Well, thank God the Mariners are in the AL West, says I.
And the Great Potato is back and in his 2011 45+ save form. Giving up two long flys to the warning track, and a smoked grounder, but getting 1-2-3 anyway.
Toronto can barely eke out wins when they win. They won a game today they deserved to lose, but Rajai Davis made the throw of his life to save it.
The offense really was a Blue Jay special; they hit four home runs and only scored six runs.
I hate continuing to beat up on them but Mark Derosa really shouldn’t be in the major leagues any more. He had a nice career but he is painful to watch. Why they lured him away from retirement I do not understand.
While Derosa wastes a roster spot, on the farm, infielder Jim Negrych, who ripped it up in spring training, is 22 for 44. No, really. He’s walked six times and only struck out three. He’s ten years younger than Derosa and clearly playing the baseball of his life, so the Jays are wasting it in Buffalo while they send Derosa, Izturis and Bonifacio out there to contribute continued awfulness.
Is the Blue Jays Izturis related to the Reds Izturis?
Half-brother, according to wiki and other sources.
Here’s a legit cite: http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20060629&content_id=1529841&vkey=news_ana&fext=.jsp&c_id=ana
ETA2: And they went to different schools (but lived in the same town) and are only seven months apart in age…
Well the Yanks are hovering above .500 which is all I was hoping for early. The news on Jeter is bad but I still expect Granderson and then Teix back in mid-May. The Yanks are actually hitting fine and the starting has been a little shakier than I expected. Ichiro might be warming up and Hughes looked good in his last start. These would be a big help.
Two games in a row, the Giants hit a 9th inning HR to tie the Diamondbacks and go into extra innings.
The Giants lost both games.
:smack:
The “lowly Pirates” took 3 out of 4 from the Phillies. Just think if Andrew McCutchen gets off his .235 BA and .407 SLG and does something! Well, at least they’re not relying on him to carry the team.
Pawtucket, apparently. 
It seems to me that Aceves filled in pretty well the past couple of years for injured/missing starters. Though when you get blasted for that many runs and the Red Sox lose 13-0, it’s bad form to carp about the team’s poor hitting.
Mike Wilner said it best on the Fan 590 tonight; when it comes to the Blue Jays, there is nothing to hang a hopeful hat on. There is nothing to point to to say “meh, it’s just a slow start.” They are flat-out collectively having the worst season you could possibly imagine; every player on the roster is playing worse than any prediction would have thought. (Except the bullpen, which has been great, but that hardly matters when you have no leads to protect and no offense to come back with.) They are playing the worst baseball I’ve seen in Toronto in my entire life; they’re every bit as bad as the 1995 or 2004 squads. Nobody can get on base, all the starting pitchers are slumping, the fielding has been jaw-droppingly bad at times.
Prior to the season starting, if you were optimistic, you’d say they’d go 98-64. If you were pessimistic, 84-78. Most people figured 90-72.
They look like they’re gonna go 62-100. It’s just dreadful baseball, night after night. They are 9-14 and lucky to have nine wins. It’s just a shocking, disgraceful performance, and really all we can do is close our eyes, and pray that when we open them again in June, it’ll be like 1989 when they started 12-24 and came back to win the division. Of course, theyhad to fire the manager to make that happen.
Quick, hire Jimy Williams again!
I hate the inconsistency that is Bronson Arroyo, and his junky stuff. That is all.
It’s still April, people. If your guys are still blowing dead donkey dick at the All-Star break, then you can write them off.
I just hate his surfer hair and his silly leg kick. And his name and junky stuff. Oh, and that he plays for the Reds. 
But I do love this from Dusty Baker: “On-base percentage is good. But RBIs are better”. Never change, Dusty, you crazy diamond.
This is an ongoing thing with Arroyo. It’s maddening. Just as soon as he has a really bad game he comes back and somehow redeems himself the next.
And the songs he sings in JTM commercials…seriously you can’t watch this shit and not laugh at this fucking goober: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTQpX--WRz0
Maybe at least they’ll be consistent.
What’s really tough to endure is when a team you root for starts horribly, has a fine middle of the season and collapses at the end.*
*you can probably guess who this refers to.
I can, sure. The 1973 St. Louis Cardinals!
From 5-20 to first place by the All-Star break, to up by 5 games in August, to missing the playoffs with a .500 record…
The “lowly Pirates” sunk to a new low - wait, who am I kidding? OK, sunk to a new SEASON low in their 9-1 St. Louis spanking. Jonathan Sanchez should start writing his “getting on with my life’s work” speech after failing to make a single out in this start. I’m looking for him, his 11+ ERA and his $1.4 million contract to get their walking papers tomorrow.
In the “something you won’t see very often” department, Andrew McCutchen was pulled in a double-switch. Not a good start to the season for Andrew.
I would like to take this opportunity to bitch at how St. Louis was allowed to hit our batters - repeatedly, AFTER a warning has been issued - while the Pirates’ pitcher was ejected at the first offense before a warning. I won’t bitch about Sanchez getting ejected because I could easily believe he was getting pissed and desperate at that point. However, the warning was issued. Multiple HBP and very high-and-insides to our best players should not follow without appropriate action.
OK, obviously I meant RECORD a single out. Not making an out is one of the few positives of his appearance, but then, he was ejected before the Bucs had an at-bat.
You know what I do in April and June to keep myself sane following the Pirates? Watch the Pens - Crosby’s due back next week, wooo! And Shero’s a God, yaaaay!
I won’t say I’ve given up on the Bucs, because I never really believed in them - they haven’t had a winning season in my living memory. In fact, the first professional sports event I ever went to was a Pirates game when I was like 7 or 8 and we left early, because I vomited over three rows of spectators. The last three years have been great, for about 4 months, and I still hold out hope that maybe, just maybe they’ll break .500 this year - really, that’s all I want! - but until that happens consistently I simply enjoy performances like tonight with wide eyed wonder and amusement. What else can you do?