A Thing Like That: Jays' Bats have Big Day vs Angels
The sooner I am able to forget about the weekend vs the Astros, the better. The Dickey start was a write off, but three of those four games were winnable. They just had bad bullpen pitching and dismal luck in the RISP department, particularly yesterday. And the Astros are playing like dynamos. Clutch hits, convenient homers and a bullpen that doesn't relinquish a lead once it gets it.
The series prompted Buehrle, Sunday's starter, to give some pretty choice quotes:
“It’s not good,” Buehrle said. “I’m stating the obvious right now when I say that we stink. We are not playing very good on every aspect. When we’re pitching good, we’re not hitting. When we hit and score runs, which we have done most of the year, we are not doing a good job of pitching."
“I don’t feel like we are as bad as we are playing. I don’t think we are as bad as we are showing out there. We have to go out there and play better,” he said. “We have to turn it around before we have a fire sale and start trading guys or sending guys up and down.”
Yeah, can we not do that? (It's a bit ironic that it's Buehrle who says this, as I'm pretty sure he'd be the first one shipped out. It being the last year of his contract and all. It's kind of nice he doesn't seem to want that to happen. It warms the cockles a bit. Thanks, Papa.)
Back home, under the sun, it was a different story. The pitching was still kind of scary-to be fair, it was a spot start for Todd Redmond, who is really better suited to long relief- but thankfully, Roberto Osuna is still the best and the bats came to play.
Josh Donaldson led the charge with a big day at the plate, going 3 for 5. But it was what happened in the sixth inning that got most of the press (it didn't hurt, of course, that it was the only game happening at the time.) According to the National Post, this is how it broke down:
Donaldson facing Morin.
Donaldson ducks back from a pitch, which is called a ball. Scioscia et al take exception to that call and chirp the ump.
Donaldson, maybe still a little raw from the weekend from hell and having just witnessed the pitching blow a four run lead, chirps back. No one is happy.
Donaldson eventually strikes out, but pitching coach Mike Butcher keeps up the chirping.
Donaldson then does something so vulgar, so tawdry and so awesome that it has been tweeted across baseball Twitter. Behold:
My word, Joshua. (He also totally has 90210 hair. And I'm fine with that.)
Notice the rest of the bench is totally nonplussed. Martin doesn't even blink.
For the record, this is what he said, “Who is it? Butcher? F— you.” And in the interest of keeping this a family blog, the rest rhymes "duck" and "clock", with a pronoun in between.
This got the Angels bench a little frothy and the umpire, to his credit, tried to de-escalate the situation by telling them to knock it off. He also, hilariously, visited Morin on the mound, seemingly to warn him against throwing at Bautista, who was at the plate. I'm imagining it went something like, "Ask the Orioles how well throwing at Bautista worked out for them."
Morin, who seemed a bit rattled by something, walked Bautista and Encarnacion and was replaced by Vinny Pescano, who promptly gave up a two run single to Russell Martin.
“I’m not here to try to bad-mouth. I think people saw what happened," said Donaldson. "I played against these guys for a long time. They know the competitor that I am, and I think we just kind of got caught up in the heat of the moment.”
Martin's hit crack the game open and the Jays went on to win it 10-6.
Josh Donaldson led the charge with a big day at the plate, going 3 for 5. But it was what happened in the sixth inning that got most of the press (it didn't hurt, of course, that it was the only game happening at the time.) According to the National Post, this is how it broke down:
Donaldson facing Morin.
Donaldson ducks back from a pitch, which is called a ball. Scioscia et al take exception to that call and chirp the ump.
Donaldson, maybe still a little raw from the weekend from hell and having just witnessed the pitching blow a four run lead, chirps back. No one is happy.
Donaldson eventually strikes out, but pitching coach Mike Butcher keeps up the chirping.
Donaldson then does something so vulgar, so tawdry and so awesome that it has been tweeted across baseball Twitter. Behold:
My word, Joshua. (He also totally has 90210 hair. And I'm fine with that.)
Notice the rest of the bench is totally nonplussed. Martin doesn't even blink.
For the record, this is what he said, “Who is it? Butcher? F— you.” And in the interest of keeping this a family blog, the rest rhymes "duck" and "clock", with a pronoun in between.
This got the Angels bench a little frothy and the umpire, to his credit, tried to de-escalate the situation by telling them to knock it off. He also, hilariously, visited Morin on the mound, seemingly to warn him against throwing at Bautista, who was at the plate. I'm imagining it went something like, "Ask the Orioles how well throwing at Bautista worked out for them."
Morin, who seemed a bit rattled by something, walked Bautista and Encarnacion and was replaced by Vinny Pescano, who promptly gave up a two run single to Russell Martin.
“I’m not here to try to bad-mouth. I think people saw what happened," said Donaldson. "I played against these guys for a long time. They know the competitor that I am, and I think we just kind of got caught up in the heat of the moment.”
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| Mike Scioscia's tragic illness made us smile |
“Russell’s gotten big hit after big hit in those kind of situations – tight game, when you really need something, two outs,” Gibbons said. “He’s been that guy that always seems to come through for us. So give Russell an A.”
With a gold star.
So the losing streak is over. Was it inspired by Donaldson outburst of filth? I'm going to go ahead and say yes.
Finally, John Lott spent the long weekend in Buffalo and talked to Daniel Norris about being sent down and trying to find himself in AAA.
Lott also talked to Randy Wolf, the 38 year old journey man who is pitching for the Bisons. He had a 10 minute try out for the Jays in the spring, after several teams who had promised to come see him failed to show up.
The Jays offered him Blue Jays shorts after Wolf showed up in black sweat pants.
Could you imagine? "Yeah, his stuff looks pretty good, I think, but I was blinded by pasty flesh."