The Day We've All Been Waiting For

It's finally here! After many long months it is finally here!

Sure, it won't be as good as it could have been. HE could have been HERE. And for a short while, we thought he would be. It was reported he'd be coming here. And then it was reported he wouldn't be. I felt cheated. We all felt cheated.

But let us not dwell on what could have been. Let us dwell on what is.

Today... is a day for celebration.

Today... is a day to reflect upon the past.

Today... is the day we have all be waiting for.

Today... is Carlos Delgado's birthday.

 This picture of his press conference from when he first signed with the Mets was the only one I could find of him smiling.

Yes, Papa Carlos turns 38 today.

As I said, we all got excited when we were briefly told he would be around for it. And we all felt cheated when it turned out to be for naught. We all wanted to see him add to his franchise-leading 336 home runs and make a run for 500 career (he's currently 37 away).

Word is, Delgado wants to play in the second half after having hip surgery in February. Maybe after trading away Overbay, if the Jays still don't feel Wallace is ready, the Jays could bring Papa Carlos back for a few months to DH while Lind shows whether or not he can play a halfway passable first base (I refuse to give up on Wallace as a third baseman).

Happy birthday, Carlos. I hope I see you back in the majors soon.

Oh, and Halladay is starting today against the Jays or whatever. That's kinda cool, I guess.

GAH CITO WHAT ARE YOU DOING

DONT BAT COREY PATTERSON DEWAYNE WISE LEADOFF. DON'T LET THE JAYS BE ONE OF THOSE TEAMS.

Stupid Interleague...

...with your imbalanced home/away serieses (serii?). Because of this, I'm not going to be able to witness Ubaldo Jimenez utterly dominate the Blue Jays live, as the Rockies and Jays play only in Colorado.

And, make no mistake, Ubaldo WILL dominate the Jays. His ERA is under 1. And it's June. His one and only flaw as a pitcher is occassional bouts of wildness; and with the Jays' extreme hacking ways, don't expect, with the possible exceptions of Bautista and Overbay, for Ubaldo to issue any free passes to any of the Jays. This'll be a fun game to watch.

Another Year, Another Boring First-Rounder

So today, with their highest draft pick since 2005, the Jays drafted a guy whose upside is basically Nick Blackburn. Awesome. The guy I was praying the Jays would take, Yasmani Grandal, went with the very next pick. Sigh...

I guess there's always next year.

Breaking News: Yuniesky Betancourt Still Terrible at Everything

Yuniesky Betancourt is one of the worst players in the MLB. Arguably the worst. He hits for a decent average, doesn't draw walks, and has no power. He's also a bad fielder (his career career high in Ultimate Zone Rating is 0.0 from way back in '06; his career high in Plus/Minus is also 0, also from '06). He does nothing well. And yet he continues to start, forcing Mike "Actually Good At Baseball" Aviles over from shortstop to second base. Which has forced second baseman Alberto Callaspo to third base. Which has in turn caused Alex Gordon, one of the team's best players, to get punted back to AAA to "learn how to play left field", which more or less translates to "hit well, because no one cares about left field defense".

I bring all of this up because Mike Aviles made a sweet grab on a groundball up the middle in yesterday's game. I've included a screencap below. I hope you don't mind, but I've taken the liberty of adding lines to show approximately how far the fielders moved on the play.

Did I mention the Royals have to pay Yuni a minimum of $7 million over the next 2 years? And they gave up 2 pitchers to get him? Awesome!

It's The Little Things In Life

As I was watching the Yankees/Twins game yesterday, I was lucky enough to witness the following exchange between Michael Kay and whoever the other guy was (it wasn't Al Leiter or Ken Singleton... Paul O'Neil maybe?). It happened with Javi Vasquez on the mound and someone on second base with one out. Enjoy:

Michael Kay: Right now, Javier Vasquez wants to get a groundball right back to him, so he can look the runner back to second. If the ball goes to anyone else, that runner can move over.

Other Guy: Yep, and Javi knows that there's a pitch that can get him that result. If he throws a backdoor breaking ball right here, it'll get the batter to tap the ball right back to him.

*Javi Vasquez throws a backdoor breaking ball. Jason Kubel pulls it into the right-center gap for an RBI double.*

 Ahhhh. It's moments like these that make life worth living.

Pitching 101

Kevin Gregg. Dude. I like you. I defended you when the Jays signed you and everyone was calling you a sack of shit. But, seriously, what the fuck was that last night? When the plate umpire is gifting you a strike zone ten feet across, you don't slap him in the face by throwing meatballs down the middle of the plate.

I don't care whether you're up by 1 run or 10. Pitch smart. Leads can disappear really fast when you're lazy.