Happy Birthday Ted Lilly and Kevin Pillar

Ted Lilly turns 42 today.

Ted had a 15 year career, 3 of them with the Blue Jays. He came to the Jays, from the A's, in trade for Bobby Kielty. As a Jay, Lilly went 37-34, with a 4.52 ERA in 89 games and a bWAR of 6.0. I think we won the trade.

His first year with the team, 2004, he went 12-10 with a 4.06 ERA in 32 starts and made the AL All-Star team. 2006 didn't go quite as well, 10-11 with a 5.56 ERA in 25 starts, and just 126.1 innings. 2006 was back to his norm, 15-13 with a 4.31 ERA in 32 starts, 181.2 innings.

The moment that everyone remembers is his 'fight' with John Gibbons. August 21, 2006, after 2.1 innings and 7 earned runs, Gibby figured that Lilly been out there long enough. Managers are funny that way, you give up a 7 runs in a couple of innings and they think you should come out of the game.

Ted, on the other hand, figured he was just getting warmed up. Lilly had some words for his manager, first on the mound, and then had some more words, when they got back to the dugout and still more words in the tunnel to the clubhouse. A moment later, trainer George Poulis (he's was with the team for a long time) and several members of the team rushed down the tunnel to break up a fight.

Being fair to Ted, he was being beat up pretty good, so he wouldn’t have been in a good mood, and was likely ready to yell at anyone, it just happened Gibby was there.

Here is video of Gibby and Lilly being interviewed after.

Lilly had a pretty good career, 130-113 with a 4.14 ERA in 356 games, 331 starts in 13 seasons.

Happy birthday Ted.

Kevin Pillar turns 29 today.

I keep thinking he’s younger than that.

He’s played 5 seasons with the Jays, hitting .264/.302/.390 with 40 home runs and 55 steals, in 548 games. If he could pump those numbers up 20 points or so, we would be really happy.