Before you all continue to get bent out of shape with yet another small crowd at the Rogers Centre keep in mind one thing. The two teams with NFL jerseys their names printed on the tickets aren’t playing very good baseball.
The Blue Jays we all know have free fallen through the AL East at a pace not seen in these parts for longer than I care to remember. Not that they were ever expected to be playoff contenders, despite what was hinted at or written. Cito Gaston said as much back before they gathered in Dunedin.
I believed him. Nothing was added, A.J. Burnett was subtracted, so clearly there would be a step back (again). That was what made the giddiness of the first 41 games so enjoyable. We can all say that we knew that part of the schedule was light and that the 27 wins needed to be discounted.
Sure, I guess so, but I remember how well they played in the last four wins of that streak, when the Chicago White Sox rolled on into T-dot and got spanked by the hosts. Their bats roared, pitchers pitched and the four-game sweep left the White Sox -– considered by some to be a contender for the Central crown -– so staggered that their GM decided that he must have Alex Rios at any cost.
After that, the now infamous nine-game losing streak took the Go Train off the tracks. B.J. Ryan was given all the monies owed him and told to leave, clutch hits were harder to come by than a Joe Louis at a diabetics conference, names we never heard of before -– and some we had trouble spelling -– had joined the rotation, Roy Halladay got thrown off his game by a bad groin and some unwarranted trade rumours, and Scott Rolen was the only one allowed to scale the fence.
(Yes, we all know how badly they’ve played. We all said our piece, and you’ve blogged your fingers into bloodied stumps in protest. I’ve read them all, the good, the bad, the insane. I will say this about you Blue Jays fans: your imaginations are seemingly limitless and your venom and vitriol can be quite breathtaking. But that comes with being passionate about any sports team. Believe me, I’ve been known to lose my mind on any given Sunday when the Bears are playing. My wife can attest to that.)
But as bad as they’ve played, with last weekend’s sweep in St. Petersburg providing a solid bedrock, the Blue Jays aren’t even close to being as bad the other fowl in the East: the Baltimore Orioles. Monday night’s 9-2 drubbing of the O’s showed me all that I needed to see. A losing recipe of a bad pitching staff being managed right out of the book of Tosca, an act that we bore witness not so far back in the day. The resulting game took a good half hour longer than it should and guaranteed that a DVD of this game will not be put into a time capsule any time soon.
Two moments stood out for me and will likely stick for a while. The first was when Orioles manager Dave Trembley brought in reliever Cla Meredith to face Mighty John McDonald with no one on and two outs in the bottom of the sixth of a 4-1 game. Johnny Mac whacked the third pitch he saw into the Blue Jays bullpen for an insurance run. It was as if the baseball gods decided to have a little fun. In fact as I looked back over my scorecard, Trembley would make six pitching changes to navigate through the final 20 Blue Jays at-bats. I guess he was worried that Toronto’s flaccid offence had finally remembered where it hid the Viagra. All told his relievers allowed 11 to reach base and the game turned into a laugher; that is if you weren’t already crying.
My second moment involved the fifth reliever Trembley waved in. His name is Bob McCrory and after glancing at his stats since his recall it dawned on me: how is this guy even in the majors? In six appearances, he’d allowed 22 runners to reach base via 15 hits and seven walks. If they are giving this 27-year-old reliever a long look don’t you think they had already seen enough? I know I have, especially after he tacked another five runners onto the stats sheet in just two-thirds of an inning.
Don’t get wrong, the Orioles have several players I’d love to have in Blue Jays blue (or is it silver & black?) Catcher Matt Wieters arrived as advertised, rare in these days of over-hyping on the internet. Nick Markakis and Adam Jones are on the verge of stardom. And Brian Roberts is still one of the top leadoff men in the game. But after those players there’s not much else to like.
And remember, as bad as Blue Jays’ fans like to think they have it, the team doesn’t have the long history of winning like the once-proud Orioles do. Between 1966 and 1997, the O’s were in the playoffs a third of the time, making six World Series appearances, winning three. But since they lost in the ’97 ALCS to the Indians, the Orioles have the fifth-worst record in baseball, finishing under .500 by an average of 20 games per season. And we think times are tough in T.O.
So, I don’t blame you for not trekking down to the Rogers Centre to watch these two bottom feeders compete. If I wasn’t being paid to do so I’m sure I would have enjoyed watching Monday Night Football instead of witnessing the field turf getting worn down between the first base dugout and the mound.
KEEP YOUR QUESTIONS COMING
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed pouring through your questions sent to date. Some have been quite astute while others quite humourous. Just do me a favour and give your name and hometown to make it a little more personal for me and to get a sense as to where Jays fans come from.
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