Last night

I've spent most , if not all, of my life as an atheist.  Religion and whatnot just aren't for me.  I respect your beliefs if you're stupid enough to believe that there's something going on up there, even if you're an otherwise intelligent person.  Some people are just raised to be all god-loving and whatever, and that's on their parents, as I'm sure a lot of people who are currently religious wouldn't exactly be so if they were allowed to just find this stuff on their own (maybe I'm wrong... don't really care though, I'm just trying to fill up a little bit of space here with drivel before I get to the real meat of this post).

Having said all that, watching last night's ballgames was the most fun anyone could possibly have without liquor or nakedness.  The fact that Boston lost made it that much sweeter.  At the time of that rain delay in the Boston-Baltimore game, the Red Sox chances of making the playoffs were probably in the range of 99%.  Two innings left, a really good bullpen, and a 1-run lead, plus a 7-run deficit for the only team that could block your chances.  Well, ladies and gents, I think something was proven last night: Gods do exist.  There is simply no other explanation.  I'm not talking about all-seeing, all-knowing, powerful burrito microwaving lords here; I'm talking about the deities who, without a doubt, rigged last night's American League games.  Not only do these gods exist, but they're mean.  Much meaner than any of us could possibly imagine.  And they hate the fucking Red Sox, so they punished those idiots by giving all that joy, and all that hope of virtually guaranteeing a return to the playoffs, and then ripping it away.

So a gentle "Fuck You" to the Red Sox, as they go enjoy what is left of golf season, knowing that "the greatest team ever assembled" has just completed what has to be the biggest collapse in the history of September baseball.  The best part of this?  The Atlanta Braves just collapsed almost as hard as Boston, and hardly anybody gives a shit.

Stuff
There's not really much else to look at here.  We do know that the playoffs begin Friday, and that the matchups will be NYY-DET, TEX-TB, MIL-ARI and PHI-ASTL.  The CC-Verlander game 1 in the NYY-DET series sounds fucking awesome.

The Jays are having some kind of year-end press conference thing, where AA is just taking a bunch of questions.  Sportsnet's Mike Cormack is pretty much live-blogging via twitter (@mikecormack), though I think it's pretty well over now.  Anyway, the AA highlights include:

• He likes that way Farrell self-evaluated himself.  Recognized weaknesses and strengths, and will likely learn from them.
• Offseason focus is strictly improving the team, as opposed to last year, where he was improving staff, i.e. scouts, managers, etc., and evaluating what they had and where they had it.
• AA likes Kelly Johnson, and KJ will be in the mix for 2B next season.  Johnson becomes a free agent after the World Series, and is probably the best 2B available in a market where there are practically no 2B's.  The Omar Infante extension of 2y/8MM pretty much leaves Johnson and Mark Ellis (and Aaron Hill).
• He compares Colby Rasmus' first half-season as a Blue Jay to Yunel Escobar's.  Up-and-down year, tough to transition, injuries, etc.  I think we all know how that turned out.
• If the Jays add a SP, it will be a front/mid rotation guy.  The back of the rotation belongs to the young guys currently in the Jays system.  My guess is that they add nobody, but Buerhle, Vazquez, Livan Hernandez... an older dude who can throw a lot of innings without a huge injury risk.  Because old people are leaders...  As for the bullpen, that will almost certainly be filled via free agency because the depth just isn't there within the organization.  I don't particularly agree with that, but he's smarter than I am.  Litsch, Janssen, Frank, Perez,Villanueva is a pretty good start.  Cecil(?), Carreno, Farhquar, Beck, Drabek, Mcgowan, and Mills should all be in the mix depending on what the rotation looks like.  I think it's more likely that AA is going to try and find spots where he can outbid other teams on potential type-B's and either turn those in to draft picks or trades, and letting one/some of the above mentioned names wear that while they still have options, while being Mike Mccoy'ed back and forth in the event of an injury.
• Entire coaching staff will be offered contracts for 2012, but they're all free to explore other options.
• Beeston gave AA the thumbs up to sign Lackey or Bay in free agency two years ago.  Whether or not they tried to sign either, we don't know.

Well then...

The other day some lady came to my door asking for a Kristina.  She was dressed in a long black coat and boots, and was holding some books.  No Kristina has lived in this house for at least 40 years, maybe more, so you can imagine my surprise when, after I told her just that, she asks me "Are you sure?"  Yes, I'm sure, but also curious as to whether I'm about to get robbed, annoyed, pitched to, or whatever.

Well it turns out that she was a Jehovah's witness (boring!).  "Oh ok," she says, with fake surprise at my Kristina-less home.  "Let me show you what I was going to show her."  She opens a bible (or the Jehovah equivalent, I guess?) and starts reading a passage about peace on earth or something along those lines that I wasn't overly paying attention to since the dog was freaking out.

Well my friends, I let her have it.  Before she was finished I interrupted "Wait a second.  You're really going to show up to my house unannounced like this, and blatantly lie to me about your intentions of being here and then try to talk me in to a religion that I know and care nothing about?  Don't get me wrong, even if I did give half a shit about religion, which I don't, this wouldn't work, since you showing up here and lying to me gives me all the evidence that I need to believe that this Jehovah nonsense is nothing but a by-any-means-necessary money-grabbing pyramid scheme.  I understand that this [going around door-to-door bothering people] is part of the religion, so I commend the balls that it must take to go around getting yelled at all day by strangers, but that's not even what I'm appalled at.  Straight-up lying to people in this fashion is probably a bad business model for getting people to convert.  And if do you insist on lying to people like this then at least learn how to fucking lie without being this see-through."  Or something along those lines anyway.

The point of my story is that if you lie to others, then you're lying to yourself.  Take Adam Lind for example.  That dude did everything in his power last year to convince us that he couldn't hit left-handed pitching.  Yeah, well, last night Lind chose to take a break from being the guy that high-fives Jose Bautista after he homers, and chose to actually hit 2 of his own last night.  Not sure if anyone else has noticed, but he's just hitting all line-drives off lefties this year. I, for one, welcome our new leftymashing DH-turned 1B overlord.  So much so, that he has earned the first-ever EITS "Crudely cut-out Zaun-head", the award earned for being the player of the game.  Kudos!

And shit, how about that game last night?  Adam Lind had a sexy little 3/5 night with a coupla taters as the Jays put up 5 in the 1st and 10 total.  Gingerballs was pretty good, save for one bad inning, going 6 innings scattering 7 hits and 3 runs.  He ended up walking Chris Davis after getting squeezed pretty hard, leading to a little rally that may not (read: would not) have been.  I was going to get the pitch f/x graph for that AB but it's not working for me right now so fuck it.  Either way, good to see the bats going.  And fuck knows that they've gotta keep going considering JoJo Reyes gets the start tonight for Toronto.

What else is in the news?
John Lott tweeted this during the Jays game yesterday:

 Brett Cecil in 1st start for Vegas: 4.1IP/13H/11R-10ER/3BB/2K/3HR. Left after 3-run HR.  

That, for those of you who are either my girlfriend or have stumbled upon this blog accidentally but are still reading for some reason (or maybe both?), is not a very good performance.  But before you get your vaginas (vaginae?) all tangled up with uhohs, it's not as bad as it sounds; this game was played in the snow.  16 degrees fair-in-height, whatever that translates to after the exchange-rate (it's like -4C I think).  And another thing: Why the fuck are we playing baseball in the fucking snow?  What is this?  Opening day 1977?

 Anyway, Cecil tweeted last night after the game that he was all out of whack and that it was going to get worse before it gets better.  Heaven help us if that's the case.  Then again, I know of a certain Roy Halladay, who was older than Cecil and pitching in AAA-ball, and then subsequently AA and A, after a stint in the majors, so who knows?  All he did was become the best pitcher of his generation.

Jays centerfielder Rajai Davis made another rehab start yesterday, playing the whole game this time instead of getting beaned in the hand and being pulled.  I expect him back with the big club before the weekend and possibly as soon as tonight. And really, I'm praying to the nearest god (which is apparently Jehovah) (badum-psssh) that he does come back tonight, because, Corey Patterson is not good.  I think Stoeten over at Drunk jays fans hates him about 10 times as much as I do, and he's hit a little better over the last couple games, but I still think that dude is a waste of space (see: fringe 4th OF and not #2 batter).

Elsewhere around the league, Ryan Braun is going anti-Vernon, signing a deal that guarantees him a bunch of money for life, but mysteriously continuing to be awesome.  That dude hit HR #9 lat night, 1 more than Barry Bonds 2.0 Jose Bautista, and has an almost-as-good slash line of .372/.466/.721.  If you somehow missed it, Braun was signed through the 2016 season, but signed an extension for some reason to take him all the way through 2020, his age-35 season, matching Troy Tulowitzki's deal.  Defense tho.

Andre Ethier extended his hit streak last night, and has hit safely in every game the Dodgers have played this year.  That's good for a new record, passing Joe Torre's 22-gamer from like 30 years ago or something.  Torre was Ethier's manager last year, which makes this a neat little story for people who care about useless shit like that.

 And finally, Eric Almonte made major league history yesterday, becoming the first ever player to be placed on the 7-day disabled list reserved for concussions and other head-traumas. Link

Edit-> Here's one more for ya.  Apparently Jose Bautista is good at hitting.
Lineups later.