Land of the Leaf

It was a great afternoon in Toronto, although I missed most of it by sitting in a dome for over three hours.  There’s nothing cold draught beer can’t fix, and if you throw in some baseball then you’ve got yourself a pretty solid afternoon.  Brett Cecil was what you call “effectively wild”.  He mixed snappy 93mph fastballs with grooving sliders over six innings only surrenduring one earned-run and striking out six.  Cecil walked no one, but he hit three batters and the Indians were pretty pissed.

Jesse Carlson came in and blew it in the 7th inning.  His slider has looked like shit lately.  It looked like our Jays were going down but Adam Lind and Scott Rolen crushed back-to-back long bombs off of some stiff named Sipp.  “Snakeface” took over for the final 1.2 innings and should list ‘lowering my ERA’ as an activity on Facebook.  10-6 Jays, Lind’s three-run shot and 2-run single earlier gave him five RBI’s on the day.

Just as I was planning my alcoholic pathway to getting over the news of Ricky Romero hitting the 15-Day DL, word hits the wire (Bastian Tweeted this good news this afternoon) that B.J. Ryan will be following him with “trap tightness”.  I don’t want to jump to any extremist conclusions, but I’m pretty sure Ryan could use some time to get it together.

One would assume that Scott Downs will step in an handle the closing duties, that’s good.  As for the thinning rotation, we’ll have to wait and see what Brett Cecil can bring, if he is to get the call on Saturday as predicted.  Keep the faith my fellow optimists, for now.

Jays’ Rotation No More Clear After Clement Throws Stinker
By most accounts, Matt Clement appears to be finished competing for the last spot in the Jays’ rotation.  Before you say “give the job to Scott Richmond because he is Canadian”, it’s time to see what Ricky Romero has got.  Romero will start today against the Reds and the drunks are right: Spring Training is finally interesting for Jays’ fans.

Kick ‘Em When They’re Down!
Why play hard in November when it matters when you can play spoiler to the Montreal Canadiens? Eyebleaf takes some consolation in that, I guess we all can… it’s not much, but it’s the best we got.

You Knew It Was Coming
Don Cherry had to chime in on Ovechkin’s scoring celebrations, specifically his rad 50th goal celebration. Most literate hockey fans, for the most part, continue to not give a rat’s ass.

Argos Make Difficult Decisions
Not really, some “celebrity” judges chose the 2009 Toronto Argo Cheerleaders. Now we just need some people to put a team on the field to cheer.

Raps Could Muscle-Up Next Season
Dinoblogger is impressed with Nathan Jawai’s stint in the NBDL, and he could bring more of the aggressive physical play that we see from Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

It’s Shawn Bradley’s Birthday!
Celebrate with the Top 10 Dunks on Shawn Bradley. (With a nod to Deadspin)