Hi everyone. Happy Daylight Savings Time.
The Jays take on the Braves again today. The lineup:
Jose Bautista, 3b
Aaron Hill, 2b
Adam Lind, lf
Vernon Wells, cf
Lyle Overbay, 1b
Randy Ruiz, dh
John Buck, c
Alex Gonzalez, ss
Travis Snider, rf
Brandon Morrow starts today for the Jays (3 innings), with Josh Roenicke (2), Shawn Camp (1), Scott Downs (1), Jason Frasor (1), and Kevin Gregg (1) all to follow.
In other news, Dustin McGowan was scheduled to throw his second simulated game this morning. Assuming everything goes well, the plan was to start working him into games next week. But we'll have to see how today goes first.
Alden Gonzalez had an article on lefty rotation hopeful Dana Eveland on bluejays.com today. I thought this bit from Cito was interesting:
"[Eveland's] pitching real well," Gaston said. "We're just going to keep running him out there and hope he continues to pitch like that. If there's no space on this club, he'll certainly be close to go and get it [elsewhere] if he had to. It's just that this is a good spring for us, as far as pitching. We have a lot of good pitchers here this year, and it may just go down to the wire, see who could take those jobs."
As I mentioned this morning in our pitching spring training rundown and Andy Mc pointed out in yesterday's comments while listening to Eveland strike out 4, give up 2 singles (one which should have been caught by Jeremy Reed) and walk no one over his 3 innings, Eveland is out of options. I don't see any way a 26-year old lefty pitcher who has already had some major-league success and who has pitched well this spring clears waivers, so I think the Jays have to find a spot for Eveland or lose him. My guess is that if Eveland continues to pitch well, the Jays will try to find a spot for him, even if it means using him in the bullpen and optioning Jeremy Accardo, Casey Janssen, or Jesse Carlson. Of course anything could happen over the next few weeks.
Today's title comes from the Bob Dylan song "Oh Sister" off probably my second or third favourite Dylan record, Desire. The quote seemed fitting given that today is March forward here in North America.