Thursday, August 16, 2007

Blue Jays vs. the O.C. - It's a Vlad Vlad Vlad Vlad World

Wednesday - Angels 4, Blue Jays 3: A ninth inning rally - off Francisco Rodriguez, no less - wasn't enough to salvage a win out of another lackluster offensive game for the Blue Jays.

Dusty Lambchops pitched well, and as Alan Ashby pointed out on the radiocast, probably pitched better than his line (6 IP, 4 hits, 3 ERs, 7 Ks, 3 BBs) would indicate.

The entire Jays pitching staff has been rock solid in this series, including tonight's relievers Brian Wolfe (two innings, no runs) and Scott Downs (one inning, no runs). We really like what we've seen out of Wolfe, who has been way better than Jason Frasor and deserves the chance he has received late in the season, no matter what some tweaked out commenters at Drunk Jays Fans think.

Tuesday - Blue Jays 2, Angels 1: Tonight's 2-1 win over the Angels was yet another in a series of close games where the Jays should be burying teams, but fail to move runners over or drive them in. Gregg Zaun in particular seemed to leave the entire roster on the bases at one point or another tonight.

But at least he threw out a runner. Still, we won't look gift wins in the mouth anymore, though, especially since tonight's victory puts the Jays three games over for the first time since April, and allows them to pick up a full game on Seattle and the Yankees for the Wild Card.

Marcum just keeps rolling: We'll admit that we've been waiting for Shaun Marcum to turn back into a pumpkin and day now, but we like his smarts on the mound more with every start. Marcum won his fifth straight tonight, running his record to 10-4, and dropping his ERA to 3.31, the eighth best mark in the AL.

Lunes - Los Azulejos de Toronto 4, Los Angelinos de Los Angeles 1: (Don't mind us...it's just our chimichanga from dinner that has us muy loco...hoo boy!)

Imagine if just for tonight, you were one of those Toronto-types who takes a 7:07 start time as a vague suggestion, and saunters into your seat sometime around the top of the second inning. You would have missed pretty much all the good stuff, aside from another outstanding (and remarkably efficient) Roy Halladay outing. As our comrade Shortwaveboy over at our home base noted, Halladay dusted this one off in less than two hours (1:58), leaving many of us wondering what to do with the extra hour we'd already blocked off.

The one run, complete game performance helps to drop Halladay's ERA back under 4.00 (3.99), which at least sort of makes us feel like all is right with the world.

Halladay had plenty of help in keeping tonight's game brief from Angels starter Joe Saunders, who deserved much better than the loss he's stuck with. If not for three early errors, it is entirely likely that he may have been looking at a 7-0 record. Which goes to show you what win-loss records are really worth.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Ok, looks like I'm wrong about Towers to the Rockies. The Rockies opted to pick up Ortiz from the Twins instead. (There was also a rumor that they were interested in Trachsel )

I have to admit it's exciting to see the Jays 5.5 out of the Wild Card but it's a lot tougher to catch 2 teams as opposed to 1. If it's 1 team there is a chance they could struggle but it's unlikely both Seattle and the Yankees will go in the tank.

Tyler King said...

Don't be so sure. Seattle's been one of the greatest recipients of luck this season - checking now, the luckiest team indeed in the entire AL, with 7 more wins than their pythagorean record would suggest. In second are the White Sox with 4.

The Yankees have had the easiest schedule possible since the all-star break. Since the break, apart from Cleveland, they have faced only 1 team with a winning record. That team - the Toronto Blue Jays.

Unknown said...

RUSS ADAMS IS BACK! He'll play some too, just as Luna did, due to Glaus's crappy health. I had not completely given up on Adams although it is evident that his future at the big league level is as a utility guy ( he'll probably learn to play OF at some point in his career, whether or not it is as part of the Blue Jays organization ).

Having said all that I admit surprise that he was called up because I thought the Jays had kinda given up on him.