Archive for the ‘Detroit Tigers’ Category

Welp. So much for yesterday’s speculation that Brett Lawrie’s absence from the GCL Jays’ lineup meant that he was possibly on his way to Detroit to join his teammates, as word came late this afternoon that the club has shut down his rehab work and will keep him out of any kind of game action until at least Saturday. Oh, and it gets better… which is to say, it gets worse…

“Farrell seemed to suggest that Lawrie may not have admitted to team officials how much pain he felt before he went on DL, and since,” tweets John Lott of the National Post.

“Farrell did not rule out eventual shutdown of Lawrie for rest of year, depending on how next stage of rehab goes,” he added.

“He’s got to express anything that he is feeling to get back to the point of being able to go day in and day out in the lineup,” the manager told reporters, according to yet another of Lott’s tweets.

He’s also got to stop diving into camera bays and expecting everything to be fucking peachy, playing injured like he’s above pain, and/or believing the smoke that’s constantly being blown up his ass by the club’s broadcast team and marketing department, and maybe start figuring it the fuck out how he’s most valuable to his team if he’s actually, y’know, in the lineup and healthy.

Oh, and apparently the Jays are playing the Tigers and I had some serious misconceptions about the deliciousness of Heineken.

Scuttlebutt

Hey! Ricky Romero is on the hill for the Jays tonight. I remember that guy!

More from John Lott, who tweets that both Jose Bautista and Adam Lind are in the lineup for Dunedin tonight, and also that Brandon Morrow is on track to start Saturday in Baltimore.

A friend of mine was telling me that he heard today on the radio here in Toronto that there were people actually entertaining the idea of whether or not the Jays should go after Roger Clemens, now that he’s suddenly interested in a comeback. I really hope that’s not true and nobody actually polluted the airwaves with such drivel. (At the Star, Griff has a cute non-Jays conspiracy theory about it.)

Surely you can’t have possibly missed my piece on the AL trade market for established pitching. It’s right below this one! The NL one will be coming tomorrow… unless it’s the day after.

I’ve mentioned Nick Swisher as a guy the Jays should consider looking at as a free agent this winter, but… that doesn’t sound quite so hot if he’s asking for Jayson Werth money (aka the Vernon Wells contract), as is being reported. Parkes looks into how fucking crazy that is over at Getting Blanked.

Lastly, for your between-inning viewing pleasure, here’s today’s edition of Getting Blanked– featuring a long last He’s Just Not That Good Anymore segment on Yunel Escobar (in which we kinda agree he’s probably not that bad)…

TV: Sportsnet

And now the lineups, by way of the live box score at theScore.com. And for those of you who’ll be out and about, be sure to follow all the action on your phone or tablet with Score Mobile…

Toronto Blue Jays

R. Davis LF
C. Rasmus CF
E. Encarnacion DH
D. Cooper 1B
Y. Escobar SS
K. Johnson 2B
O. Vizquel 3B
J. Mathis C
A. Gose RF

R. Romero LHP

Detroit Tigers

A. Jackson CF
O. Infante 2B
M. Cabrera 3B
P. Fielder 1B
J. Peralta SS
D. Young DH
J. Baker RF
A. Dirks LF
G. Laird C

M. Scherzer RHP

Sure, I could write up a typical Game Threat, and touch on series-related stuff, like the fact that today’s starter, Staff Ace Brett Cecil (TM) hasn’t been bad enough to lose his job, despite the presence of JA Happ, that the defence yesterday made some terrific plays, that the club still somehow keeps on winning with Spring Training lineups, or that I’d really wish I could remember what absurd person on Twitter scoffed so hard when the Jays were in a low ebb against either the Yankees or the A’s and I said they should give it three games, because the Jays’ entire damn season has been a swinging pendulum of mini win streaks and mini losing ones. Yup.

But no, let’s briefly talk about some other stuff…

Romer-uh-oh!

Lots of folks still trying to figure out what to do about Ricky Romero, who is scheduled to pitch tomorrow in Seattle. Folks like Shi Davidi of Sportsnet, John Lott of the National Post, Bob Elliott of the Toronto Sun, Robert MacLeod of the Globe and Mail, Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star, and– most of all, John Farrell, Alex Anthopoulos, and Ricky Romero himself.

Osuna the Better

Holy shit, 17-year-old Roberto Osuna, the Jays’ big signing on the 2011 international amateur free agent market, and one of the top two talents available then, showed why last night in his debut for the Vancouver Canadians. Giving up one hit and one walk in five shutout innings of work, Osuna– who, granted, was pitching against more advanced competition in the Mexican League at 16– struck out 13 of the 19 batters he faced.

I’m not entirely sure if his polish and advanced feel for pitching isn’t maybe something that’s going to really give him an edge against the kind of competition he’s being asked to face but not necessarily indicative that he’s going to be able to match these results as the quality of the hitters he faces improves, but… it sure made people take notice.

Ben Badler of Baseball America instantly recapped the game (adding in a video clip of Osuna), and Justin Nicolino and Marcus Stroman each tweeted about it, with Stroman calling Osuna– four years his junior– “one of the best pitchers I have ever seen.” There was considerable buzz about it on Twitter, with Kevin Goldstein promising to have him in Monday’s Ten Pack at Baseball Prospectus, and saying that he’s not now the Jays best pitching prospect, but he’s “very exciting.”

The best praise, though, came from his pitching coach in an MiLB.com article about the performance…

“The way he looked tonight, the way he threw his fastballs, the way they took bad swings, it was like a grown man throwing against a Little League team from 45 feet,” said Vancouver pitching coach Jim Czajkowski. “They couldn’t touch him.”

ETA: 2016

It’s Quiet. Too Quiet?

Not a whole lot happening on the Jays front, trade rumour wise, which… maybe that’s a good thing? As I’ve gone to great lengths to point out, many of the moves made by Alex Anthopoulos haven’t come as completely out-of-nowhere as he’s often given credit for, but it’s also certainly true that most times he’s not executing deals that have been discussed frequently, for multiple days, as they reportedly develop and go back and forth.

Obviously, we don’t really know anything at this point, except that time’s a-ticking, and that it sure as fuck seems like somebody with the Marlins wants to handle any Josh Johnson deal, in part, through the media. Check MLBTR: there are lots of reports of the asking price being too high for some teams, being Teixeira-like, or the Marlins reportedly telling people that they’re not all that interested in dealing him– which totally doesn’t sound like noise from a club hoping other clubs will hear it and raise their offers, amiright?

Buster Olney tweeted yesterday that we were simply in the calm before the storm. I’m kinda hoping so…

Image via Mike Strobe/Getty.

It’s Saturday, what do you want from me? This is your Game Threat.

The Tigers come to town, and the Jays look to continue the getting-back-on-track that started yesterday, and catch a break in that rain didn’t wash out last night’s Justin Verlander start in Cleveland, meaning that they’ll miss him in this series.

Staff Ace Carlos Villanueva (TM) takes the hill, with a defence that once again doesn’t include Yunel Escobar (or Jose Bautista, or JP Arencibia) behind him. And hey! Three lefties in a row in the middle of the order! Except… MAYBE NOT!!!

Dun dun dun…

UPDATE: Shi Davidi tweets: “Before speculation gets out of hand (too late), I’m told Adam Lind almost certainly scratched for physical reasons. No specific details yet.” (Italics mine, because… dun dun dunnnn!!!!)

UPDATE THE SECOND: It’s back tightness for Lind as well. Is “back tightness” the new… um… “back injury”? I’m going to go ahead and say no, even though the conspiracy theorist in me thinks it’s possibly more than a little coincidental that two of the club’s most tradeable position players have come down with this affliction– and so soon after being originally included in today’s lineup. But we’d drive ourselves nuts if we open the door to believing these are lies, and for what? To have an inkling of something for a few fleeting hours– if that– before we’re told about it officially anyway? Forget that, these two are just hurting.

Scuttlebutt

All sorts of stuff swirling at the moment, as Yunel Escobar was a late scratch from the lineup– with back tightness, as a club spokesman made sure to let the press corps. know, according to a Gregor Chisholm tweet– and now, according to a tweet from Shi Davidi, Adam Lind has been an even later scratch from the lineup as well! Hmmm…

“No reason given for that one,” Gregor tweets.

Earlier Gregor relayed these words from John Farrell…

Farrell responded to media reports suggesting Escobar has been a problem in the clubhouse: “Unfounded as far as I’m concerned.” #BlueJays

— Gregor Chisholm (@gregorMLB) July 27, 2012

More JF: “I can’t speculate or have any understanding of where they originate from but I did see (those) comments and completely unfounded.”

— Gregor Chisholm (@gregorMLB) July 27, 2012

Davidi tweeted earlier about some progress being made on the injury front: Jose Bautista isn’t ready to hold a bat just yet, and the club is hoping that early next week he’ll be able to get in some “dry swings.” Brandon Morrow threw a bullpen session today and is on schedule to make a rehab start at Single-A Dunedin on Sunday. And “Drew Hutchison made 30 throws at 45 feet on first day of throwing program. Will be two days on, one day off for time being.”

TV: Sportsnet One

And now the lineups, by way of the live box score at theScore.com. And for those of you who’ll be out and about, be sure to follow all the action on your phone with Score Mobile…

Toronto Blue Jays

B. Lawrie 3B
O. Vizquel SS
C. Rasmus CF
E. Encarnacion 1B
K. Johnson 2B
Y. Gomes DH
T. Snider LF
J. Mathis C
A. Gose RF

C. Villanueva RHP

Detroit Tigers

A. Jackson CF
Q. Berry LF
M. Cabrera 3B
P. Fielder 1B
D. Young DH
B. Boesch RF
J. Peralta SS
A. Avila C
O. Infante 2B

R. Porcello RHP

Image via Jared Wickerham/Getty.