Bird Seed

As we enter Week 3 a few tid bits or seeds of note.

Brett Cecil has lost 5 mph of his fastball, if found please return to the Rogers Centre. Cecil hitting the high 80's currently but in no pain. Weird.

Aaron Hill's defense is keeping him valuable, his bat however has produced 7 hits, and again is below the Mendoza Line. When does last year's .205 batting average and this year's start begin to look like more than one poor season.

The power game has eluded the team after Game 5, great start, but it has waned, but could be due to a 3 game absence by Bautista.


When will they pull the plug on the 3rd base experiment with Encarnacion, 4 errors and mounting ?

Also, please somebody call in and rip the lack of caring that Juan Rivera seems to potray, I mean he looks like he is a zombie in the field, and you would have hoped for a guy traded by the Angels to mount some type of effort. He makes Hill look fabulous by comparison.

Octavio Dotel comes in and throws 10 pitches, ALL are strikes, gets 3 outs, then is yanked in favour of David Purcey who is asked to face a left handed hitter. He walks him on 4 pitches.  Ok, that makes sense.


We sit 5-4 after 3 series, tied with New York, and still ahead of 2-7 Boston and 1-8 Tampa, but does anyone feel we should be further ahead of our key rivals ? I do.  And yet Saturday's loss in 14 innings was compunded by Jered Weaver's 15 strike out performance, and we lose 2 out of 3 to the Angels.  A sense that we should have an even better record abounds.

I like this team, and one sub par series in Anaheim does not ruin it for me, but there was a downturn from the hitters, and I am now worried the offense is in a bad slide, but as they face Felix Hernandez, we cannot say that for certain until after a few more games.

No real criticisms of Farrell's managing yet, I sense the need to play all hands until he gets a better feel of who he wants in certain situations. I would hope that he keeps Escobar near the top of the line up, as he has outperformed with the bat more than anyone would expect. But it's still only Game 10 tonite, so much can chalked up to trying to find the right formula.

April will test the Jays, they played 6 at home, then this 10 game road swing, home for 5, then another 10 game road swing taking us into May.  They have roughly 17 road games out of 22, pretty tough sledding, so an 8-9 or better record on the road will leave them in good shape, 10 wins or better and they emerge in May in the hunt.

Pass the seed...our birds may take flight soon.