Game #124: A's at Jays pregame
There’s a very "cool" Web site that uses a pile of data to calculate every team’s chance of making the playoffs, taking into consideration the clubs’ performance this season and in the past. As of right now, the Blue Jays have a sickly 0.8 percent chance of playing baseball in October. Sorry, guys. According to the site, Toronto has just a 0.7 percent chance of capturing the Wild Card. On the site, you can click on Toronto to see more in-depth data. Is there any good news? Well, the Jays DID have a 58.7 percent shot at making the playoffs…..on April 9. Ah, the good ol’ days. Here’s today’s pregame:
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Oakland (61-64) at Toronto (63-60)
at 7:07 p.m. ET at the Rogers Centre
Today’s lineups:
ATLETICS
Shannon Stewart, LF
Nick Swisher, 1B
Jack Cust, RF
Mike Piazza, DH
Mark Ellis, 2B
Jeff Davannon, CF
Marco Scutaro, SS
Jack Hannahan, 3B
Kurt Suzuki, C
PITCHING: RHP Joe Blanton (10-8, 3.94 ERA)
BLUE JAYS
Reed Johnson, LF
Lyle Overbay, 1B
Alex Rios, RF
Vernon Wells, CF
Frank Thomas, DH
Troy Glaus, 3B
Russ Adams, 2B
Curtis Thigpen, C
John McDonald, SS
PITCHING: RHP Shaun Marcum (10-4, 3.31 ERA)
NOTES: The dog days of summer are certainly upon us. The recent pregame scrums with the manager have provided ample evidence. The news continues to be slow and the pregame discussions have dwindled down to standing around and offering a question here and there. I guess that’s what happens when a team’s hopes of contending are also disappearing with each day. But, I digress. … The big news today at Jays camp was Adams’ start at second base. As expected, Jays skipper John Gibbons gave second baseman Aaron Hill the rare day off. The last time Hill started a game on the bench was on July 8, when Howie Clark manned second. In fact, Hill has made 121 starts this year and he’s appeared in 122 of Toronto’s 123 games. The July 8 game, when Hill had a slight knee injury, was his only complete day off. … Could Hill’s heavy workload be wearing on him? The sure-handed second-sacker has made three errors in his past seven games. Hill committed eight errors in the previous 116. … The question of how Gibbons’ has been dictating the starts of Johnson and Matt Stairs also came up. Gibbons said it’s not a strict platoon situation. He’s simply weighing each match up each game and he wants to continue to get Stairs steady at-bats.
AL EAST STANDINGS
entering Monday
1. Boston 74-50 (–)
2. New York 70-54 (4)
3. Toronto 63-60 (10.5)
4. Baltimore 57-65 (16)
5. Tampa Bay 47-76 (26.5)
AL WILD CARD RACE
entering Monday
1. Seattle 69-52 (–)
2. New York 70-54 (0.5)
3. Detroit 67-57 (3.5)
4. Toronto 63-60 (7)
5. Minnesota 62-61 (8)
TICK, TOCK…Since 1995, the runner-up in the AL Wild Card race has finished with an average of 89 victories. The Blue Jays would need to go 27-12 over their final 39 games to reach 90 wins.
NEW HAMPSHIRE BEWARE: From today’s New York Post’s Weird But True briefs — "Rhode Island pet owners are on alert now that nasty "fisher cats" have reappeared in the state after an absence of 200 years. The creatures, part of the weasel family, can weigh as much as 12 pounds. They recently attacked two dogs in West Greenwich." … No word yet if any of Toronto’s Double-A players are involved
Major League Bastian 
Jordon-thanks for the update on Purcey
Another pitcher Toronto can’t hit.
Why does this idiot Gibbons keep puting Wells in the 4 hole he belongs in the 3 hole.
i didn’t see the purcey update,
continuing from last post discussion: i think that bulldog is a fitting name too and i am happy to say that i was wrong when i said that marcum isn’t a number 3 guys he is a 4-5 person. He certainly proved me wrong hopefully mcgowan and litsch can prove me wrong too when i say that they are 4-5 guys. (they will prolly stay there even if they do better)
Halladay certainly has a chance and i think marcum might too if he gets his wins from now on. i think that 0.8% should be good enough (i’m way too optimistic) atleast it’s not 0% like the royals and the devil rays.
Plus i believe that the offense should start hitting soon and pitching should continue so there is a slightly good chance of us going 27-12.
garry-I agree
Wells should hit 5th or 6th-Thomas should hit 4th
i think that wells should prolly be batting 6 even though he is making 128 million big ones. thomas at 4 and hill at 5 (not today ofcourse)
gsummer- great minds think alike
Harry-The update on Purcey is in Jordon’s mail bag
I think next year-after Halliday, the decision on who goes 2,3 or 4th will be made by showing a similar and different look.
Marcum has said he loves to follow Halliday since they’re so similar-and he gets to see how Halliday pitches to a lineup-which is perfectly understandable.
McGowan should follow AJ-since they’re also so similar-so it might be Halliday, Marcum, Burnett, McGowan and then either Jessie or Chacin.
Nice to see Hill finally getting a day off. I think he needs two to three days-he’s worn down
Of course in New York the rotation next year will be determined on the availability of wheel chairs for particualr evenings.
sorry but where is the mail bag again
nice one sumner-jordan isn’t there anything you can do to block certain e-mail addreses or ip addresses from this site?
anyways i am going to go watch the game have fun i’ll post later
harry-home page
harry-don’t worry about semigod-just remember when you post to him to keep your words down to single syllables-his intelligence is limited
Well, Da Bulldog needs ome run support tonight
Maybe they never fed spot tonight he looks a little off.
It looks like we are going to need offence tonight.
When is that idiot Gibbons going to realize Marcum stuff is not there tonight.
TO LATE game over way to go Gibbons you puke.
Poor Marcum.
NEW RULE.
We can’t brag about our starting pitcher before his game I think we jinxed him.
No Towers I think it’s to early fo frasor.
Garry we didn’t jinx him, he just didnt have it tonight
Nice outing from Frasor-maybe Gibby will start using him more.
And maybe the hitters will wake up and realize they can’t expect every starter to go out, pitch seven innings and only give up one run.
I would like to see Frasor in more games, I think it is a shame to have such talent sitting on the bench. He has pitched better then his ERA shows of late.
Why pull Frasor after 2 innings?
Frasor has had 4 or 5 poor outings where he gave up a couple of runs each time. A number of these were at the start of teh year when he was thrust into the role of closer-and not ready for it. That’s what got his era out of line.
He should be used more.
Jordon, are you sure those two dogs weren’t from Portland?
Frasor going two innings tonight was enough but he should get into more games.
As for the offence the lineup has a lot to do with it…Overbay in the 2 hole is just plain stupid he runs like a beached whale and he has a sore hand and can’t hit.
One thing I’m sure of there will be some changes in managment this winter Gibbons wont be here next year.
We will only win 78 games or less this year mark my words on this.
I hope JP is gone to.
Garry
I’d bet they win between 85 and 90. I agree with you on Gibby but not JP-I think Jp’s done a good job-he’s not the one running the team during games
Did gibbons seriously just put McGowan in to pinch-run? Wouldnt Olmedo do better? Even if he was saving him incase he needed to play in the field, shoudnt there be a pitcher NOT starting tomorrow he could put in
I think Gibby put in McGowan just in case they turned the lineup over in the 9th and needed McGowan to hit. He sure can’t be any worse than the rest of the lineup.
He just decided to put in the DL hitter a bit sooner than normal-thats all.
ROTFL
How can a manager justify putting your next day starter in to pinch run why all the pinch hitters adams and MacDonald both had hits leave them in the game they did better than the pinch hitters.
If anyone still thinks Gibbons has a brain ??????.
Garry
Ya, if he was going to use a pitcher, he should have put in Halliday.
Only an idiot would put in next days starter or any starter-he should have put Hill or Ormedo in.
Did any one believe Oakland were picking up signs from Thigpen as pointed out by the telecast crew?
The thing I found interesting about their comment is we have three catchers on the bench with Gibby, Ernie and Zaun.
It did look to me that Thigpen was definately setting his hand too low.
So the question is, if it was noticeable by the TV crew-why didn’t any of our catchers on the bench catch it, take Thigpen aside and tell him-they’re reading your mail, lad.
I used to be an Expo fan a few years ago the manager put rogers their no 1 starter in to pinch run and guess what hurt sliding into 2nd out for the season another bright manager.
Whitt and Gibbons can’t see that far and why would zaun say anything he’s always afraid of loseing his job It’s better that thigpen looks bad in his eyes.
The guy that should have picked up on it was Whitt, like what does he do on that bench every night-sleep?