught a fair bit of good luck yesterday.  Hard hit balls ricocheting favorably at least twice.  Bloopers.  Generous strike-zone calls.  They hadn't had much luck previously. 

From the few innings I saw, the Tigers twice just missed dingers with men on. V-Mart almost hit one out with two on in the sixth. Ditto Avila with one on in the seventh.

Detroit has a very good lineup. Would love to see the Jays get out of town with a series win.

I missed the Ricky Romero report.  John Lott seems to be the best of the beat reporters.  Too bad he writes for the Post.

Lott as best beat writer on the Jays - seconded.

When Gibbons was hired, I remember someone comparing his style to Earl Weaver. He has platooned, which is a good thing, despite buffoon Zaun's disagreement.

However, Weaver hated bunting. I liked Earl Weaver. We are one of only 3 teams (Yankees and Astros the others) without either a bunt hit or sacrifice. Unfortunately, it hasn't been for lack of trying.

Game 1 - Rasmus bunts foul. PA ends in a K.
Game 2 - Boni bunts foul. PA ends in a K.
Game 3 - Boni bunts into a groundout.
Game 4 - Boni bunts foul. PA ends in a K.
- Rajai bunts foul twice. This is with a man on 2nd and no outs. Guess how that PA ended up. You betcha. Another K.
- Boni bunts foul. PA ends in a K.
Games 5 and 6 had no bunt attempts for whatever reason.
Game 7 - Davis bunts foul. PA ends in a K.
- Reyes pops out on a bunt attempt.
Game 8 - Boni bunts foul. PA ends in a K.

It's almost laughable how pathetic the results of this strategy have been. 2 bunt outs and the 7 other PA's ending in a K at least partially due to bunt attempts putting our hitters behind in the count.

At some point in the future someone on our team will lay one down successfully and I will get to listen to Buck and/or Pat explain what a great idea it was to bunt. I will try to just shake my head rather than throwing the remote at the TV.

Add me to the camp that thinks Lott is a cut above. The weird thing is that he is not very visible ... all of the other baseball writers have regular radio gigs or at least make regular appearances on Bell/Rogers. Lott seems to be an exception.

I wish he did a weekly podcast or roundtable or something.

Why does it make any difference which paper your favourite beat writer works for? Surely you can put politics aside when scouring for links online.

Great post hypobole. I wish someone would show that to Gibbons.

A friend works in sports at the Post and she once mentioned that Lott lives surprisingly far from Toronto, I think it may have been Orillia. He may just come in for the games and not stick around in town to do things like radio.

Why does it make any difference which paper your favourite beat writer works for? Surely you can put politics aside when scouring for links online.

Couldn't agree more. No valid point served by a gratuitous shot at the National Post.

Post from out East.  Don't see anywhere (here, twitter, Jays site) about weather delays today, how does it look?

What I admire about Lott is that he's an old-fashioned beat reporter whose beat is the Jays, and he covers that beat as thoroughly as a 1950s crime reporter will cover the cop shop. He covers everything: he doesn't just pick and choose the "important series" or the "big baseball issue" -- he does all the news on the Jays, he tweets everything that happens, he takes photos, he follows the minor-league affiliates, he analyzes every personnel move, he provides good data for his conclusions, his analytical features are excellent, and he writes features on every key player. And he digs up news, whether it's the status of Romero in Dunedin or any other piece of emerging news. He's not splashy or glitzy, but he covers his beat better than anyone.

Why does it make any difference which paper your favourite beat writer works for? Surely you can put politics aside when scouring for links online.

Couldn't agree more. No valid point served by a gratuitous shot at the National Post.

A little standoffish, are we? I didn't read this as a shot at all. I assume Mike subscribes to a different paper and has to go out of his way for Lott's writing. This wouldn't have been considered a jibe in the days before everything was available for free online, and even though times have changed people tend to stick to their habits. Even though I don't subscribe, I'll pick up a Globe every now and then. I wouldn't buy a Post just to read Lott. It would be better, for me anyway, if he wrote for the Globe.

Well, the Jays aren't wasting any time in reverting to their old ways. Not pretty.

I bet the Jays will be really glad to get outta Dodge. Bad enough the weather but wow.... today is not a rousing start unless you're a Tiger fan.

I don't know if Pete Walker is or will be a good pitching coach or a bad pitching coach, but I already don't like Pete Walker.

Not exactly Pete Walker's fault that JJ is only throwing 89 mph fastballs.

I'm thinking AA can see into the future, but only one week or so and it's sort of fuzzy. He could see the fact that our starting pitching would suck and that we'd need some extra help, so he made sure to have this 8-man bullpen.

Regardless of the truth I'm pretty happy we have this Gonzales guy to eat some innings today. From the sounds of it a bunch of guys in the bullpen are limited and not available to pitch.

On a tangential note (re: Lott): I think the old model of "sticking to your paper" may be coming back. Obviously we can read pretty much anyone for free these days, but the internet is sort of a wasteland that's hard to navigate. The idea of having my chosen publications delivered in a neat package is attractive, and seems to be gaining momentum with the popularity of tablets. The success of companies like Netflix shows that people will pay for quality and convenience, even when content is simultaneously available for free.

Ideally one could build a custom package that includes, for example, John Lott's baseball coverage along with other content from different papers, though I'm not particularly optimistic about the publications working together to make this possible.

On the other hand, I haven't actually put this into practice. I'm a theoretical technophile and a practical luddite. I don't own a tablet, my computer's getting on in years, and my phone is a Chinese brand Blackberry knockoff running a 4-or-5-versions-old Android OS. So take anything I say about technology with a grain of salt.

(And on another tangential note (i.e. tangential to the current tangent), has anyone else been reading Grantland? It's quickly become my favourite destination for sportswriting, in the way that when something major happens in sports I'll go there to get "Grantland's take". I think this is different from the early internet, when bloggers stood alone and readers would be loyal to that specific person. By contrast, Bill Simmons seems to have assembled a fantastic team of writers, most of whom I'd never heard of before reading the site, and they have great coverage of all the major sports as well as TV and movies and other pop culture-y stuff. This, to me, is more of a newspaper-style publication (actually, I guess, more of a magazine) with a specific focus and direction and a talented writing staff, and I would gladly pay for a subscription if I was forced to.)

There are a lot of guys out there in a Jays uniform this afternoon that look like they want no part in today's game.

Yes I read Grantland quite a bit. Their NFL coverage is excellent, as is their NBA coverage. Jonah Keri I know writes over there now.

I hope this season starts looking better, I don't think anything AA did was wrong, but there was a possibility of all the worst outcomes happening and it could end up costing us dearly if things don't work out.

Agree with everyone else on John Lott. He used to be on the Blue Jays e-mail group chat list, back in the day when that's how we communicated on the Interwebs, and had his own Jays website for a while if I recall _ True Blue or something like that? Anyway, has a great understanding of the game and it was always good to read both his site and his posts. Started freelancing for the Post when Tubby Black invented it, then caught on fulltime. Wouldn't be surprised if he were a Box reader as well. You out there John? Correct me if I've misremembered your path to glory!

Forgot to ask - got into today's game late - why was Johnson pulled? Just because he sucked, or was it an injury?

Generally agree on Lott.  I think he might have been one of the early beat writers to venture to the minor league affiliates when the big club was in the neighbourhood. 

Johnson was pulled because he wasn't pitching too well.  His velocity was down (likely weather induced).  Gibbons likely saw he was off and saw no point in keeping him out there against that lineup and in those conditions. 

One interesting way to compare the two teams is to run down the live boxscore and compare the OBP of the starters on the two teams. Apart from Reyes and Cabrera, the highest OBP on the Jays belongs to Arencibia (.314). They have four sub-.300 OBP players. The Tigers have five players at .400 or above.

Hacking versus patience.

"Not exactly Pete Walker's fault that JJ is only throwing 89 mph fastballs."

If it's arm strength, not Walkers fault. If it's mechanics????

I'm not saying it's rational, but the way Johnson, Dickey, Morrow and Buehrle have started the season, combined with the late decision to alter Romero's delivery, I'm getting less optimistic the staff will be anywhere close to being as effective as I (and many others) believed. This starting staff shouldn't have the worst ERA in the majors, but they do.

I wonder if Johnson, having spent his whole career in Florida, just isn't used to pitching in cold weather.

On a casual inspection of his game logs: Last year he had an Apr. 11 start in Philadelphia, and got shelled. In 2010, he started Apr 5 in New York and was awful. In 2009, he started Apr 18 in Washington and got hit around.

I'm not willing to look up temperature & weather reports, because I just don't care that much. But it's an amusing idea.

Johnson was pulled because he completely sucked. The guy we all saw in Spring Training was nowhere to be found again. Not just ineffective, the stuff wasn't there.

It's normally too early to panic, but the stark and pervasive awfulness of (a) our starting pitching and (b) our defense is about to put us out of this thing before we're ever in it.

This team really knows how to get its butt kicked.

Cold weather typically suppresses scoring and this has certainly not been a favourable spring, climate-wise, for hitters. Yet, the AL/NL RPG (per team) averages this year are 4.7/4.3, compared to just 4.5/4.2 for all of 2012.

One wonders what fresh hell, for pitchers, the warm weather will bring.

Remember when we all thought this was going to be a really good team?  That was a fun couple of months.

It's normally too early to panic, but the stark and pervasive awfulness of (a) our starting pitching and (b) our defense is about to put us out of this thing before we're ever in it.

It's a long season. It's much too early for the Chicken Little talk.

On June 10, 2012, the Oakland A's were 26-35. They would go on to eventually win 94 games. Yes, this was highly improbably and no, such an unlikely turnaround is not necessarily something the Jays, or anyone, can count on. But it is a stark reminder of how dramatically things can change.

The Jays may well turn out to be a huge disappointment this season, but a lousy 9-game run can't be held up as terribly predictive.

I vaguely remember several years back either Gibbons or Tosca stating that a good target to aim for is 15 or 16 wins a month (90-96 wins).  Keeping that in perspective allows you to not get TOO worried about a 3-6 start.  The Jays have 27 games in April, so 12-6 the rest of the way seems doable.

However, an April & May with 12 wins each, then means a couple of 18-20 win months may be needed.  This can slowly lead to holding bats a bit tighter, spinning pitches into the dirt...

Just something to keep in mind!

A little standoffish, are we? I didn't read this as a shot at all. I assume Mike subscribes to a different paper and has to go out of his way for Lott's writing. This wouldn't have been considered a jibe in the days before everything was available for free online, and even though times have changed people tend to stick to their habits. Even though I don't subscribe, I'll pick up a Globe every now and then. I wouldn't buy a Post just to read Lott. It would be better, for me anyway, if he wrote for the Globe.

Exactly right, Dave.  One of my great pleasures is the Saturday morning Globe.  It's a Conservative paper, but has many columnists I enjoy (Jeffrey Simpson, Doug Saunders, Joanna Schneller, Elizabeth Renzetti...).  It would be great if Lott's writing was in my Saturday morning sports section.  I know that it's only a newspaper, but I like it, yes I do.

Two comments on today's game.  Josh Johnson was mostly in the high 80s and down in the strike zone today.  He's got to be able to throw up and in sometimes to succeed.  Rajai Davis looked worse in the outfield than I remember.  With his looping throws and average range, he is not much of a defensive right fielder (and not really much of a hitter against a RHP). 

Cold weather typically suppresses scoring and this has certainly not been a favourable spring, climate-wise, for hitters. Yet, the AL/NL RPG (per team) averages this year are 4.7/4.3, compared to just 4.5/4.2 for all of 2012.

One wonders what fresh hell, for pitchers, the warm weather will bring.

I was wondering about that too.  First few days of the season were low scoring, but the last week has really seen the numbers balloon - and that's with pretty cold weather in the north/northeast.  Might be in for more hitting than we've seen the last few years.

When Casper Wells joins this Team in Kansas City, who goes down/DFA? Edgar Gonzales was going to be tthe Pitcher to be DFA'd, but he's pitched very well. First appearance was 0.2 IP successfully. This last one: 0.2 IP in 2nd inning - giving up nothing; 1.0 IP in 3rd inning - giving up nothing; 1.0 IP in 4th inning - struggled a bit, but gave up nothing; faced two batters in 5th inning giving up a BB and a hitter before being pulled - someone else let those runs score. He has pitched well. Steve Delabar has had issues lately. Esmil Rogers has had issues lately, but out of options. Who goes?

I've met John Lott, he's a good man. He's not solely a National Post reporter, nor does he only cover the Jays/baseball. He also teaches journalism classes at George Brown. Not everyone has, nor wants, the multi-platform lifestyle that the Blairs and Griffins apparently enjoy.

Man, the Jays have looked horrible.

I'm not worried about JJ. I was at that game sitting behind home plate. It was 3 degrees and 35 kph winds with constant rain or drizzle. I had winter gloves on and my fingers were freezing! I had a hard time picking through my money to buy a beer so I can't imagine how hard it would have been for pitchers with bare hands to grip a baseball. I'm going to chalk this one up to the weather.
On a side, I don't think they had any business playing in this stuff yesterday. The game should've been called.

Watching at home it seemed to be particularly bad conditions in the Blue Jays first inning just when Johnson's turn came up to pitch. The drizzle Timpinder describes turned into a raw pelting snow/sleet squall. I thought given the 1.6 C temp. at the start of the game they would almost certainly call the game. Given that it was get away day the umpires persevered. I noticed while most of the Jay's bench players and coaches cowered under the dug-out overhang, Gibby stood at the top step getting soaked like the rest of the starting nine.

The downpour appeared to mainly dissipate by the time Fister who was warm and dry in the Tigers dugout came out to pitch in the second inning. When Johnson's turn came up again in the second you could tell he was soaked and frozen to the core. His velocity dipped below 90 and he seemed to have trouble gripping the ball. It was just bad timing for Johnson, I think he needs a Mulligan given the frigid circumstances. 

I'm gonna get yelled at...

While obviously disappointed at our start (or lack of a real start) - I'm not really concerned at all. In fact, there is no one to blame - more or less everyone is to blame. All four starters (exception being Happ) have stunk. No one person - or small cabal of culprits is responsible for this debacle. On offense (Reyes excused from detention) there has been little to get too excited about and defense has been mostly offensive.

All in all - this is good news. There are too many good pitchers and players for this to continue. When they start to put it back together - and they will (hopefully before the end of the month) they'll build a real team spirit and come roaring back. Playoffs here we come.

With apologies to my beloved Ti-Cats: "Oskee wee wee, Oskee wa wa, Lets go Blue Jays, Eat em raw raw!

"I noticed while most of the Jay's bench players and coaches cowered under the dug-out overhang, Gibby stood at the top step getting soaked like the rest of the starting nine."

That's awesome. I've really liked what we've seen from Gibbons thus far. I can't think of instances where I've disagreed with his management other than his timing of Buehrle's pull in his first start and the IBB issued to Fielder with first base open (Delabar, with reverse splits, walked the next 2) in the Jays 8-6 comeback win.

Maybe the Jay's defense should try this more often:

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/baseball/mlb/story/2013/04/12/sp-mlb-kelly-hidden-ball-trick.html