Offdays are boring, but so are the days after the offdays, since there's so rarely anything to write about. This isn't exactly different. I watched Roy Halladay pitch last night, and he looked quite a bit better than he has, but I wouldn't exactly say that he's back to normal. It was still nice to see the Phillies lose in hilarious fashion though, thanks to Jonathan Papelbon's inability to get a rookie out.
It was also neat to see the "best team in baseball" lose to the Rangers by 11 runs. O's fans are completely insane if they think that this kind of run is sustainable. It's alright to be optimistic, but thinking that the O's are going to survive in the AL East is just insanity, as is being certain that a bad team who wins 20 of their first 30 or whatever is just bound for success. I wouldn't call that linked '09 Jays team bad, per se, considering the 84 win Pythagorean record, it's just that the Yankees won 103 games that year. Such is life in the AL East. I'm not saying that the first 28 games of the season meant nothing because they got whooped in the 29th either here, I'm just kind of looking at the bigger picture. Of course, anybody that reads this probably doesn't need to be told that, since only people who cheer for Baltimore actually believe in Baltimore, and even then it's tough to be sure.
Anyway, before I start rambling, Cole Hamels got suspended for intentionally throwing at Bryce Harper, which will probably just delay his next start a day or two. Still, without Cliff Lee (and with Roy Halladay pitching like not Roy Halladay), losing Hamels for a start seems bad for business.
Apparently Mariano Rivera had a complication in his leg when they went to do surgery yesterday. That's about all we know at this point.
Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) loves the Jays' defense so far. Lawrie, Escobar and Johnson all lead the league so far for their respective positions, and Colby Rasmus ranks 2nd among CF's, though DRS through 28 games pretty much defines small sample size. Still, it's something.
Runs Batted Out has a look at Henderson Alvarez, and how likely it is that he sees a whole lotta regression in pretty much every sense of the word. For what it's worth, if my understanding of babip is correct, the fact that Alvarez gets so many groundballs, combined with the Jays' amazing DRS (see how I brought that back?) means that Alvarezeseses babip should be low. Obviously it shouldn't be .220-low, but groundballs yield a higher percentage of outs that line-drives or flyballs, and if this infield, defensively, is anywhere near as good as advertised (i.e. the shifts, DRS), something below the 3-year league average of like .290 or whatever it is should be pretty sustainable. All in all, good stuff.
Shi Davidi has a prospect update.
Beyond the Boxscore looks at the surprising amount of closer turnover through the first month of the season. Typically, you can expect 10 closers to lose their jobs to poor performance or injury throughout the season; 14 of 30 teams have a different closer than what they began the season with.
Should have more later. It's a late game tonight, as the Jays start a 2-gamer with the A's in Oakland.
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