Hi everyone. Either you love Shonen Knife, or you hate them, or, most likely, you have never heard of them. Either way, I thought today's title was appropriate given the over two-day lag for which we're waiting for our second Cobra versus Mongoose (though which is which, I couldn't say) of the season. Here's some linkeage to tide you over.
- Tao of Stieb, which has clearly chosen optimism so far this season, is impressed with Vernon Wells' mechanics at this early time in the season:
As for Vernon, we've been really impressed with the fluidity of his swing so far this season. He's not dropping his hands and he's coming through the hitting zone quickly and on a nice level plane. And if he keeps doing that, there may be room for in our cold cold hearts to welcome him back.
Tao also very wisely pointed out that although Travis Snider struck out three times, he was working the counts, got to full counts a few times, and fouled off plenty of pitches.
- The Southpaw thinks the Jays are good for 83 wins this season. I haven't seen anyone else predict a better season with any real basis. Finishing .500 is essentially meaningless but in a rebuilding year it'd be pretty encouraging. It's certainly possible with a bit of luck, and at the risk of engaging in the Monte Carlo fallacy, with the way the Jays have underperformed their pythagorean record the past few seeasons, you can't help but think they're due for some good luck.
- I'm a big fan of the Go Jays Go tumblr. They always find good pictures that manage to sum up the day better than my rambling ever could. This pretty well must have summed up how Wells was feeling on Monday. Still, at the risk of being overly skeptical, he hit decently on the road last season too. I want to see how he holds up in the Big Smoke (a putrid .633 OPS last season).
- On the topic of Vernon, I loved this article over at Sports and the City entitled "Why You Should Believe in Vernon Wells." There were times last season where I felt like Eyebleaf and myself (certainly not our fine commenters) were the only Vernon fans left. Obviously the frustration of Jays' fans was well justified, but it'd be nice to see Wells get off to a hot start and ride it out to a successful season. He had a nice catch in CF Monday too.
- The always-great Ghostrunner on First wants you to just accept the Citosity to which we're just going to be subjected this season. He also rightly points out that jumping on Jason Frasor after blowing one save is dumb.
- The Drunks are not looking forward to watching Brian Tallet pitch tonight. They are, however, looking forward to heckling Alex Rios at the home opener. And they rightly point out the intense, weapons-grade douchiness of Bud Selig.
- I'd say something nice about the Blue Jays blogger panel posts that the National Post is running on their new Jays' blog, but they didn't ask us their questions. I think we can all safely assume that it is Tom's fault. Seriously, though, good stuff there.
- Jordan Bastian, that notorious slugabed of Jays' reporting, is finally getting off his lazy, marathon-running, new-parent-being, zillions-of-nuggets-of-Jays-news-per-day-posting keister and earning his paycheck, planning on writing up things learned from each game this season in a post-game feature called Covering the Bases. Definitely worth checking out.
- If you are still on the fence regarding Dirk Hayhurst's book the Bullpen Gospels, and my rambling but glowing review didn't convince you of anything other than the fact that I've got issues, perhaps the impressive showing for the book so far will convince you to get your copy right away. It is presently #39 on Amazon.ca's Hot New Releases list (31 on Amazon.com's), #55 overall on Amazon.com, #113 in Canada), and getting uniformly great professional and customer reviews. This will probably be more effective if you don't look at any of the other books that your fellow Amazon customers are buying. Wow. Still, it is a great book.
- Also, check out the rosters of our minor league affiliates, and chime in the conversations there. I'm moving this to the top but linking to those just so if folks want to post general stuff, it'll be in the general thread here and not OT.