Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss - Game thread, Jays at Pirates

Well, that was drastic. As some have already picked up on in the comments, the Jays cleaned house today, firing John Gibbons, Marty Pevey, Gary Denbo, and Ernie Whitt and replacing them with Cito Gaston, Nick Levya, Gene Tenance, and Dwayne Murphy at Manager, 3rd base coach, hitting coach, and first-base coach, respectively.

Obviously, exchanging Gibbons for Gaston is the biggest move - Cito lead our heroes to two consecutive world series in 1992 and 1993, but hasn't managed in the majors since 1997. As a Newcastle United fan, this move has quite a lot of similarity to Newcastle's canning of Big Sam Allardyce this season and replacing him with Toon legend Kevin Keegan.

I never minded Gibbons, and who knows how the coaches were at their jobs (except for Pevey, who looked lost), but clearly the results were not there. Butterfield and Arnsberg keep their jobs.

Anyway, the Jays play Pittsburgh tonight, and it will be interesting to see how the team responds. They always seemed to like Gibbons pretty well, despite his well-publicized bouts with a few players he seems easy to get along with.

Roy Halladay pitches against Zach Duke tonight. I wish I could watch the game, but I'll be at a pal's birthday party. Happy Birthday, Ben!!!