Now Walk it Out

I already used "Walk-off Flocka Flames" the last time they walked off, which I'm a bit disappointed at since I enjoy that so much, but shrug.  Still a walk-off.  Granted, this game should never have made it to the point that a walk-off was even available.  Holy shit.

Just off the top of my head, whether they are the fault of the Jays or not, here are all the things that magically kept Baltimore in this game:

• Yunel Escobar jogged his way right out of a Zaun Head after lollygagging his way to 2nd base (I'd have sent Mike Mccoy out to shortstop for the rest of the game after that by the way, but Yunel knew what was up right away, so yeah...).  I'm not entirely sure that he would have been safe, but it looked close.  Assuming he would have been safe with full hustle, that was the difference between having a runner on 2nd with your best hitter at the plate, or having a runner on 1st with your best hitter at the plate.  Of course, Bautista roped a single up the middle directly at the ump, getting a deadball single.  I doubt he gets pitched he same way with a runner on 2nd in that situation, so this may be a moot point.
• That wild pitch where JP Arencibia tried to move up but the ball hopped right back to Matt Weiters thanks to the backstop umpire was bullshit.  There's a massive difference between having a runner on 3rd with 0 out and having nobody on with 1 out, even if it's the bottom of the order coming up.  Of course, this turned Aaron Hill's homer in to a solo shot.
• Scrabble should probably be in the same boat as Francisco at this point in the proceedings.  At least Frank has some nasty-blow-it-by-you-fastball stuff that suggests he won't struggle forever.  Rzep doesn't throw nearly enough strikes to be given the amount of opportunities to struggle as he has lately in close-ish games, and it looks like people are starting to notice that all of his success early this year has come from people swinging at pitches outside of the strikezone.  The result has been people being really patient against him, and wouldn't you know it, he's been walking people like mad, getting behind in counts, and throwing beachballs to guys like Matt Weiters.
• Edwin Encarnacion or Jayson Nix could have been pinch hit for by Juan Rivera.  Not that it would have necessarily done anything, but it would have been cool to see Farrell try and replace high levels of suck with lower levels of suck, especially in important spots like late in a tie game, or in extra innings.

Of course, Adam Lind went ahead and ahead and fixed all that nonsense with one swing, earning a Zauner.  The problem being the fact that the bullpen had to throw two extra innings, shortening that bullpen for tonight. Jon Rauch threw 2 innings, Jason Frasor threw a bunch of pitches in his inning of work, and Rzep has been a complete mess lately.  It would be real nice if Ricky can go the distance tonight and give the bullpen a break, just in case Zach Stewart doesn't completely destroy in his MLB debut.  It's the little things, you know?

Anyhoo... Keith Law seems to think that Jays first rounder Tyler Beede is set to sign, and probably had an agreement in place before even being drafted.  He seems to think that he'll sign for $3MM, which is way over slot.

Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports has a piece on Jose Bautista.

Lastly, remember last week when Brett Lawrie was rumored to be coming up?  And I went on about how the roster would be affected?  Well what I didn't see coming was Zach Stewart, and his promotion to the big leagues.  What happens here is that Stewart takes the roster spot that Lawrie was going to take, which means that if, when recovered from his hand injury, Lawrie is set to come up, he'll need to take the roster spot of somebody else currently on the 40-man roster.  

As mentioned last week, the likely guy here is Scott Richmond, though Jayson Nix and Edwin Encarnacion can't possibly have much time left, and one or the other will probably be next to go once Dustin Mcgowan has to come off the 60-day DL relatively soon, or if any other prospects are to come up.  Mike Mccoy doesn't really ever project to be anything more than Chris Woodward 2.0, so there's another name.

I'm sure AA is looking to move some guys via trade too.  For example, Corey Patterson might fetch some fringe level prospect,  Aaron Hill might be a decent reclamation project for someone if the Jays decide that they're going to reject the options on his contract, though he's currently projected to be a Type-A free agent, and won't drop below Type-B, no matter how bad he is, Juan Rivera could work out as a bench bat for an NL team, and any number of people in that bullpen could become commodities (Frasor, Frank, Rauch, Dotel and Camp are all Free Agents-to-be and project to be Type-B or better).

Moving any of these guys for prospects would enable AA to free up some 40-man space without straight-up releasing anybody, though I'm not sure he'd really give a shit about doing that or not.

Update- Holy shit!  The first Moneyball trailer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-l3IXTQDsDg