You Always Big Hurt the One You Love the Most

The Blue Jays just shot themselves in their big collective Jay foot.

The team is struggling this year (it's early in the season, but last place is no fun be it April or September) and changes might be necessary. But changes need to be made for the better, right?

Frank Thomas is now wearing Athletic green, and he's gone, and he's not coming back.

But he was slumping, wasn't he? Not contributing offensively?
Two things: A) the team has been slumping offensively, and B) Thomas in recent years has shown himself to be a slow starter anyway. Also, there was that 10,000 plate appearances = $10 million thing. Three things, then.

Thing A.
As of whenever I wrote this, the Jays are only averaging 4.57 runs per game. That's 10th in the league. As a team they're batting .258, good for 7th in the AL. Just 291 total bases, 11th best. 12th in slugging percentage. 13th in doubles. Interestingly though, the Jays have a decent on-base percentage (4th best in the league) thanks to a multitude of base-on-balls (2nd best!), but obviously all those runners are getting stranded (1oth in RBIs). Is Frank Thomas solely responsible for the team's last place presence? No, of course not. Half the line-up is in a funk. Thomas is just a circumstantial cog. In fact, Thomas had a bulk of those walks, so while he may not have been hitting his way on base, it's not like he wasn't there at all.

Thing B.
Frank Thomas, slow starter. These are his March/April stats from:
2007 - .250 batting average, .369 on-base percentage, .424 slugging percentage (4 HRs, 13 RBIs)
2006 - .190/.264/.405 (5 HRs, 11 RBIs)
2005 - injured
2004 - .304/.494/.571 (4 HRs, 9 RBIs) [in only 18 games, a good start]
2003 - .244/.440/.487 (5 HRs, 9 RBIs)

so far this season his line reads .159/.312/.317 (3 HRs, 11 RBIs). This includes his game for Oakland yesterday. These numbers aren't good even when compared to Thomas' recent March/April stats, but they're not drop-from-the-team worthy anamolies. How did he fare at the end of each of those seasons?

2007 - .277/.377/.480 (26 HRs, 95 RBIs)
2006 - .270/.381/.545 (39 HRs, 114 RBIs)
2005 - .219/.315/.590 (12 HRs, 26 RBIs) [in only 34 games. Injury season.]
2004 - .271/.434/.563 (18 HRs, 49 RBIs) [in only 74 games. Injuries!]
2003 - .267/.390/.562 (42 HRs, 105 RBIs)

If he remains healthy for a full season then there's no reason not to expect 25-35 home runs and 90-110 runs batted in, no matter how poorly he starts. In fact, just last season he led the Blue Jays in home runs and RBIs (walks, too). The Jays organization know this, so what reason, what POSSIBLE reason could there be to drop Thomas...

Thing C.
There's a clause in Thomas' contract that states that if he accumulates 1,000 plate appearances in 2007/2008 then he'll earn $10 million for 2009. After over 600 plate appearances last season it sure looked like Thomas was going to earn himself a nice pay increase. But after being benched the conspiracy theory now exists that the organization wants to prevent him from meeting that $10 million guideline. I'm sure the Jays weren't terribly keen on paying so much money to a 41-year-old, but it still remains that until he was dropped he was one of the team's best hitters.

What's most disappointing is that Blue Jay fans never got to witness the extra pop a line-up with Thomas AND Scott Rolen back-to-back. Rolen's out with a finger injury, and though he's close to returning in tonight's line-up! it's already too late. There's still Alex Rios and Vernon Wells and Matt Stairs, but a line-up with all five of those players together would have been a great thing to see.

The Blue Jays Home Opener

Friday the 4th me 'n' the missus attended the Blue Jays home opener in Toronto. The Red Sox were in town and with them came all their boisterous fans. 50,000 total in attendance, division rivals meeting, and the excitement of a new season... this probably wasn't going to be a mellowed out game of baseball.

(Click any of these images for a larger view)

It was cold, windy, gray, and awful outside. Just this once I was thankful for domed baseball.

Great view from the 500-level nosebleeds. Yes, we were higher than the foul poles. Every Blue Jays fan, by the way, received a free white rag with the Blue Jays logo on them. They're like the Twins' hankies, but you can dry dishes with them.

We arrived early enough to beat the crowd and catch some Red Sox batting practice, but soon all of these seats would be filled.

Here is Roberto Alomar, with the lights out, saying some stuff on the jumbotron.
During the opening ceremonies they unveiled Alomar's name on the Level of Excellence. Even though Alomar only spent five of his seventeen seasons in a Jay uniform they were all all-star seasons. He also helped the Blue Jays win two titles, and should he be elected to the Hall of Fame he's expressed his desire to wear their uniform.

Fireworks are neat and all, but man, they really fog the place up.

After Alomar threw out the first pitch it was game time. The Jays took the field in their vintage powder blue unis, and the Red Sox were met with lusty boos. For the first few innings Jays pitcher Shaun Marcum kept the Sox from accomplishing anything productive. He only allowed one hit through six. Boston knuckler Tim Wakefield, though allowing more baserunners, was equally as hard to score off of. He kept the Jays shutout until Matt Stairs homered to lead off the bottom of the sixth. From our seats we were unable see the ball go over the right field wall and couldn't know what was happening until the stadium's boat horn signalled the home run.

From that point on the runs came pouring in. Toronto scored two more that inning, but then JD Drew hit a three-run shot in the top of the seventh to tie the game. The Jays came right back and permanently took the lead with a 2-RBI double by Frank Thomas. David Eckstein knocked in another run in the eighth inning, and the Blue Jays defeated the Red Sox 6-3.

As an added bonus, Marcum's eight strikeouts ensured that every ticket holder would receive a free slice of pizza. Hooray for food promotions.

The Ortiz shift, seen above.
Wife: The rightfielder is playing really shallow.
Me: That's the second baseman.
Wife: Oh. The second baseman is playing really deep.
The rightfielder himself was fielding his position so deep that he was beyond our line of sight. The shift worked as Ortiz grounded out twice.

Meanwhile there was a good bit of mayhem in the 500 level. Every Sox fan was mercilessly picked on and fistfights were inevitable. We saw a fellow a few sections over take a header down the stairs and somebody else ended up at the receiving end of a series of haymaker blows. Pow, pow, pow -- haymade.

Fan participation culminated with two shirtless fools (one male, one female with a skin-colored bra [who obviously took streaking lessons from George Costanza]) running across the field. The woman only made it to the foul line (much to the amusement of Manny Ramirez, who was standing on first base just a few feet away). The guy got all the way out to centerfield before getting levelled by security. He ended up with a nasty turf burn across his chest.
Pwned, or FAIL, or something.
And while I would never condone pseudo-streaking or unwarrented jaunts across a baseball field, it's still terribly entertaining. Here's somebody else's Youtube video of the event.


Everybody, except for those who got punched in the face and certain members of security, had a great time (though my wife said that this was the most amoral game she had ever been to). The atmosphere was electric, the Blue Jays won, the Red Sox lost, and great baseball was played. Hopefully the Jays will make it all the way to the playoffs this season. Regardless of whether or not they do, I'll definitely try and make it to next year's opener.