Playoffs!

I guess this is kind of how the Scott Rolen story starts in every city, but I'm pretty much ready to put him on the level of excellence. Four for eleven with two doubles, a homer and four RBIs? Move over Garth Iorg and Danny Ainge, you've got company on the list of all-time best Jays third basemen.

Of course... if you're one of the hacks from Bugs and Cranks, evidently you think that this century's Chris Shelton, our old friend Eric Shitske, belongs up there as well.

A tip of the hat to Jon from the Mockingbird for pointing out to me (because I don't read Bugs and Cranks) that I've provoked the ire of B&C's Rays correspondent, David Chalk.

My first reaction to this was, I really don't give a fuck. My second reaction, however, was that I should probably have a beer. And then my third was that Bugs and Cranks sucks, but this guy really seems to want me to shit on his wrong opinion, so what the hell...

Chalk seems to have taken exception to the fact that, despite having watched him lick acres of bag for five years, I would have the audacity to still refer to the Jays former third-baseman as "Shitske" in the face of the overwhelming evidence of his greatness that we've witnessed in the first weeks of the season.

Uh... yeah, has this guy been taking lessons in poor logic from his colleague Kyte? I don't know about anyone else, but I'm feeling real comfortable that the career .256 hitter who OPS'd a cool .715 last year is probably not going to keep up his .292/.378/.671 tear. Just call it an inkling I've got, based on that absolute, unquestionable shittiness of Shitske.

Then again, Chalk is probably calculating the Rays' magic number right now. How else would you explain his defense of the Rays bullpen after I called them "fairly shitty"? The guy seriously fucking brought up the fact that they've got the lowest bullpen ERA in the majors!

I mean, notwithstanding the fact that ERA is kind of a shitty way to evaluate relievers who are primarily brought in to keep inherited runners from scoring, I guess I did make the mistake of noticing that, except for the reclamation project Percival, everybody down there is either hit or miss from year to year or a flat out full-time shitbag. I know it's weird that, kind of like the Shitske thing, I would actually look at a player's career performance instead of just calling him great based on three weeks, but that's just a hangup I have (unless it's Scott Rolen).

Anywho...where was I?

Oh yeah, this afternoon the Jays finally caught some breaks, and even though they still managed to shit the bed with RISP, they put some runs on the board and forced the Kansas City defense into situations where their margin for error was razor thin, and this time it was the Royals who came unraveled. Playoffs!

Worth Repeating
1) I mentioned in the comments for the previous post that Jerry Howarth had nailed the logic behind the decision to bring in the Beej Bossman (enh?) in the eighth, and that I'd repeat it for you all. Pretty simple: BJ hadn't pitched since Thursday, and Gibbons wanted to be sure he got some work in, so that he a) wouldn't be forced to use him regardless on Tuesday in Boston, and b) he wouldn't come in at a key point in the Boston series without having worked in almost a week. It's kind of a shitty message to send, but the idea was that they couldn't save him for the bottom of the ninth, in case the Jays coughed up the lead in the eighth (and when was the last time that happened?), taking the bottom of the ninth out of play.

2) Sorry to sound like a broken record, but some folks in our comments sections, and some recent callers to Wilner still can't seem to get it through their heads that Reed Johnson's hot month doesn't really mean much, or that there are such a thing as splits.

You see.. we can look at how Reed is performing against right-handed or left-handed pitchers, and the funny thing is, right now Reed is hitting .350 against RHP, which he mostly wouldn't have been doing for the Jays, because that's what the left-hitting Matt Stairs is here for. Reed has been decent (.286/.429/.320) against LHP, but for all bitching about Shannon Stewart among Jays fans, against LHP he's a staggeringly better .364/.467/.545. I will acknowledge that both have been thrown in there against RHP too much, and that Reed's unlikely success in that situation is skewing the numbers in his favour, but you seriously can't slag the Jays for dropping one right-handed platoon outfielder for another when the guy they now have is (in a very small sample size) way better in the specific situation that you want to use your right-handed platoon outfielder in (i.e. against LHP).

In other words, please fuck off Reed lovers.

3) The Red Sox have lost five in a row, including being swept by Tampa (and I love Wilner's sarcasm about them now being out of the playoff picture because "good teams don't get swept by Tampa"). Word is that the flu bug has been making the rounds in their clubhouse.

You mean, kind of like what's happened with Wells and Rios in the last week? Is anybody else ready to believe that this had more to do with the Jays recent complete awfulness than the team led on? Even if it's not, holy fuck boys, let's kick the Sox while they're down.

4) Late addition to the post, but I almost forgot to point out the Mockingbird's outstanding analysis of AJ Burnett's outing the other night, and his seemingly completely fucking insane decision to start mucking around with a cut fastball for the first time in his career somewhere around the 8th inning of a tight ballgame. Moron.