Land of the Leaf

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!

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”