Toronto Blue Jays Daily Bantering & Links

Tuesday Bantering: Bit of Jays Stuff

By Tom Dakers@bluebirdbanter Jun 13, 2023, 11:00am EDT

There isn’t much news coming from the Jays today.

In the Sun, Rob Longley tells us it was never the Jays' idea or their preference that Anthony Bass catch the ceremonial first pitch on Pride Day.

After mishandling so much of the aftermath of Bass’ anti-LBGTQ+ stance, the team clearly didn’t want him to be part of the ceremony to kick off its Pride Weekend festivities. But given the team had nothing to do with the original arrangement, it became far more complicated.

In fact, a source familiar with the discussions said that the team approached Bass and said that he didn’t have to go through with the plan if he didn’t want to. It was never their idea to have him — and the team — become a distraction on a night the team had heavily marketed as a celebration.

The problem? Bass somewhat defiantly wanted to go through with the ceremony, feeling it was the right thing to do after agreeing to the suggestion of Pride Toronto executive director Sherwin Modeste. Bass, we’re told, didn’t want to walk back on that commitment.

Longley suggested that all this may have sped up Atkins’ decision to release him to save any embarrassment to the team.

So the team turned to Kevin Gausman, who seemed a much better choice

“Someone should not have to explain themselves for who they love,” Taylor wrote. “They should not be told the way they were born is a ‘sin.’ … It’s time we stop making this a fight only people who are going through it have to fight.”

The Jays start a three-game series in Baltimore tonight. Starting pitchers:

Game One: Chris Bassitt (7-4, 3.29) vs. Dean Kremer (6-3, 4.89).
Game Two: Jose Berrios )6-4, 3.61) vs. Kyle Bradish (2-2, 4.25)
Game Three: Yunsei Kikuchi (6-2, 4.34) vs. Tyler Wells (5-2, 3.24).

It should be an interesting series.

As I type this, there is no word on Brandon Belt or Kevin Kiermaier’s injury status. Likely we’ll hear later today if either need a trip to the IL.

All-Star Voting is open.

I’m no longer a big fan of the All-Star game, but it would be good to see a couple of Blue Jays make the team.

You can vote here.

I played squash last night and then watched the end of the Angels/Rangers game. It was a lot of fun, going 12 innings with Shohei Ohtani hitting the game-winning home run (his second of the game and league-leading 20th home run. The Rangers were up 5-1, but started booting around the ball in the fifth inning to let the Angels back in the game.

But what I really wanted to mention was Zach Neto’s leg kick at the plate. It was a bigger kick than Jose Bautista used back in the day. I can’t find a video of it from last night, but here he is from earlier in the season. How do you hit like this?

Our friends at Foco have a new Ace bobblehead. I quite like this one. As always, it is a limited edition. It has a magnetic base, and if you take the bobblehead off the base, you see Rogers Centre: