Friday Bantering: Jays Notes

Another day, another Blue Jays spring game we can’t watch or listen to.

It is also Bo Bichette’s birthday. He is 23 today. Happy birthday Bo. I’m not sure what I was doing on my 23rd birthday. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t training to get ready for my third MLB season. Happy Birthday, Bo.

Today’s lineup:

I get the feeling the Springer leading-off thing is here to stay. It isn’t my first choice, but I'm ok with it if he’s comfortable there.

After Ryu, there will be some combination of Anthony Kay, David Phelps, Jordan Romano, Ryan Borucki, and Francisco Liriano.

On the offensive side:

• Forrest Wall was 2 for 2 with a double.
• Cavan Biggio went 1 for 2 with a triple.
• Marcus Semien was 1 for 3.
• Bichette had a bad day, 0 for 3 with 2 strikeouts. He also made an error.
• Alejandro Kirk: 1 for 2.

Yesterday’s game didn’t go well, with an 8-2 loss to the Tigers.

Joey Murray had a terrible day, giving up 2 hits, 3 walks, 2 wild pitches, and 3 earned while getting just one out.

Yosver Zulueta threw in a game for the first time. He gave up a single, a couple of walks, and 2 earned runs. He also showed a pretty impressive fastball that topped out at 98.9 MPH.

T.J. Zeuch was the only Jays pitcher who did well, giving up 2 hits and a walk in 2 innings. He had a bit of trouble on ground balls hit back to him. One went off his ankle (going to a teammate who got the out) and one that went off his glove for a single.

The Mickey Callaway problem isn’t going to disappear in a hurry for the Jays front office. Ross Atkins talked to the media and said it was a failure on his part as a leader that he didn’t know about the allegations.

The problem is that there are really just two choices for the front office, they can say they didn’t know anything about it and appear incompetent, or they can say they knew and ignored it and volunteer to be fired. Not that I’m saying they are lying.

In the Athletic story:

Atkins maintained he was “absolutely not aware” of Callaway’s alleged inappropriate behaviour while he worked in Cleveland but expressed his regret about events that occurred on his watch. He apologized to those people who felt harassed and said not creating an environment in which people felt comfortable reporting the lewd behaviour was a failure by leadership, which included current Jays president Mark Shapiro, who was the Indians GM and president between 2010 to 2015, a period during which Callaway rose from the lowest levels of the organization to become the Indians pitching coach.

He says that it was his fault that there weren’t proper channels to report the allegations. The Athletic says they interviewed 22 people who said it is difficult to believe the front office wasn’t aware of the situation.

It does seem that, in most of these cases, everyone seems to know it is going on, and no one knows what to do about it. Or perhaps there are so many doing much the same that people think it is just the cost of doing business.

I want Atkins or Shapiro to state how things are run better with the Jays, how anyone with an issue can report it, and be sure that it gets in front of their eyes. Saying you did wrong in the past is one thing. Saying how you have fixed it is another.