Live Game Notes – Jackie Robinson Day

It was a good day for Toronto sports teams and MUD.com was there to take it all in. More importantly the Blue Jays with battered bodies and battered morale were able to get a career game out of Josh Towers.

After having one of the worst seasons in the history of Major League Baseball Josh Towers has been the biggest whipping boy for the media and fans alike for the last 12 months.

In the first inning I thought I was watching a replay of the night before. They Jays didn’t seem to know where they were defensively; throwing the ball around, missing cut off men, not covering bases, allowing unearned runs. And the Tigers took advantage of this. They seemed to steal at will and advance without fear. I thought we might be in for along game and Josh Towers was going to earn the nickname Josh Showers.

The lone Tiger run scored on a Towers error. He then, in the third, fielded a comebacker and, forgetting how many out there were, lazily threw to first instead of starting the easy 1-6-3 DP. A fierce round of boos came from the 26,000 at SkyDome. Towers’ ML career flashed before his eyes and he bore down and went on the shut the Tigers down the rest of the way. His 89mph fastball dazzled the strong Tigers lineup. Towers scattered three singles before giving up the ball to Scott Downs with 2 out in the 8th to a worthy ovaition from the Toronto faithfull, but not me, I am not sold on him at all. He managed to get timely plays from Hill, Wells and McDonald in the field and had a more normal 11:7 flyball to groundball ratio. He also hit two batters while only walking one which makes me think that he might be taking a page from David Bush in effective wildness.

Shawn Marcum came in for the 9th and shut the door while BJ Ryan is heading to Alabama for some Tommy Time on his $9 million left elbow.

The Jays bats weren’t able to get to Nate Robertson who also pitched well but the two runs coming from the 8th and 9th position in the order were enough for the 2-1 win and a series split.

Adam Lind played solid LF and came through with a clutch hit in the 2nd to tie the game. Frank Thomas broke out of his “0-for-since last weekend” slump and crushed a double off the base of the wall in the first. He is so slow. I think Bengie Molina might be slower but Thomas may threaten to clog the basepaths.

After going out for dinner, we caught the Raptors game which was won by the home side in a squeaker over the Isiah Thomas coached New York Knicks.

Plenty of tears in Tiger Town today as their AL Champs limp home after being shut down by a fringe ML pitcher that is probably lucky to be in baseball at all today. Tune back for more game notes when I go to check out the myth of the gyro ball when the Sox come to town on Tuesday.

And another thing…I want to give a special HOLLA out to ESPN Sunday Night Baseball for doing a super job on the broadcast for the Dodgers vs Padres game tonight. Great interviews with Rachel Robinson, Frank Robinson and Branch Rickey III.

By Early

My perspective on the game was a little different than Earl’s for various reasons. Okay, really just one reason. That reason is I arrived at the ballpark about 45 mins early and didn’t know what to do to kill time before I met up with Early. So, l thought I might mosey on down to the Hard Rock Café for a few beers. When the Skydome/Rogers Centre first opened, it was impossible to ever get a seat at the Hard Rock unless you were a “connected guy”. Those days are long gone and the Hard Rock is a very decent place to catch the game. I stuck around for the 45 minutes and watched the Jays and Tigers take batting practice while enjoying $6.75 Heineken draughts (compared to $10 Labatt’s Blue inside the park).

It is nota bad place to watch a game either, except you miss out on the sounds of the game. Anyways, after debating on whether to hang Earl out to dry and spend another 45 minutes downing $6.75 beers, I did the “right thing” and met up with Early with half a buzz-on. Speaking of buzz, the buzz throughout the park was that both BJ Ryan and Reed Johnson were placed on the DL with serious injuries (back surgery for Reed, Tommy John perhaps for Bo Junior?). You can imagine the wave of relief when I found out it was only an elbow strain the following day.

Moving on to the enigma that is Josh Towers. Early and I fully expected to see a 9-1 blowout in favour of Detroit but surprise surprise, Towers was just lucky enough to keep the slumping Tigers hitters off balance enough. Like Earl I am NOT sold on Joshie and think this was a flukey pitching performance partly aided by luck and partly aided by the superior game calling of Gregg Zaun (Shout out to all my homies in the Zaun-bie nation – Holla!!!!!!!). Josh not being able to keep track of how many outs in an inning is inexcusable.

Nate Robinson is for the most part going to keep the Tigers in the game no matter who they face and he looked sharp this day and I could see it even in his bullpen work before the game.

To replace Reed Johnson, the Jays called up hot shot Jays prospect Adam Lind. He looks very capable at the plate and plays cautious defensively. I think he will replace Reed’s offense adequately but his defense will be a few notches below the Johnson standard. I’ve got to give a shout out to Early for his line to Lind midway through the game. “Hey Lind, you’d better sublet your place in Syracuse – Towers is going to need a place to live!!” I think we may have seen him crack a smile or two.

Not much to touch on that Early hasn’t already covered other than the fact that I am simpy amazed at how much ground Vernon Wells can cover. He has tremendous range and gets great reads everytime. An absolute pleasure to watch.

By Calman

Early

Calman

Who says the SkyDome isn’t fun!?!?