Call Me Crazy, But...

... I thought ole Tricky Ricky pitched pretty well yesterday, in spite of the spotty defense and  lack of run support.  And that's about it.  Zaunhead for Ricky, and let's move on to the next one, mostly because it's either him, or Adam Lind, and we don't like him absolutely nobody.

The Jays now find themselves at 42-43, and are now 3.5 games back of that silly second wild card spot, and, more importantly, have five teams between them and that second spot, three of which are in their own division.  It doesn't look good.

That's okay though, because if we can remember back to the weeks leading up to this season, we should have known to have tempered expectations about this year.  After all, we began this season with Drew Hutchison, Henderson Alvarez, and some other random guy in the rotation.  This was another transition season, with an outside shot of everything going right, right? Right.

Anyway, Brett Cecil today.  That typically means that the Jays are going to score some runs (in his 4 starts, he's gotten 6 runs of support twice, and 7 runs of support twice), though I guess Ricky Romero has been getting like 9 runs of support on average this year, and got dick-all yesterday, and of course, the pitcher has nothing to do with the amount of runs his own team scores.  Dylan Axelrod goes for the White Sox, and by all accounts, he's kind of a junkballer, not unlike Cecil, I guess.  I will go ahead and predict that the Jays don't get shut out again today.


Stuff
If you missed it, the Jays will shuffle their rotation up a bit after the allstar break.  John Farrell wants to set lefties up against Cleveland, so it's going to be Romero/Laffey/Villanueva/Alvarez/Cecil.  This also conveniently gives Alvarez a few extra days of rest in an attempt to keep his innings down in his first full season.  This, of course, could all get switched around again if a trade goes down between now and the end of the all-star break.


Brett Lawrie is going to get a day off.  He was pulled yesterday with tightness in his back, though they said it was just a precaution.  Either way, Omar Vizquel will take his place in the lineup today, and Lawrie will get 5 days off with the all-star festivities.


Zack Greinke got tossed from last night's start after just 3 pitches.  This one's a headscratcher.


Micah Owings is going to try and come back as a position player, once he gets off the disabled list.  He's a better hitter than pitcher anyway.


Finally, a moment of silence please, for Giancarlo Stanton, who will miss 4-6 weeks (and the homerun derby) with a knee surgery.  That fucking blows.  Andrew Mccutchen will replace him in the derby, Bryce Harper will replace him in the all-star game.  Matt Kemp, as of now, still hopes to participate in the derby, though nothing is official as of yet, as far as I can tell.


Lineups
Jays
Davis LF
Rasmus CF
Bautista RF
Edwin 1B
Lind DH
Escobar SS
Johnson 2B
Vizquel 3B
Mathis C


Cecil P


Whites
De Aza CF
Youkilis 3B
Dunn 1B
Konerko DH
Rios RF
Ramirez SS
Viciedo LF
Flowers C
Beckham 2B


Axelrod P