Beyond that, though, the erstwhile A-Joke performed a friggin' favour for fans of certain vintage who balance newish adult responsiblities with the urge to go out at night, watch the ballgame and have beers (always the plural) afterward. For the second night in a row, the Jays were done before 9:30 p.m., which means fans have a pretty good-sized window to hoist a few, catch the subway home and still get a decent amount of sleep before work tomorrow. Sure, when a game goes 3 1/2 hours you could always drink the watered-down overpriced ballpark brew, but who wants to do that?
Share this with the people who say baseball games take forever. When A.J. struck out Aubrey Huff to complete his three-hit complete game, there were still nine minutes to play in the Senators-Sabres NHL playoff game, which was also a 7 p.m. Eastern start.
Weird fact: Burnett walked Miguel Tejada on his 99th pitch with two out in the ninth inning and 2-1 lead -- exactly what the instant immortal Jesse Litsch did 24 hours earlier.
Tuesday -- Jays 2, Orioles 1: Wow -- Jesse Litsch not only won his major-league debut, but someone probably also sold him the the deed to the CN Tower.The rubeish redhead (pictured) created a little world for Jays fans to escape into for eight and two-thirds restorative innings on a rainy Tuesday night in a frustrating season. Litsch pitched like his dad, Rick, had a cab outside waiting to whisk him to the airport, working fast and getting ground balls. When he came out, he'd thrown only 99 pitches -- one less than he needed to get through seven no-hit innings in his previous start in Double-A ball.
Anyway, let's not go nuts over the 22-year-old. Litsch, who comes straight from Central Casting with a great backstory as a late-round draft pick who was a batboy for the Rays not that long ago, projects as a No. 3 or No. 4 starter. He can pitch, plain and simple, but doesn't have dominant stuff or a great heater.
(UPDATE: Hat tip to The Tao -- Litsch will start Sunday vs. the Phillies.)
A good parallel which co-blogger Neil Acharya deserves credit for is a game vs. the Brewers 10 years ago. On July 28, 1997 Steve Woodard made his major-league debut vs. the Jays and pitched one-hit, 12-strikeout ball for eight innings to beat Roger Clemens 1-0. Otis Nixon led off the game with a double and the Jays got nothin' after that against Woodard.
Woodard, a Southerner like Litsch, was two months his past 22nd birthday that night -- get this, just like Litsch is today. He had a couple good seasons after the Brewers moved to the National League, finishing in the top 10in the league in fewest walks per nine innings and strikeout-to-walk ratio in both 1998 and '99. However, he struggled in 2000, was traded a couple times and quit baseball in 2004. Last anyone heard, he had settled in his hometown to run a sporting goods store, which is cool.
You want to know the weird part? Tuesday was May 15. Steve Woodard's birthdate? May 15, 1975. Crazy.
Jesse Litsch, hopefully for his sake, is headed for bigger and better things -- for starters, let's see if he can sustain what he's done at New Hampshire (5-1, 0.96 ERA, 0.77 WHIP) for more than two months. Still, he gave Jays fans more than enough tonight. Honestly, we were only kidding last week when we noted that Jesse Litsch threw seven no-hit innings and remarked, "At this rate, he'll be in the Jays rotation next week."
Monday -- Jays 5, Orioles 3: Now that all the know-it-alls have written the Jays off, they're starting to resemble a reasonable facsimile of a baseball team.The supposedly weak bullpen picked up Tomo Ohka with four scoreless innings. Meantime, the Orioles' Danys Báez, one of the goats of what's become known as the Mother's Day massacre, coughed up a tiebreaking two-run home run to Troy Glaus.
As serendipity would have it, the Jays are facing the one team whose manager who might rank lower than John Gibbons in public esteeem among its fans is in town this week. How about that?
Baltimore fans, judging from the reaction surveyed at Oriole Post, are ready to string up Sam Perlozzo (pictured) right about now. On the weekend, the O's skipper lifted Jeremy Guthrie in the ninth inning with a five-run lead, then watched as the Red Sox rallied to win 6-5. The general reaction was pretty much what you'd expect from fans of a once-proud organization that's finished below .500 nine years running under the stewardship of owner Peter Angelos.
There's a lesson in there for the semi-holy types. As bad as it can seem for the Jays, someone is always doing worse.
That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.
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