Baseball is Hard(en)

Pretty good pitchers duel we had last night.  Those two homeruns that Oakland hit looked an awful lot like pitches they were waiting for.  I'm curious is Cecil doesn't throw a changeup on every single 2 strike count.  Whatever.  No more time to dwell on this one, we've got a new prospect making a debut tonight!  Forget Brett Lawrie, Henderson Alvarez is the new star in this town.

Apparently he touches 101MPH with his fastball (!!), has a plus change, and no breaking ball.  Sounds like a lot of relievers I know.  He's apparently going to strike some guys out with not that many walks, which sounds just alright to me.  Most importantly, he's only 21 years old, so he should get better than what he is right now, unless he's got that mythical Travis Snider syndrome where you peak at age 21 and your career ends at age 23 before toiling in quadruple-A for the next 11 years, Hinske-ing your way from team to team, getting fatter and fatter as the days go on, causing ugliness to set in early, just slightly at first, but eventually coming on so strong that you kill yourself.

That got out of hand quickly.  In other news, Snider shaved off his mustache yesterday.

Hey, Edwin Encarnacion hit a homer last night, and almost hit another in his next AB, lining one off that base of the wall for a long single.  He took a walk on his next two AB's too, as if he didn't do enough.  Good enough for a Zaunhead.  Too bad nobody else showed up, though Rich Harden did a pretty damn good job.

Brett Cecil, despite giving up 2 taters, looked pretty good out there again.  The homer to Willingham looked like a mistake on a pitch he was probably sitting on, but if that's the worst start Cecil has had in that last month, I'm all for it.

The internet is telling me that Brian Tallet is expected to throw a bullpen session today, which means that he'll probably throw two more over the next week and then be set to "return".  Not sure in what capacity that "return" should be taken in, since I think there's a decent chance he gets DFA'ed immediately when he comes off the DL.

I was going to write about this yesterday, but I thought that the post was getting too convoluted.  As result, MLBTR has beaten me to the punch.  The deadline for signing highschool and college juniors drafted this year is this coming Monday, which is rather relevant to the Jays.

Somewhat related, the Jays have signed Tom Robson, a canadian pitcher whom they chose in the 4th round.  I read in the Keith Law chat the other day that 1st rounder Tyler Beede is apparently all but signed, as are a couple of other guys that went in the early rounds.