In the battle for baseball passerine dominance (at least, until the Cardinals get involved), the Blue Jays take on the Orioles today at 1 in a game that should be available on audio.
At the Cherry Blossom Festival yesterday we saw a really good Taiko performance, which for some reason made me think of the above line in Rancid's great song Roots Radicals, which then got me to listen to that when I got home and make the perhaps overly inflated claim I made in yesterday's "15 Things I Believe" post. In my defense, my musical judgment was impaired as I was listening to the song at the time. I listened to most of Energy while on my run this morning and I recant. Roots Radicals is a great song in its own right, though. And of course it would be sad if Roots Radicals never happened and the preeminent song to name-check the unbelievable Desmond Dekker remained the tepid Ob-la-di Ob-la-da.
Now that that's out of the way, today's lineup:
Jose Bautista, rf
Aaron Hill, 2b
Adam Lind, dh
Vernon Wells, cf
Randy Ruiz, dh
John Buck, c
Edwin Encarnacion, 3b
Travis Snider, lf
John McDonald, ss
Ricky Romero makes the start.
In some Jays news, Brad Emaus and Chris Lubanski were reassigned to minor league camp today. Emaus made it to close to the end of the spring for the second-straight year, looked good at the plate, and drew solid marks for his defense at third base. Lubanski showed flashes of extra-base power but didn't make consistent contact and will get his 4th shot at AAA and hopefully hit himself back onto the big club.
The Jays also released Joey Gathright today. Gathright did not show well at the plate this spring, has perhaps lost a step on the bases, and was also hurt by the fact that Jeremy Reed, a similar player, has been a base hit machine for the Jays this spring. That said, while he's got no power, he's been a decent on-base man at times in his career and is solid on the defensive side of the ball. I hope he catches on somewhere as he said today he feels "lost" right now.