Burres Gets Hit So Hard It Knocks Him Back to the Minors, Jays Lose

Jays 6 Royals 8

How come the only people that thought using Brian Burres as a starter was a good idea worked for the Jays? The good news is that Burres and Bryan Bullington were sent back to the Minors after the game. Maybe there is a God, or at least intelligent life in the Jay's front office. 

Anyway the game....I don't really want to talk about it....but Burres was awful for the 2 innings plus he was out there for, giving up 5 hits, 6 runs, 4 earned and a walk to bring his ERA to a wonderful 14.21. Isn't there some baseball saying about an ERA bigger than your shoe size being bad luck? Bullington wasn't much better in relief. League and Carlson did well over the last 3 innings but by then it was a little late. 

Offensively? Well we did get back into the game late and likely would have done better but we hit into 6 (!) double plays. 6 double plays! One each by 6 different players. Tying a league record. The scary part is we could have done worse. We hit into a double play in each of the first 4 innings.

There were some good offensive performances, like someone in the game thread said 'you need lots of base runners to have 6 double plays. We took 6 walks and had 11 hits, including a leadoff homer by Marco Scutaro and a 2 run shot by Adam Lind. Everyone in the lineup got on base at least twice except Jose Bautista who got on once.

Jay of the Day is Adam Lind (.095 WPA). Honorable mention to Kevin Millar and Scoot for that leadoff homer. How many of you guessed that Marco Scutaro and Aaron Hill would be tied for the team lead in homers at the end of April. Put down your hands, you liars. Suckage Jays? Let's all say it together Brian Burres (-.395 WPA, please, please JP, I don't care what happens from here on out, do not call this man up again), Jose Bautista (-.168) and Hill (.101) get Hinskes.

Beyond that, I'm sorry, I know Cito is like everyone's favorite manager, and I'll admit he is growing on me, but his idea that we can't pinch hit is an idiot idea. Think about this, 8th inning, the team has worked their way back from down by 6 to where they have a runner on and the tying run at the plate. Bautista up, ok, you want to give Rolen the whole day off, let him bat against the righty. I don't like it but ok. But after he strikes out, Raul Chavez is up.

Chavez is a good defensive catcher, but he hits, well he hits like Johnny Mac. On our bench is Lyle Overbay, and he is swinging the bat so well of late. 99 managers out of 100 would pinch hit there. In fact likely 100 out of 100, unless the 100th is our Cito. But Cito is still posing for that statue that they are going to put outside of Skydome. I really really don't understand how you can be philosophically opposed to pinch hitting and be a manager in the majors. It doesn't make sense to me. You won't do it because it might hurt Raul Chavez's feelings? Chavez knows he isn't here because of his bat.

Anyway, let's not get too upset by one loss, because if anyone told you we'd be 15-9 at the end of April you'd have been happy. Currently we are half a game behind the Red Sox for first but the Sox are down 6-0 to the Rays at the moment (Beckett looks terrible), so odds are we will be going into May tied for first. I thought we were optimistic here at BBB but I thought we might start slow and build as the season went on. But this is terrific.

Better news, we won't have to suffer thru another Brian Burres start. I'm sure street cleaners outside Hugo's office building are happy too, he won't be making the big jump. Not sure who the Jays are bringing up, but it can't get no worse than Burres has been. You'd have to think Accardo will come up for Bullington.