Is there anything good to say about this? Barajas hit a solo homer. League pitched an inning and third, coming in with the bases loaded to face Vlady and got him to ground out. Course that was after a wild that brought in a run. I thought it should have been a passed ball, Rod swiped at it instead of moving his body and with a 0-2 count against Vlady the pitch was and should have been in the dirt. Rod should have been ready for it. The bad? Well being 0 for 6 with RISP is a good start. Not being able to score Wells from 3 third with no one out in the second inning when a run might have given them some momentum. That was to go down as one of the most pathetic moments of a very bad season. Vernon doubles and gets to third on a wild pitch. Then Overbay strikes out, Overbay who is underpowered for a firstbaseman but is supposed to have a good batting average and isn't supposed to strike out much. Then the former 'Greatest Jay Ever' strikes out. And Zaun, DHing grounds out. Also bad, Litsch got hit hard, early and often. Rios has a major league brain cramp at second, running on an easy line out to left, the left fielder didn't have to move to catch the ball and Rios gets doubled off. Among all our other problems, we must lead the league in stupid baserunning mistakes. The Fangraph for those that care.....
So as you can see it starts badly, has a good moment when Wells doubles, then just basically goes to crap. Jays of the Day....well there wasn't one. Suckage player of the day Litsch at -.213, leading crappy batter Rios at -.070 but then Rolen, Inglett, Zaun, and Overbay were below -.050. I think it's interesting that Zaun DHed, Cito seems to have lost faith in Stairs, can you blame him? Cito's magic at getting the offense going has died. It is kind of reassuring that he wasn't able to turn the offense around, because I have never believed a manager could make a big difference in offensive output. If he could it would be like saying the Jays didn't want to win for Gibby and I hate the idea that players won't work for their paycheck if they don't feel like it. I'd like to think the managers influence is far subtler than that. Anyway, now I think they have to fire JP, the team he put together just can't win and he's been here long enough that if he could build us a winning team we would have seen it by now. He's made enough big money mistakes and he's lied enough that he really should go. Oh well, more on that later, I am sure. In the real news Doc is going to the All-Star Game. Guess that isn't a surprise to anyone. A good choice. Off day tomorrow for our boys, we need to sweep our last 6 before the break to get to .500, I'd say the odds on that aren't quite one in a million so I don't see it happening. Everyone knows 1 in a million things always happen. Hopefully AJ will be moved by then.