He done it again!

How about that Jose guy, huh?

 I'll be honest, I didn't watch this game, opting to go get drunk instead, as I am wont to do from time to time.  Took 2nd place in bar trivia to help cut in to the bar tab, so that was nice.  The bar we were at had 5 or 6 tv's scattered about, and they were all either on hockey or the royal fucking wedding.  I asked the waitress to change one of the weddings to the Jays game, so that one got subsequently changed to the hockey game.  Great.

Jose Bautista though.  Dude is awfully good.  Got on base four more times last evening, including another homerun, earning himself a Zaun head.  Robinson Cano is equally amazing, and way more valuable than Bautista given the fact that he plays 2nd base and is younger.  Fucking Quintana... that creep can roll man.

Afternoon game today, starting at 3 or 4 or something like that.  Kyle Drabek goes for the Jays.  Yankees will counter with former Jay and former shitballer A.J. Burnett, who has been really effective so far this year.  Expect Jose Molina behind the plate today, despite JP Arencibia's homerun last night.  Looks like that Bautista swagger is rubbing off on our little one.  He looks like a total badass when he realizes just how little doubt there was with that ball being gone.

Ryan Braun hit another homer yesterday too, becoming the first in the majors with 10.  Watch out Barry, the race is on.

Speaking of homers, how about Carlos Santana?  Dude was slumping hard, but walked off last night in the bottom of the 9th with a grand slam.  Pretty cool stuff.

Ethier watch!  Andre extended his hit streak to 25 games, tying Paul Lo Duca and Steve Sax for the second longest hit streak in Dodger history.  Sax is probably more known for serving like 12 consecutive life sentences for all the unsolved murders in New York City than for any baseball related mumbo jumbo.  Just never knew when to shut his mouth.  Anyway, Ethier needs to hit safely in 7 more before establishing the club record of 31, held by Willie "Don't call me Chili" Davis, in 1969.

*editor's note* - for some reason there are no english versions of that clip on youtube, at least on first search of "steve sax simpsons".  Either way, I'd like to point out, for anyone who missed the reference, if that's at all possibile, that Saxey-boy isn't really in jail.

Jason Marquis apparently thinks it's 2007, because he pitched really well last night, outdueling Tim Lincecum. Timmy was pretty good, making one pretty bad pitch to Laynce Nix in the 2nd that got mashed in to the right field bleachers. Marquis also knocked a run in after tomahawking an 0-2 pitch that was at about eye-level for an rbi base hit.

And finally, this:

Back story here.

Lineups-

Davis CF
Escobar SS
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Rivera LF
Encarnacion 3B
Cooper DH
Molina C
Mccoy 2B

Pitching: Drabek

Yankees

Jeter SS
Granderson CF
Teixeira 1B
Cano 2B
Swiher RF
Chavez 3B
Posada DH
Martin C
Gardner LF


Pitching: Burnett

3 outta 4 is pretty good

Holy shit!  That was scary, huh?  In case you missed it, some guy was trying to brush back the 10th wonder of the world on an 0-2 fastball and actually barely missed his head.  The ball got him on the hand, which is just as scary really, given all the small breakable bones there.  Bautista laid on the ground in pain for about a minute before heading to first, only to be stranded there when Adam Lind struck out with the bases loaded to end the 7th inning.

If you missed this game due to not being lazy and actually doing something with your day at from 2-5PM, I've got you covered.  Adam Lind hit a big 2-run blast in the first inning after Jose Bautista walked, which is awesome enough to earn the Zaun-head, his second in three games.  If there's anything that's going to stop Bautista from being pitched around, it's Adam Lind heating up.  Or maybe they'll just keep walking Bautista and he'll have the best offensive season ever that way and take their chances with Lind, who knows?

Texas answered back with a run in the bottom of the first, and another in the third, both aided by stolen bases.  From there, it was pretty much business as usual for two pretty good pitchers in Brandon Morrow and Alexi Ogando until they came out after the 6th.  There was the odd baserunner here and there, but both pitchers were fairly effective, despite pretty high pitchcounts from both.

The Jays got a rally in the 7th, loading the bases after the aforementioned Bautista HBP, but couldn't materialize that in to anything.  The Rangers got what seemed like a rally of their own in the 8th, though maybe that's just my mind playing tricks on me since Jason Frasor was in the game and took his usual 5 minutes between pitches.

In the top of the 9th, Corey Patterson surprised nobody except the Texas Rangers by bunting with a runner on 3rd base, yet he somehow ran it out for an uncontested hit. Jose Bautista then walked to load the bases, and Juan Rivera lined one to 3rd base, where the usually sure-handed Adrian Beltre made his first error of the season, allowing another run to score.

Maybe that HBP knocked a screw loose in Bautista's head though, because this little gem happened next.  Even when this guy fucks up it still turns to gold.  My interpretation of that video is that Bautista, ever so clever, realized that nobody had called time-out, and that nobody was covering 3rd base or paying attention to that fact.  As result, he opted to try and sneak a free base.  The problem being that Corey Patterson was already standing on third.  I think it was Isaac Newton who once said that no two objects can occupy the same space, so naturally, Darren Oliver freaks out and throws the ball in the right field, scoring another run.

Frank Francisco, who came in with 2 outs in the 8th inning to face a lefty (not Octavio Dotel!) pitched a perfect 9th to secure the win.

So the Jays took 3 of 4 from a pretty good Texas team (without Josh Hamilton, mind you) in their own ballpark and improve to 12-13.  Next stop is Yankee Stadium for three games, then to Tampa for 3 more before heading home.

A few things from behind the scenes in Bluejay land.  I would hazard a guess that the most important one is that Travis Snider was optioned down to AAA Las Vegas to work on his swing.  Pretty fucking stupid really. Parkes and Stoeten from Getting Blanked and Drunk Jays Fans, respectively, summed this one up pretty much as well as possible here, and fangraphs chimes in too.  Basically what they're saying, and I agree with them, is that Snider struggling isn't really holding the team back (which is true; let's face it, this team isn't going anywhere this season and we all know it), and that this season is all about getting reps for the young guys, or in other words, getting Snider 600 AB's, getting JP Arencibia his AB's, and probably more importantly, time behind the plate with a young pitching staff.  Snider still doesn't have an entire season under his belt without either being sent down or missing serious time due to getting injured.  Obviously the stance of the team is to send him down and get some confidence and work out the frustration, rather than doing so against the AL east.  Whatever.  I mean I understand it, but there was a reason that he got called up to be the everyday leftfielder a couple years ago, and that is the fact that he put up such crazy numbers in his minor league seasons.  Former hotshot prospect David Cooper comes back up the other way.  The Jays' 2008 1st rounder put up a pretty good spring, and has an OPS over 1 so far in AAA. The Jays also outrighted Chris Woodward, which allows Rajai Davis to rejoin the team.

I'm trying to figure out what these moves do from a lineup perspective, which I suppose we'll figure out tonight and over the next few days.  Cooper is a first baseman who was raking it down in AAA.  It won't be a big deal for Lind to take a day off at some point this weekend, especially with two daygames and a travel day, but if they are just calling Cooper up to sit on the bench then they'd have been better off to just leave Woody up with the big club, since it gives another infield option with Nix and Hill both still hurt.  Leads me to believe that one or the other are back within a few days.

I'm more concerned about Snider's plate appearances though.  Assuming Cooper isn't just sitting on the bench, he'll either be DH-ing or playing 1B, spelling Lind.  This will push Juan Rivera to LF?  Ugh.  Or Lind to LF with Cooper to 1B?  Kind of ugh.  Or Patterson in LF?  And still batting 2nd?  UGHHH. * Patterson is a pinch-runner and emergency 5th outfielder at best.  Basically what I'm saying here is that I'd way rather see another outfielder up instead of a 1B.  The only other outfielder on the 40-man is Darin Mastroianni, and his AAA numbers aren't that good 20 games in to the season.  Eric Thames is another option, despite not being on the 40-man roster yet.  He's having a big year so far though, with numbers better than Cooper's and the ability to play both RF and LF.  Okay, enough prospect porn.

* denotes: moment of clarity several hours later.  With Davis and Yunel up top, there is no need for Patterson hitting 2nd.  Carry on.
Elsewhere in the League:

I'd like to highlight an article by one of my favorite baseball guys, Kyle Boddy.  Kyle writes a little bit for The Hardball Times, but mostly for his own blog, www.drivelinebaseball.com.  He specializes in pitching mechanics and injury prevention, but just knows a whole bunch about baseball in general (He's also a fellow poker player, so I'm biased I guess). Anyhoo, this article is about A's pitcher Kyle McCarthy, and the mechanical change he's made in his delivery that has translated to some decent success to this point in the season.  Oh, big surprise, Oakland went and got some pitcher and made him good.

Rays super-utility man Ben Zobrist went crazy yesterday, knocking in 8 runs in the first half of a double header, going 4-for-6 with a HR, and then hitting another 2-run bomb in the second game to make it an even 10 RBI on the day.  And you know what else?  Those two HR's both happened at Target Field, which is a tough park to mash taters in.  Between him and the robots that are Jered Weaver and Jose Bautista, the AL player of the month race is pretty interesting.  Bautista leads all the important offensive categories (despite the start of this paragraph, RBI's are not an important stat), and Weaver has been fucking ridiculous dominant.

Alex Rodriguez continued to be a douche last night, hitting a ball to right field and doing that stupid "stand there are watch it" thing that he does when he thinks he has a homerun.  It hit the fence.  Good effort bro, earn that paycheck.

Nationals starter Livan Hernandez was recently named as an accomplice or something in a drug trial at home. He answered by going 8 innings in the win, striking out 5 and getting two hits.

Canadian content: Ryan Dempster pitched a gem last night, almost getting two outs in the first inning against Arizona.  He gave up 7 runs on 4 hits and 4 walks, getting just 1 batter out.  Stick to curling, maybe?

Ricky "Mr. America" Romero (Ricky dates reigning Miss America, Rima Fakih) takes the mound tonight for the Jays.  He goes up against a surprisingly effective (to this point, anyway) Freddy Garcia for the Yanks.  This one starts 7 ET.

Lineups:

Jays!

Davis CF
Escobar SS
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Rivera LF (deep breath...)
Encarnacion 3B (another)
Cooper DH (good luck kid)
Arencibia C
McDonald 2B

P: Romero

Damn Yankees

Jeter SS
Swisher RF
Teixeira 1B
Rodriguez 3B
Cano 2B
Jones DH
Grandy CF
Martin C
Gardner LF

P: Garcia

The 4-Out Rally/ April 28- Jays vs. Rangers

Well it's getaway day.  Kind of sucks to leave Texas the way this series has gone so far, as the bats have come alive.  Even Juan Rivera.  I know right?  Anyway, that game last night was kind of bullshit.  Jojo Reyes looked good for about as long as he was capable before giving up 6 unearned runs in the 3rd inning.  Let's examine that one, shall we?

First off, David Murphy lines out to Yunel Escobar.  Simple enough.  Next batter is Yorvit Torrealba, who hit a sharp grounder to third, which Edwin Encarnacion made a pretty decent play to get to, but couldn't get the throw up, earning an error.  I'm still kind of meh on the error call, since it was hit sharply enough that it could have gotten through, but whatever.  Mitch Moreland then struck out, for the 2nd (3rd-ish) out.  Reyes then did this to Ian Kinsler:

If you can't see that very well or aren't familiar with Pitch F/X, that graph shows the location of every pitch thrown in the AB.  The first pitch was that pretty red one right down the center of the plate, taken for a strike.  The second pitch is the green one on the right side, called a ball outside for some reason.  Kinsler then fouled off a pitch that was actually outside the zone (dark red on the top right corner), before throwing that wild pitch (green bottom).  Another foul ball (top right again) before painting the corner twice and getting no calls, earning a 6 strike walk.

Visibly rattled, Reyes threw meatballs to both Elvis Andrus and Michael Young, beaned Adrian Beltre, gave up a single to Nelson Cruz on what was actually a decent pitch (though probably would have been called a ball based on that Kinsler at-bat), and then hung one over the plate to everybody's favorite Jay-for-a-day, Mike Napoli, who hit a gapper for a double to cap off a 6-run rally that ultimately shouldn't have happened.

Yeah it was unfortunate, but sometimes, as a big league starter auditioning for 29 other teams, you might have to pick up your defense once in a while, or take your lumps, or whatever other baseball cliche you might like to use in this situation.  The silver lining in the situation is two-fold for me; first, Jojo Reyes doesn't have what it takes to be in a big league rotation, especially in the AL East, and 2) Carlos Villanueva was the balls in relief of Jojo, pitching 3.1 IP of hitless, 1 walk baseball, earning the crudely cut Zaun-head.  PLEEEEEASE let him start next time instead of Jojo.  Fuck.  Bluebird Banter has a suggestion of what to do with him.

We all knew this Jojo thing wasn't going to work out in the long run, and that, at best, Jojo was just going to be Dana Eveland 2.0 (for anyone who doesn't remember that, the Jays signed Eveland off the scrap heap before last season and got a good spring and a handful of starts out of him before trading him for a C-grade prospect).  Now I'm just praying to the nearest Jehovah that he gets cut, or at least sent to the bullpen so FARRELL DOESN'T BRING IN FUCKING OCTAVIO DOTEL TO FACE A LEFT-HANDED BATTER IN A TIE GAME.  Literally every Bluejays blogger writes this, so I don't know why it's still a secret to Farrell, but lefties have a career OPS of over .900 against Dotel.  Remember how Jose Bautista was last year?  That's what the average LHB has done against Dotel over the course of his career.

Sigh, settle down.  It wasn't really all that bad.  The Jays put up another 6 runs off Rangers pitching, including two more hits from Adam Lind, a big RBI double from Jose Beastista, and another tater and 3 hits total from Juan Rivera, who has actually gotten on base over 50% of the time in his last 26 AB's.  Not bad.  He's finally got the average up to .210, which is still fucking atrocious, given the amount of time he's spent at DH this year.

And more good news: Brandon Morrow starts for the Jays tonight!  He gave up a 2-run shot in the first inning in his last start against Tampa, and then answered by striking out 10 in 5.1 IP, being downright dominant.  I totally love watching this guy pitch.  He's up against Alexi Ogando for Texas, who has been real nasty so far (3-0, 2.13 ERA, .79 WHIP).

Elsewhere in the league, it snowed in Minnesota during the Twins game last night.  Damn Earth.

Canadian stuff: Erik Bedard picked up his first win in over 2 years, after struggling through injuries.  Fellow injury-prone Canadian Jeff Francis opted for the less effective 5-run first inning, picking up the loss for KC.

How about Bartolo Colon?  Dude didn't even pitch last season, but went 8 strong for the Yankees last night, hitting the mid-90's in the 7th and 8th innings.  The 38-year old blob threw 99 pitches, scattering 7 hits over 8 innings, and gave himself several rounds of applause.  Apparently The White Sox loss in this one was due to some tough guy umpire, according to manager Ozzie Guillen's Twitter account, which was updated from the clubhouse after he was ejected in the first inning for freaking out.

I was looking for a gif of those Lillibridge catches from the other day, but found what appears to be Texas fans trolling Bautista, only to be trolled back nicely.

Link to the Lillibridge catches btw.

One more thing: I know you people are reading this.  I had 93 unique hits yesterday and another 60-something the day before.  Drop a fucking comment.  I thought we were friends.

Early game today btw, starting at 2:00PM ET.

Oh great, Yunel gets the day off.  Predicting 2 solo HR's from Bautista today.  Fortunately we only need one run since Brandon Morrow is pitching.

Jays-

Mccoy 2B
Patterson CF
Beastista RF
Lind 1B
Rivera DH
Encarnacion 3B
Snider LF
Molina C
Sir John A. Macdonald SS

Pitching: Morrow

Rangers-

Kinsler 2B
Andrus SS
Young DH
Beltre 3B
Cruz LF
Moreland RF
Napoli C (!)
Davis 1B
Borbon CF

Pitching: Ogando

April 27- Jays vs. Rangers

My girlfriend sent me this earlier.  I somehow don't remember it.  Congrats dear, you made the blog.

Quickly now:

Yeah, Rajai Davis isn't back in the lineup tonight. Quick tear, then move on.  Edwin's back though, moving Juan Rivera one step closer to his rightful place on the bench.  Well his rightful place is retirement, but you get the idea.

Next, I somehow forgot to mention that hockey game last night.  Not a huge hockey fan anymore, but that was a good effing game.  When I did watch hockey, I was a Canucks fan, so I fistpumped quickly at the end of the game.

Third, not sure if the ads are the same for everyone or if they just rotate every time someone refreshes the page, but I just saw a great big picture of Jack Layton's ugly mug at the bottom of the site.  Let's just clear the air and say that I don't choose the ads, I simply chose to sell out and that one was stuffed in there all nice and cute.

What else? The dog pooped on the floor this morning and then slept on my lap all day, so there's that.

Andre Ethier mashed a tater this afternoon and extended that hit streak to 24 games.  Always been a fan.

Finally, I'm trying to find a gif or gifs of the awesomeness that was Brent Lillibridge last night.  For anyone who missed it, in the bottom of the 9th last night at Yankee Stadium, Lilly made a really good diving catch to rob someone (Gardner?) of a hit, and then an excellent catch to end it, Robbing-son Cano of extras and a chance to tie it up/win it.  Will update with at least video coverage later if not the giffage.

Anyway, it's JoJo vs. Derek Holland tonight in Texas.  Holland isn't too unlike David Purcey, who the Jays recently cut ties with.  Low-to-Mid-90's heat from the left side, walks, etc.  He showed what he could do last year in the playoffs against the Yankees coming out of the bullpen and being downright nasty at times, but he's got an ERA over 11 vs. TOR, albeit in only 2 starts.

Follow me on twitter @alexgrady80

Lineups- Blueyays

Escobar SS
Mccoy 2B (not Patterson!)
Baubeasta RF
Lind 1B
Rivera DH
Encarnacion 3B
Snider LF
Arencibia C
Patterson CF (oh)

Pitching: J. Reyes

Rangers
Kinsler DH
Andrus SS
Young 2B
Beltre 3B
Cruz LF
Napoli 1B
Murphy CF
Torrealba C
Moreland RF

Pitching: Holland

Well then...

The other day some lady came to my door asking for a Kristina.  She was dressed in a long black coat and boots, and was holding some books.  No Kristina has lived in this house for at least 40 years, maybe more, so you can imagine my surprise when, after I told her just that, she asks me "Are you sure?"  Yes, I'm sure, but also curious as to whether I'm about to get robbed, annoyed, pitched to, or whatever.

Well it turns out that she was a Jehovah's witness (boring!).  "Oh ok," she says, with fake surprise at my Kristina-less home.  "Let me show you what I was going to show her."  She opens a bible (or the Jehovah equivalent, I guess?) and starts reading a passage about peace on earth or something along those lines that I wasn't overly paying attention to since the dog was freaking out.

Well my friends, I let her have it.  Before she was finished I interrupted "Wait a second.  You're really going to show up to my house unannounced like this, and blatantly lie to me about your intentions of being here and then try to talk me in to a religion that I know and care nothing about?  Don't get me wrong, even if I did give half a shit about religion, which I don't, this wouldn't work, since you showing up here and lying to me gives me all the evidence that I need to believe that this Jehovah nonsense is nothing but a by-any-means-necessary money-grabbing pyramid scheme.  I understand that this [going around door-to-door bothering people] is part of the religion, so I commend the balls that it must take to go around getting yelled at all day by strangers, but that's not even what I'm appalled at.  Straight-up lying to people in this fashion is probably a bad business model for getting people to convert.  And if do you insist on lying to people like this then at least learn how to fucking lie without being this see-through."  Or something along those lines anyway.

The point of my story is that if you lie to others, then you're lying to yourself.  Take Adam Lind for example.  That dude did everything in his power last year to convince us that he couldn't hit left-handed pitching.  Yeah, well, last night Lind chose to take a break from being the guy that high-fives Jose Bautista after he homers, and chose to actually hit 2 of his own last night.  Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but he's just hitting all line-drives off lefties this year. I, for one, welcome our new leftymashing DH-turned 1B overlord.  So much so, that he has earned the first-ever EITS "Crudely cut-out Zaun-head", the award earned for being the player of the game.  Kudos!

And shit, how about that game last night?  Adam Lind had a sexy little 3/5 night with a coupla taters as the Jays put up 5 in the 1st and 10 total.  Gingerballs was pretty good, save for one bad inning, going 6 innings scattering 7 hits and 3 runs.  He ended up walking Chris Davis after getting squeezed pretty hard, leading to a little rally that may not (read: would not) have been.  I was going to get the pitch f/x graph for that AB but it's not working for me right now so fuck it.  Either way, good to see the bats going.  And fuck knows that they've gotta keep going considering JoJo Reyes gets the start tonight for Toronto.

What else is in the news?
John Lott tweeted this during the Jays game yesterday:

 Brett Cecil in 1st start for Vegas: 4.1IP/13H/11R-10ER/3BB/2K/3HR. Left after 3-run HR.  

That, for those of you who are either my girlfriend or have stumbled upon this blog accidentally but are still reading for some reason (or maybe both?), is not a very good performance.  But before you get your vaginas (vaginae?) all tangled up with uhohs, it's not as bad as it sounds; this game was played in the snow.  16 degrees fair-in-height, whatever that translates to after the exchange-rate (it's like -4C I think).  And another thing: Why the fuck are we playing baseball in the fucking snow?  What is this?  Opening day 1977?

 Anyway, Cecil tweeted last night after the game that he was all out of whack and that it was going to get worse before it gets better.  Heaven help us if that's the case.  Then again, I know of a certain Roy Halladay, who was older than Cecil and pitching in AAA-ball, and then subsequently AA and A, after a stint in the majors, so who knows?  All he did was become the best pitcher of his generation.

Jays centerfielder Rajai Davis made another rehab start yesterday, playing the whole game this time instead of getting beaned in the hand and being pulled.  I expect him back with the big club before the weekend and possibly as soon as tonight. And really, I'm praying to the nearest god (which is apparently Jehovah) (badum-psssh) that he does come back tonight, because, Corey Patterson is not good.  I think Stoeten over at Drunk jays fans hates him about 10 times as much as I do, and he's hit a little better over the last couple games, but I still think that dude is a waste of space (see: fringe 4th OF and not #2 batter).

Elsewhere around the league, Ryan Braun is going anti-Vernon, signing a deal that guarantees him a bunch of money for life, but mysteriously continuing to be awesome.  That dude hit HR #9 lat night, 1 more than Barry Bonds 2.0 Jose Bautista, and has an almost-as-good slash line of .372/.466/.721.  If you somehow missed it, Braun was signed through the 2016 season, but signed an extension for some reason to take him all the way through 2020, his age-35 season, matching Troy Tulowitzki's deal.  Defense tho.

Andre Ethier extended his hit streak last night, and has hit safely in every game the Dodgers have played this year.  That's good for a new record, passing Joe Torre's 22-gamer from like 30 years ago or something.  Torre was Ethier's manager last year, which makes this a neat little story for people who care about useless shit like that.

 And finally, Eric Almonte made major league history yesterday, becoming the first ever player to be placed on the 7-day disabled list reserved for concussions and other head-traumas. Link

Edit-> Here's one more for ya.  Apparently Jose Bautista is good at hitting.
Lineups later.

April 26: Jays vs. Rangers

I'm just going to write and pretend that I actually have readers, so that when I start actually getting readers I'll be able to look back and say "Hey look!"  And you know what?  If I don't actually get readers, nobody is going to be able to come find this post and say anything smart.  Either way, I need some creative avenue of my own to make wise-cracks, instead of just tweeting them to other bloggers and let them use my material.

Anyway.  Jesse Litsch comes back to pitsch after that demotion last week (true story: I traded him and Juan Rivera for Bryce Harper in MLB The Show 11, so maybe that's something to try*).  I personally would have just sent Cecil down originally instead of ole' Gingerballs, but whatever; I'm far from a GM and I fully trust AA after the Vernon Wells heist, even if he hasn't just straight up released Juan Rivera to this point.

Matt Harrison is going for Texas tonight.  He's been good so far through his first 4 starts, with an ERA under 2 and WHIP under 1, though he's a lefty and they're playing in Texas so that could blow right up.

Here's some Jays related stuff:

Dave Cameron at Fangraphs writes about big beautiful bearded Bautista, wondering whether or not he is the best hitter in the AL.  Just think what could happen in anyone would get on base in front of him. [spoiler alert: This sudden success is probably not a fluke!]  And really, if you would like to use 21 games as a sample size (hint: you shouldn't), he leads the league in WAR, and has a nonsensical .364/.517/.788 slash line.  There are still a dozen or five position players I'd rather have on my team over the course of his 5-year contract given his age, but whatever.

Are you following Gregg Zaun on twitter?  You probably should be.  Or are you too good for twitter?  He twatted today that tonight's "Zaun 101" segments that run before/during/after games will be about Travis Snider (yay!) and Juan Rivera (ugh).

According to Yahoo! Sports, whose preview of tonight's game I consulted to plagiarize a bunch of stuff from (not really):

Toronto reliever Frank Francisco(notes) received his World Series ring from the Rangers before the series opener. Francisco spent his first six major league seasons with Texas before he was traded in January.

So the Frank Francisco Giants won the World Series last year?

Aaaaaand apparently Carl Everett pulled a gun on his wife yesterday. I don't know if it's racist that I'm not surprised, but I'm not surprised.

*- denotes that I don't actually think this would ever work, just to maintain any credibility that I might have.

Tell your friends!

Lineups:

Jays
Escobar SS
Patterson CF
Bautista RF
Lind 1B
Rivera DH
Arencibia C
Snider LF
McDonald 2B
McCoy 3B
Gingerballs P

Rangers
 Kinsler 2B
 Andrus SS
 Young DH
 Beltre 3B
 Cruz RF
 Murphy LF
 Torrealba C
 Davis 1B
 Borbon CF
 Harrison P

Apparently Rajai Davis was supposed to be back today but got beaned in a rehab start and may have hurt his hand.  Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but give me back Edwin Encarnacion and drown Juan Rivera please.