Land of the Leaf

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.

It was expected that Zack Greinke would likely tame the Jays’ bats.  Brian Tallet’s vomit-inducing performance was not so predictable.  The aspiring porn star gave up 11 hits and saw 10 runs cross the plate through four rain-soaked shitty innings.  We could use another arm right about now.

I know what you’re thinking: bringing in a veteran will just block one of our young starters from coming up.  Well, that’s true, but our young starters ain’t doing shit right now in Triple-A.  There’s one man that could provide the Jays with a proven and still useful arm, not to mention the ability to sport a sweet Jheri curl that would compliment Tallet’s sweet ’stache:  Pedro Martinez.

Well, for the record, Harry Doyle actually said “one” hit not two.  Whatever, getting tuned by the Kansas City Royals wouldn’t be so bad if say, Zack Greinke was chucking a one-hitter.  Then it might be pretty, but watching Brian Bannister throw pumpkins all over the batter’s box, walk six, and get hit just once was a struggle at the best of times.

Bannister lasted seven innings, before Jamey Wright took over in the eighth.  Shitty Kyle Farnsworth gave up the other Jays’ hit in the ninth.

As well as the Jays have pitched this season, David Purcey has contributed very little that has been blood-pressure friendly.  His fastball was wearing its purse tonight and he needed 93 pitches to labour through five innings.  Gross.  We still haven’t faced Greinke yet.

In case you missed it, and I seriously hope you did, Adam Lind and Scott Rolen had the only Jays’ hits.