Two Blown Saves for One

People like the moan about bullpens. I usually try to find perspective, decide that eventually these things balance out. Also, for whatever reason, when people start to moan, I start looking for positives. But yesterday was torture. The game felt endless and depressing. The offense kept pushing the team ahead, and Rauch kept giving it back. I mean, Jose Molina hit a 2 RBI triple. A TRIPLE!!! MOLINA!!!! And it was totally wasted.

I had never seen young Ray Desmond Jennings play before, but to the half watching eye, he looks exactly like BJ Upton. And no, this is not to suggest that all people of colour look the same. Just these two particular ones. My point is, in that never ending extra inning game, it felt like Upton was up every third batter.

So that game finally ended and Travis Snider was demoted to AAA. And I sighed.

I don't want to believe that Snider is a AAAA player, but maybe that's what this is. The kid rakes in AAA, is called up, does well in spurts and then the swing gets long. Does he get tired or distracted and gets away from what he works on in AAA? I am probably of the opinion that Snider should stay up for the rest of the season and work with the big boys. But it there is something that is nagging me. I have no proof of this, but maybe Snider is rubbing someone the wrong way. Cito Gaston once implied that Snider closed himself off to the type of coaching Lind was open to. And I know everyone hates Cito, but the guy knows hitting.

I noticed on Twitter last night that people were saying that Snider should barge into AA's office and demand some respect (damn it!!) And I found those people really adorable.

Trading Snider or Thames for a closer is trading future goodness for a present need. On a contending team, that is a difficult decision. On a non-contending team, that is idiocy. Which do you think the Jays are?

My latest thing is to listen to the Baseball Today podcast, produced by ESPN. Keith Law, on the subject of the Rasmus trade, derided the trade by saying that it was a really bad idea to trade a starting position player for a relief pitcher. I've decided that is a good rule of thumb.

So, Brett Lawrie has finally been called up. Lawrie, Lawrie, Hallelujah!!! etc. This could be very exciting, but I get the sense that this call up has been a bit soured by the demotion of Snider.

Lawrie was batting .353 with 18 homers and 63 RBIs in 69 games for Las Vegas. He also had 24 doubles, six triples, a .415 on-base percentage and .661 slugging percentage.