In Retrospect 3.0

Oh how the mighty have fallen; temporarily at least. As was stated in last weeks edition of In Retrospect. Its as though the AL East has been turned upside down. A quick look at the standings on Monday morning and you’d see this:

	W	L	WP	GB
Baltimore	19	9	0.679	-
Tampa Bay	19	10	0.655	0.5
Toronto	16	13	0.552	3.5
NY Yankees	15	13	0.536	4
Boston	11	16	0.407	7.5

That’s Baltimore playing at 10 games above .500 – Ten! With the season more than a month in, we’re at that stage where its no longer apt to quip “Its still early” – contrary to what other may say. And as I pointed out last week, I don’t think Baltimore will simply fall off the planet.

This is an interesting week in that that the Jays have 6 games against teams with losing records and Baltimore plays Texas and Tampa – so by weeks end there may be some jockeying in the standings. The time is now for the Jays to make their move.

The Jays started their week against Yu Darvish and the Texas Rangers. Like Darby Day in Great Britain, Darvish’s start in Toronto was dubbed Darvish Day – ugh. Punch the idiot that came up with that verbiage. Also, give Hazel Mae of Sportsnet a metaphorical one-two for her comments during an interview with Ranger’s GM Jon Daniels. During the interview Mae asked Daniels to justify the 51+ million spent on Darvish’s posting fee. She followed up with “Jon, that’s not even in Canadian bucks!” – Um, Hazel, last time I checked the Canadian dollar was at par with the green back. So shut it.  

Darvish did look good though, and as he acclimatizes to MLB he’ll only get better. Looks like a worthwhile investment for the Rangers so far.

Following Darvish’s start the Jays took 3-of-4 from the Rangers before heading to LA for dinner at Ricky’s house. The Jays continued their hot hitting ways against the Angels taking the first two games – thankfully missing out on Weaver’s no-no.

However, the proverbial “the bats went cold” (Frost Giant style) struck on Saturday and Sunday as Drebek and Hutch each got hit – the latter from Poo-holes’ two-run HR – his first of the season. So a split with LAA, I think most fans will take that. But at the same time, fans recognize that Sundays game was winnable and if not for a base running error from Rajai Davis late in the game it could have been a different story.

It seems like every week the Jays have a goat. At first it was JP Mendoza, but he’s come around and is playing very well. Then it was Joey Bats and Eric Thames. Now its Adam Lind’s lack of production. I’m not a firm believer in “protection” in the line up. As in, Bautista isn’t producing because Lind isn’t providing protection. But he isn’t hitting anything right now and more worrisome is that he doesn’t even appear to be battling. Let’s hope he rights the ship or the Jays add first base to their shopping list.

Lind even drew comparisons to Frank Thomas last week. And not in a good way. We're not talking about the Hulk from Chicago, we're talking about the rebar swinging lump that played in Toronto. Not good.

Lind's currents stats for the season look like this:

2 HR, 8 RBI, .194 AVG, .609 OPS - eww 

Looking ahead, the Jays should have the edge going into Oakland and Minnesota. I wonder if Tuesday will be Yeonis day?

In a time honoured tradition, Phils and Spills this week celebrates no one by the name of Phil. In fact, all Phils had bad weeks, so here’s to Weaver for his no-no and Bryce Harper for being electric. The dubious Spills award also goes to none other than Bryce for that hair cut. C’mon kid, you’re in the Bigs now.