Hope everyone is having a good morning. I'm doing well, though a bit tired - Mrs. Hugo and I caught a very cool movie about wolves last night at the Carnegie Institute for Science as part of DC's Environmental Film Festival and got in a bit late, so we've definitely fulfilled our urban-yuppie quota for the week. The Hugos-in-law are coming to town this weekend, so we have to get our culture fix in now. I kid, I kid!
Anyway, the Jays take on the Motown Tigers today in a game that I'm happy to announce will be covered by both mlb.tv and mlb audio. Your Jays lineup:
Mike McCoy, 2b
John McDonald, ss
Adam Lind, dh
Vernon Wells, cf
Randy Ruiz, 1b
Jeremy Reed, lf
Edwin Encarnacion, 3b
Travis Snider, rf
Jose Molina, c
Good to see Edwin Encarnacion making his first-team debut today, and McCoy is back in the lineup as well and we'll see a bit of what he can do leading off. Johnny Mac in the two hole? Check. Marc Rzepczynski makes the start today.
I thought Dotcom Dash runner-up Jordan Bastian's article on Casey Janssen was a good read. Janssen, let's not forget, was a pretty well-regarded pitcher in the Jays' minor-league system after being drafted from UCLA by the Jays in the 4th round of the 2004 draft. He had excellent major-league success as a reliever in 2007 and was deceptively good in most of the 17 starts he made in 2006. Though he's only pitched 5 innings this spring, mostly after the veteran players have left the game, he's been very effective this spring, yielding just 1 hit and 1 walk over 5 innings while striking out 5 and getting almost all of his contact outs on ground balls. Yesterday he pitched a perfect 5th inning, striking out 2 and getting the other out on a broken bat grounder. If he's fully recovered from the very serious labrum surgery he underwent in 2008 (he never really looked comfortable to me last season), he could be a useful pitcher for the Jays this year. So far he's only been used for 1 inning at a time, but being a converted starter with 5 pitches, you'd think he could be a solid long-reliever too.
Today's song comes from a song by one of those obscure garage-type bands (though I've heard they were big in Germany for a little while)