That's a little better

"My balls feel this big right now."- Adam Lind, after hitting a 2-run HR in the first inning.*

Ok, so Adam Lind is good at baseball. Another Zaun-head for the boy.  14 for 31 on this road trip.  Someone remind me next time Adam has a good game that I don't know how to do the cross-wise tick mark for the 5th one, so he can't have another until I figure that out.

And that was actually a pretty good game yesterday for a change.  Brandon Morrow was pretty good, going 6.1, striking out 7, allowing 5 hits and walking 4.  I wouldn't mind seeing him walking fewer batters, or at least throwing fewer pitches, but the Rays are the kind of team that are going to foul off a lot of pitches and get deep in to counts, plus that was only his third start of the year.  But holy shit did he ever look like a beast.

And I think BJ Upton was hungover or tired or something, because he had a bad game, racking up 4 strikeouts.  Or maybe it was Chad Fairchild, whose strikezone was all over the place.  Morrow literally didn't get a low strike call all night.  Granted, he works up in the zone a lot, and most of the low pitches he throws are breaking balls that are designed to be swung over.  Jeff Niemann and Andy Sonnanstine combined to get 2 low strike calls, so yeah. And there's this at-bat to Upton late in the game:

which was followed by an outburst that probably won't be found on the internet for a while, thanks to MLB's video policy, not to mention the fact that it was a profanity-laced tirade against an umpire that makes the league look bad.  I assume he'll be suspended.  Rays homer R.J. Anderson has more about Fairchild's zone at Baseball Prospectus.

And speaking of suspensions, the league announced that they would not discipline all these guys who have been arrested with DUI's lately. Not yet anyway.  Shin-soo Choo is the most recent, blowing a .201 an hour after being arrested (.08 is the legal limit if I'm not mistaken), but there have been a bunch in the last year.  Miguel Cabrera is the current leader, with 2, but ringing up the rear is actually the makings of a pretty decent team full of underrated players, with Choo, Derek Lowe, Coco Crisp headlining.  Adam Kennedy and Austin Kearns are the bench.  Let's not forget that it's almost 2 years to the day that Angels' top prospect Nick Adenhart was killed by a drunk driver after making a start in LA.

The main problem is that, according to Yahoo's Jeff Passan there is nothing concerning alcohol-related arrests in the league's collective bargaining agreement, which expires this December.

What else is new?  Dustin Parkes at Getting Blanked makes fun of people who think that there is such thing as clutch hitting.  He also comes off less pretentious this time, vs. the last time he talked about this when he was on Stat Attack on The Score during spring training.

Fangraphs reviews the 2008 MLB Draft.  Just shows how volatile any given draft can be.  Two teams who, historically, have drafted really really well (Boston and Tampa) had, what can now be considered, pretty disappointing drafts.  Explains why the draft goes 45 fucking rounds.  Baseball is unlike any other sport, in a sense that guy who are drafted one year don't just become superstars the next year (for the most part).  The much more likely outcome is that guys take between two and four years.  Baseball prospects are typically much more raw than guys going in the first round of the NHL or NBA drafts, and take a few years of seasoning.

Around the league
Tim Lincecum had some fun last night, striking out 12 over 7 innings in the Giants' 2-0 win over the Mets.  Unfortunately for us, he threw 127 pitches and couldn't come back out for the 8th inning.  And that wasn't even the best performance by a Tim last night.

Tim Hudson threw a 1-hitter for the Braves, walking just 1 batter, as the Braves took both ends of a double-header against Milwaukee.  Zack Greinke made his debut for the Brewers in the second game last night, but sucked.  Shaun Marcum sucked in his first start for the Brewers, but has been lights out, as expected, since then.

In true Red Sox form, Boston and the Angels took about 7 and a half hours to finish their game last night.  There was a two hour and 35 minute rain delay and 4 extra innings, officially making this the most unwatchable game of all-time.  Daisuke Matsuzaka pitched the 13th inning in relief for Boston and allowed 3 hits and a walk, scattering 2 runs.  Good one.  Vernon Wells went 2 for 6, with a HR and 2 runs, by the way, boosting his average to .184.  They play again in half an hour.

It's an early game today for the Jays and Rays, with this one starting at 1:10 ET.  Ricky Romero was supposed to take the hill, but has been scratched with an oblique strain, after almost getting his head taken off by a Mark Teixeira liner last weekend.  Kyle Drabek will take Ricky's place, and Jesse Litsch will pitsch tomorrow, before Romero pitches Saturday in Toronto**.  The Rays counter with David Price.  He is really good.

*-: Not an actual quote.
**- Update- Richard Griffin (@RGriffinstar) of the Toronto Star just tweeted that Romero might not be ready to go Saturday.  Multiple tweets put together:

Romero is still iffy for Saturday with strained left oblique and body soreness from liner back to mound in NY. I would say 60-40 for start. If Romero no-go Saturday tough call. Reyes can't be moved up (4th day). Mills in LV pitched Wed. If RR can't go best idea may be 15-day DL.

John Lott tweets that Romero threw from flat ground and felt good, but Farrell still says that Saturday is a tentative date.

And check it out! Farrell moves away from the personal catchers!  JP has been freed.  Lindy gets half a day off, moving to DH instead of 1B, and Edwin Encarnacion gets a day off from throwing errors, moving to 1B.  David Cooper just straight up gets a day off.

Lineups:
Jays

Davis RF
Patterson CF
Escobar SS
Lind DH
Rivera LF
Arencibia C
Encarnacion 1B
Mccoy 3B
McDonald 2B

Drabek P

Rays

Fuld LF
Zobrist 2B
Damon DH
Longoria 3B
Joyce RF
Upton CF
Kotchmann 1B
Rodriguez SS
Jaso C

Price P