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.

Well... That Was Unexpected

John Buck hitting a trio of homers. Never would have guessed that. It's probably a bad thing in the long run, because Cito will likely ignore the rest of Buck's season and point directly to this game when Buck's hitting 6th and not getting pinch hit for in August. For right now, though, it was pretty cool.

That Was Fun

Jays lost. I don't really care. The game was entertaining, which is what's important. David Price flat out dominated. Brandon Morrow pitched like shit, but looked better than he was because the Rays were expending all their energy "keeping the Jays defense on its toes" (translation: running into outs).

Travis Snider sat against the lefty so that Cito could squeeze JMac's potent bat into the lineup. Retarded, but I fully expected it.

Frasor got lit up again. His velocity is down, and he was only an average reliever when he still threw hard. I thought the Jays should have traded him during the offseason because I thought his ERA last year was a fluke. If this decreased velocity is a permanent thing and he can't learn to throw his splitter within a foot of the strike zone, he might not be worth anything come the deadline.

P.S. The Phillies just extended Ryan Howard for 5 years at $25MM per. You are never ever complain about Vernon's contract or call Ricciardi the Worst GM Ever or whatever now. Ruben Amaro Jr. and Mike Rizzo (and Brian Sabean and Dayton Moore) still have jobs and are way, way worse.