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.