And August / I'm On Your Side / Or Did I Speak Too Soon? / Now We've Crossed the Great Divide

by hugo on Aug 13, 2008 7:15 AM EDT in News Comment 9 comments

Hope you all got to see the game yesterday, that was a beaut. Today's title is from August, by Rilo Kiley, which is a great tune.

So, if the Jays were playing to their Pythagorean record, they'd be 64-55 and right in the wild-card race. What is sort of funny, though, is that the Jays' hitting this month (so far) is actually the worst of any month. In August so far, the Jays are .254/.317/.358 which is truly pathetic and over 20 OPS points worse than May, their worst month at the plate. At the beginning of the season, at least they were getting on base about 34% of the time, but that's now way down (.320 OBP in the month of July before their .317 thusfar this month). Ironically, can you guess the Jays' worst offensive position? If you guessed DH, you are right. It's true, Jays' DHes have a pathetic .222/.321/.362 line, worse than any other position. When the Jays aren't getting great production out of any position, having what is supposed to be a hitting specialist post by far the worst line of the team is just killing them.

For a more fun stat, the Jays' bullpen is holding the opposition to a Royce Clayton-esque .194/.286/.261 line since the All-Star break. Woohoo!

I was watching the Tigers' feed yesterday, but according to those watching the Jays' feed on Rogers, it was confirmed by Jamie Campbell that Aaron Hill is done for the season. Hill just hasn't been able to shake the post-concussion symptoms following his May 29 collision with David Eckstein. This is such a sad story and I just hope that some rest over the off-season is what Hill needs to get back to playing baseball. According to an article in yesterday's Star, the Jays are also close to shutting down Accardo for the season, though he is also ready to start a rehab assignment.

So, we were talking yesterday about possibly making a run at signing Manny Ramirez in the offseason. Funny story about Manny yesterday, he didn't show up to left-field for the 9th inning.

Having Vernon back in centerfield everyday makes a huge difference. If Rios could just start hitting, we'd actually have a good outfield.

In other fun news, Travis Snider homered and doubled yesterday for Syracuse. Brett Cecil had a little bit of a tough day (4 IP, 3 ER), he did strike out 5 in 4 innings though.

Hope everyone enjoys their day, I've got a softball game after work but will be around later on.

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I hadn't realized how poor we've been offensively this month

Figured with the four game win streak and this couple of games we must be doing ok. I had been noticing the lack of extra base hits though. Everyone is quick to credit Cito when we do have a good game,

Stairs…..he’s been shades of awful all year and Cito keeps him in the middle of the order. Bugs the tar out of me. I would think ownership, at some point, would say to JP ‘you got rid of one DH, find us a new one’. I’m amazed JP wouldn’t think of it on his own. His job has gotta be on the line…how hard would it be to find a DH?

by Tom Dakers on Aug 13, 2008 10:52 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

the thing that irks me the most

is that at different times, different phases of our game can excel while everything else goes down the crapper… was it like 2 or 3 years ago that our offense was 2nd in the league or something? in the beginning of this year, we get some really good starting pitching (except for the occasional Mcgowan or Burnett outing) and now our bullpen is working flawlessly… we have all this dominance in separate phases of the game but we can never get them all going at once…

On another note, I’ve got to admit that Cito really surprises me sometimes… keeping Doc out on 130 pitches and letting Burnett stay in that game yesterday?? At first I thought maybe it’s because we got so used to Gibby’s style of managing, but now I’m convinced that Cito has gone crazy…. especially his lineups sometimes…

Enough ranting for now… gotta get back to work

by hopelessjaysfan on Aug 13, 2008 1:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Cito has always been like this.

If you listen to him talk, the phrase showing faith comes up a lot. But to me, it does more for a pitcher’s confidence if you pull him before he gets beat around some. Then again it bought AJ a win yesterday. Getting over 15 wins will be worth a lot of money to AJ in the off season.

Get used to it….Cito isn’t going to change.

by Tom Dakers on Aug 13, 2008 4:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

that's the irony

a win like yesterday’s does little for the Jays, other than making it that much tougher to resign Burnett.

"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman

by hugo on Aug 13, 2008 4:44 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Yeah but it was so fun to watch......

Is one of those stupid thing….Cito is really interested in getting wins for a pitch. I would rather a manager that could care less, just wants the team to win. But Cito, and he may be right, thinks those things help the players play better in the long run. I tend to thing that leaving a pitcher out there when he is tiring makes it more likely he’ll be injured and, of course, will cost your team wins. We have an amazing bullpen and most of the pitchers in it are not being over worked, so why not a quick ho

by Tom Dakers on Aug 13, 2008 4:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

yeah.....

Cito feels that giving the pitcher a chance to win will make him feel better about himself, and therefore make him a better pitcher. I think it is fair more likely that he’ll end up with an injury, pitching after his arm is tired. And I would much rather a manager that is more interested in the team winning than the starter winning. It would have been much easier to come back if they had pulled AJ when it was obvious he was tired. We have a great pen and there are good pitchers in it that are not being over used.

But, like I said get used to it. This is how Cito manages. When he had the great teams, in the world series years, it worked. Sure, occasionally he’d lose us a game leaving in a guy to long, but they were so good, that it didn’t hurt too much. And ,maybe, they did play harder or better for him because he showed faith in them. But when those teams aged he couldn’t change his style to reflect the changed team.

I wish there was a compromise, Gibby didn’t show any faith in Lind when he was first called up, I think in that case, give a guy a chance. Cito never used Shawn Green….he liked the players that he had won with. The funny thing about showing faith in player A….player B sits on the bench.

by Tom Dakers on Aug 13, 2008 5:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Could help the team too

since wins and wpct figure into the elias rankings, apparently.

"He almost has to start. Do you believe in miracles?"

by Torgen on Aug 13, 2008 5:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

interesting

I didn’t know that

"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman

by hugo on Aug 13, 2008 10:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I like

J.P.’s strategy of building the team around pitching and defense, but that just makes it more glaring that we’ve gotten such terrible production out of our DH spot. If you’re going to sacrifice offense for defense at the important defensive positions, you’ve got to get offense at the positions where defense isn’t important (or DH, where it doesn’t exist). Since it’s unlikely that Snider will be up before mid next year, I think this is really an area where J.P. must act this offseason. Stairs is a decent bat off the bench but he’s not getting it done as everyday DH.

"Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our closed rooms... The game of ball is glorious." - Walt Whitman

by hugo on Aug 13, 2008 3:37 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs