Land of the Leaf

Dice-K?  Throws 96 pitches over five innings.  Johan?  Loses to the Pirates.  Lincecum?  Bullpen blows lead on a mediocre outing (for him) in Washington.  Peavy?  Leaves game after one shitty inning, team calls it viral respiratory illness (smokes cock).  Greinke?  Phew, doesn’t pitch tonight.

Roy Halladay stands alone.

Everyone is talking about it: the believer and hunter, ghosts and drunks, Boo Radley and Stieb… go see.

Burke Admits It:  Colie Campbell Fucks Guys

The only guys in hockey that have a more inane ability to make moronic decisions than the players on the ice are the ex-players running the teams.  No fucking headshot penalty? First of all, it’s absurd that the game has gotten to a point where hits to the head have become so prevalent and devastating that there even needs to be discussion of a rule change.  But wait, there’s some hilarity to all of this:  watching Bud Selig play a bumbling old man to save his own ass was humiliating for baseball and its fans, but listening to hockey-types deny that steroids are an issue in the game is going to look much more embarrassing.

Baseball players still use used steroids to hit a few more homers and recover from arm injuries.  Hockey players are killing each others’ brains with bodychecks and the league is standing by it while ignoring the bigger problem.

Although, Burke admits that most general managers feel that the threat of getting rammed up the poop-chute by Colin Campbell is enough punishment for headshots:

“There’s no appetite for a rule change on that,” Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke said after Tuesday’s meeting. “We all think the existing penalties make sense and then, when a guy crosses the line, Colie bangs him (with a suspension).

Get Your Sludge On:

Um, I’m going to be honest and say I had planned on skipping tonight’s Jays’ game altogether in favour of the Stanley Cup Finals.  Luckily, for me, Halladay’s dominance of the Angels’ lineup was apparent from the first pitch.  This is what multiple computers and a TV are for, nights like this.

Halladay did his best A.J. Burnett impression (although gave up only one walk instead of like seven) by striking out a career high 14 batters on the evening, including the side in the ninth.  Complete game, a few hits surrendered, earned runs and all, fuck it… Halladay is the best there is.  First to nine wins.   Jays 6 Angels 4

Has anyone seen Vernon Wells’ power or general ability lately?  No?  I didn’t think so.

If you’re a complete fantasy baseball nerd (and I am), then it’s likely you’ve been caught by the Matt Wieters hype-machine.  There’s little argument that Wieters doesn’t warrant all of the attention he had leading up to his Major League debut, the kid is going to be a stud.

He looked alright in the Orioles’ weekend tilt with Detroit, but the best is yet to come.  Regardless of however many late night man-boners that Wieters can inspire among fanboys, Baltimore’s general manager Andy MacPhail will always be the biggest dick in the room.

From Bastian:

Earlier this week, Andy MacPhail, Baltimore’s president of baseball operations, cited Snider’s situation when asked if Wieters was expected to remain with the Orioles for the rest of the year.

“We think Wieters is ready,” MacPhail was quoted as saying in the Toronto Sun. “We don’t want to be like Toronto with Snider and return the player to the Minors.”

Oh you’d never want to be like Toronto.  Ahem, Gregg Zaun.  You’d never want to round out your pitching staff with a shitty left arm like Mark Hendrickson, oh no, not Andy MacPhail.

Nervousness has got me shaking like Parliament Street meth-whore on a dozen cups of Jet Fuel.  Friday night home games usually mean emphatic powdery blue victories.  Not this Friday though, this one is much, much different. It’s that goddamn knuckleball of Tim Wakefield, and those fucking Mass Holes.

Here’s me trying to be positive:

I want to think that this is the series that Vernon Wells uses to establish himself this season.  Surely a nine game road losing streak is enough to inspire Vernon to come to the plate with a plan and give us some of that 2003 shit.  Meaningful hits, that’s all Vernon.  We’re not asking for too much, but keep stealing bags.

Janssen gets the ball tonight, Scott Richmond goes to the pen.  I’m okay with that, I’ll tell you why.  Casey Janssen needs to start, but he could come out flaccid and we’ll need a serviceable arm ready for long relief.  That’s what Scott Richmond is, a serviceable arm.  He’s not a fucking superstar, but neither is Janssen.

See, I’m having trouble being positive.  I’m scared shitless.  Only the encouraging words of Scott Rolen can snap me out of this forced introversion of pessimism.

I’ve searched high and low for a battle song to head into this series with.  I give you the musical equivalent of a Wakefield knuckleball: Pavement covering Creedence Clearwater Revival.  Go Jays!

We’re at a loss for words to describe how we feel about the Toronto Blue Jays’ current seven game slide.  After peering at Sports and the City we’re left with the sullen reminder that the Jays are no longer in first place.  They’re not even in second.  How about we just throw it up to our old buddy Clay Davis to describe our collective displeasure?

Never mind that Freddy Sanchez went 6-for-6 and nearly hit for the cycle in last night’s Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs game, Mr. T was on hand to throw the first pitch, sing in the seventh, and wear a pair of Zubaz.

Taking liberty to post an Allan Bester tribute video.  Maybe the Tina Turner track is a little over the top.

Finally, someone took that mouth guard out of Patrick Kane’s lips!

“That’s Bird” Series Preview: Jays @ Orioles

I wish I could say this series would be a serious beat-down.  I’m not ruling out a Jays’ offensive feast on some of Bodymore’s wonky arms, but my eyes are going bleary from looking at the RBI totals of Rios, Wells, and Lind over the team’s last six losses. I just can’t seem to find anything.  Oh, wait, there aren’t any because they didn’t drive in any fucking runs.  (bump-knuckles to The Tao of Stieb for the written reminder)

Vernon Wells: “You may run like Hayes. but you hit like shit”.  You’re making me sick with your all of your chopping and hacking at the plate.  Now do something, those stolen bases are just expensive.

A six-game skid isn’t exactly the end of the world.  Thankfully, the optimism preservation officer The Blue Jay Hunter points out that when you throw in names like Frank Thomas and John Gibbons, you’ll remember that things have been much worse.

The Orioles hope that Jeremy Guthrie can get his game together in the series opener this afternoon.  Jays throw the mustache (Brian Tallet).

Hey, It’s Leaf Rumours and Rumblings

It seems a set of twins are causing an uprising at Toronto Sports Media.  I agree, dreams of the Sedins are better left out of the minds of Maple Leaf fans. The same could be said for Brian Burke’s hype-crush on John Tavares.  It’s dumb, not going to happen.

We’ve even got something on the rumour radar that makes sense; Mike fackin’ Komisarek!  He hits with the weight of a metric shit-ton, he’s still relatively young (27), and it would fuel the Habs-Leafs rivalry much more furiously than a couple of Belarusian princes dancing around than ice.  (bumps to Maple Leafs Hot Stove)

Burke acknowledges that the impending dip in the salary cap means that managers need to be prepared for the long-term.  [Puck Daddy]

Obligatory Bills News:

The Bills have a scary set of receivers.  They’re deep at wide receiver, like maybe the deepest in the NFL.  And they’ve got Terrell Owens, and yes you’re going to keep hearing about Terrell Owens.

Jays Battle Song For Bodymore, Murdaland

The good people at Baseball Prospectus had a decent chat with Adam Lind.  Lind talked about his start to the season, approach at the plate, and a few other notables.  Worth checking out for sure.

Lind apparently was a big Andre Dawson fan growing up… schweet, me too.  Our beloved DH also enjoys cooking, who knew?

Oh where to start?  Well, the Blue Jays were swept by the team that everyone else in Canada loves and I don’t want to talk about it.  Yeah, it was a strong dose of reality juice, but it will be different next time.  I promise.

We’re still in first, remember that you Boston dick-heads.

My TSN2 feed cut out for a good while, which left me with an opportunity to take a look at what was going in Pittsburgh last night.  Evgeni Malkin is sickatating.

Speaking of Pittsburgh:

Former Buc Jose Bautista could see his playing time take a big leap.  Travis Snider was optioned (read: sent packing) to AAA-Las Vegas.  J.P. Ricciardi sure loves him some ex-Pittsburgh Pirates, so unless Adam Lind learns how to not look awkward in left field or Gaston chooses to go with Kevin Millar (who actually handles right handers better than lefties as a right handed hitter) then we could be seeing more of Bautista.

According to Griffin, it sounds like Snider may have went Hal McRae and had a little hissy fit after the news of his demotion.  He’s young, red-faced by nature, and looks loaded with testosterone.  It’s fine, nothing to worry about here.  He’ll go to triple-A Las Vegas, hammer some balls, spend some time in a few casinos, and be back before Manny Ramirez.  The demotion was bound to happen at some point, but those huge homers at the start of the season took a long time to land.

It’s off to Hotlanta for a weekend series, and World Series rematch for Cito Gaston and Bobby Cox.  We got this.

Rogers Communications finally conceded victory to TSN2 and shelled out a few clams to give their disciples customers a chance to watch the Jays pay a visit to Fenway.  Call off the lynch mob, we’ll let dead Ted’s media conglomerate off the hook for a few days.

So we all had a crack to see tonight’s game which was called by Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy.  What came out of their mouths was void of any insightful Blue Jays knowledge.  One of them, I’m not sure which, actually referred to Jesse Litsch as “… ah, a little left-hander they had last year”.  That’s bang on, Jesse’s real little and definitely not pink or fat.

Those two dickheads probably peep more locker room bods than Pierre McGuire.  There is no doubt in this viewer’s mind that either of NESN’s Red Sox announcers, Remy more specifically, would take a photo of Jonathon Papelbon to the bathroom to go number 3.

Not a bad performance by Tallet tonight.  The Jays’ bats couldn’t get anything going against Wakefield’s knuckleball.  I was really hoping that Terry Francona would do something stupid and leave the old knuckleballer in for the complete game.  Nope, he had to go and bring in cock-sucker’s cramp Papelbon.

I wish he wasn’t so good.  I held onto hope right up until a television camera panned over to Lyle Overbay stepping into the batter’s box to face Fancy Pants.  Boston 2, Jays 1.

There’s still two games left, arseholes.

(Edit: Heads up from the comments section, my bad!  Thanks MacG)

“It was Don and Eck calling the game last night, Remy is on the DL for throat cancer… just sayin”

As if last Tuesday’s schooling of A.J. Burnett by Roy Halladay wasn’t enough, he followed up that performance by giving the Chicago White Sox a two-run head start just to see if they could hold it down.  They couldn’t and Halladay finished the week 2-0 with a 1.13 ERA before being named the American League Player of the Week.

Unless Kevin Mench sends a line drive off of Halladay’s leg all the way from Japan, or Zack Greinke can maintain his unrealistic (yet wholly awesome) start to the season, then Halladay should pitch himself into position to start the All-Star Game for the AL. I didn’t even mention that the Jays just completed the four-game sweep of the White Sox!  Good bounce-back performance by Scott Richmond today although he walked away without a decision.  I’ll keep not believing in him and he’ll keep proving me wrong.  I’m okay with that.