Can't Really Call That A Loss Or A Win: GameThread for New York Yankees at Toronto Blue Jays, 27 Sept 2012, 7:07 PM EDT

After dropping last night's game against Baltimore in convincing fashion (12-2), the Toronto Blue Jays (68-87) can further help their fellow AL East avians with a win tonight against the first-place New York Yankees (90-65). The Jays could easily have the upper hand tonight as they'll be sending Brandon Morrow (8-7, 3.28) to the mound. Insofar as possible (given his injuries) Brandon's had a nice, if unspectacular, season. The Yankees counter with Ivan Nova (12-7, 4.94) who, coincidentally (not ironically), has been the bizarro-Morrow this season. Seriously.

2011 Morrow: 10.2 K/9, 3.5 BB/9, 36% gb-rate, .299 babip
2012 Morrow: 7.7 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 39.5% gb-rate, .259 babip
Summary: Morrow, an archetypal power pitcher in 2011, morphed into the prototypical front-end-of-the-rotation-but-he's-not-quite-an-ace-starter, good but not spectacular strikeout- and walk-rates. One of the few bright spots of the season has been Morrow showing his former detractors that he can pitch as well as his peripherals claim he should (3.28 ERA / 3.83 FIP / 4.09 xFIP), though the double-edged sword, of course, is that his peripherals haven't been so great this season.

2011 Nova: 5.3 K/9, 3.1 BB/9, 53% gb-rate, .283 BABIP
2012 Nova: 8.1 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 45% gb-rate, .331 BABIP
Summary: Last year, Nova pitched like a back-end-of-the-rotation pitcher you might have found getting by with smoke-and-mirrors in a mid-2000's Minnesota Twins rotation. This season, Nova's emerged as a strikeout-pitcher (with a strikeout-rate roughly equivalent to Morrow's) but has run into quite a bit of trouble with batted balls (4.94 ERA / 4.59 FIP / 3.92 xFIP).

Well, you know the rules: no douchiness, no illegal stream discussion, no *.gif images during the game. Enjoy the game, I'll probably be in for the thread tonight, so that could (theoretically!) be fun.

Tonight's thread courtesy of "The Drinking Song" by Moxy Früvous, a band I was quite into back in high school and college but haven't really listened to in several years. As you might have guessed, the title really refers to last night's loss to the O's. Anything that hurts the Yankees isn't quite a loss in my book. Hopefully the Jays don't play like they're drunk on the lawn tonight.

Keep it civil and go Jays, go!