8:02 – I hate live blogs, and the first experiment in live-blogging did not go well. I realized that I’m massively addicted to nicotine, and require time to edit my massively screwed up english.
However, it’s Liriano and Halladay on the mound. I’m really interested in Liriano’s velocity tonight, so I’ll attempt to blog-live-ish-ly.
If you’re in Toronto, tomorrow’s (Friday 17th) game is Flash Back Friday down at the Rogers Center. Kelly Gruber is back in town, and i’m certain he’s brought his crazy-ice-bling-bling.
8:13 – Cluster-fuck central: Michael Cuddyer makes an amazing catch, and Casilla pooches the relay. Scutaro managed to tag up from second and score the games first run. Pat Tabler says: “those Minnesota Twins teams never beat themselves…”
8:16 – Liriano’s hitting 92mph with his fastball in the first inning, and he’s probably got another mph in there by the 3rd. His slider is only hitting 84mph, and worked an 82mph change-up to Scutaro. I dont know if Liriano will ever return to the 87mph slider days of yesteryear.
8:25: MLB Game Day is already broke. It’s stuck on the first pitch of Vernon Wells’ strike-out. Halladay has torn through the Twinkie’s line-up. Morneau nabbed a hit, but other than that it’s a pretty uneventful half-inning.
8:30 – Game Day is still broke, but it’s expanded it’s horizons. Liriano hit 86mph with his slider to strike out Vernon Wells. This is definitely the goodness for Liriano owners. Pat Tabler says: “…Liriano’s cutting off his arm, not literally cutting off his arm, but not finishing his pitches…”
Denard Span has dirty range and gets one hell of a jump on the balls. I’m sure Gomez could take him in a foot race, but I think Span’s got the edge in reaction time.
Pat Tabler says: “blah, blah, blah, blah, blah”
Last year when the Jays trotted out Pat Tabler instead of Mookie Wilson on flashback friday — I wanted to knife my eyes out.
Fact Learned Via Spike TV’s DEADLIEST WARRIOR: If you were to have gotten a samurai arrow in the eye, you would live long enough to feel the pain and realize “OH SHIT-I HAVE AN ARROW IN MY EYE” — before your brain hemorrhaged and you died.
8:35 – Michael Cuddyer takes a mighty hack and gets a Texas Leaguer out to Centerfield. I always wonder what would have come of that Twins outfield if Kubel and Cuddyer weren’t ALWAYS hurt. Both of ‘em have boat-loads of talent that has been slowly stripped away via a series of ropes, pulleys and injuries.
Brian Buscher squeaks it through. Pat Tabler says: “…A seeing eye hit by Buscher”
Yes Pat, Eyes Do See.
Delmon Young has seriously misplaced his power, but managed to get Cuddyer home. Shouldn’t Delmon Young be a .200 ISO guy? Why is Delmon Young such a pansy? I feel like if his career path would have been altered for the awesome, if he was less of a nice guy and more of a dick.
8:42 – Athletics are in town tomorrow, and it’s Josh Outman versus David Purcey. I’ll be fairly torn tomorrow as the A’s are my boyz, but I’ve got those seasons tickets to the Blue Jays.
I’m worried about Purcey against the OBP/Walk-Machines that Oakland trots out there. Jack Cust Prediction: 2 Walks, 2 Strike-outs, 0 Hits.
Pat Tabler says: “the thing about Liriano’s slider is that he throws it so hard! Coming out of his hand it looks like a fastball! ”
Someone has yet to inform Mr. Tabler that Liriano’s been gang-raped of his velocity. Liriano has worked his slider up to the 87 mph range!
If Liriano can continue to throw his slider hard, I’m both excited and worried about his fantasy prospects for the rest of the year.
Liriano has really brought it today, as he just blew a 94mph fastball past Rios for the strike-out. I think his ego may have been a bit bruised. If Liriano continues to throw 88mph sliders, like he just did to Vernon Wells — he undoubtedly get injured, but he’ll be downright dirty while he’s healthy.
Liriano’s thrown 4 sliders to Wells, and all 4 have been clocked at 87.1mph or above.
I’ll check back on Liriano’s velocity in the 6th Inning, but at this point — I’m quite perplexed. I swore the Twins were limiting how hard Liriano threw the slider, basically out of self-preservation. Now, Liriano’s going balls to the wall and throwing real damn hard.
Apparently, by purchasing a LADIES NIGHT OUT ticket you could win a chance to have LUNCH WITH PAT TABLER, OMFG OMFG.
By the way, Halladay struck out Span and has settled in.
Ian Ziering vs. Pat Tabler
Hrmmmm….
In a battle of Opposite Worlds, Who Wins? Pat Tabler as the most-hated male 90210 character, or Steve from 90210 as a useless utility outfielder / one of the Cleveland Indians top-100 players ( I learned this during the Indians series)?
The smart money’s on Steve being able to hit an MLB fastball.
9:00 - My better-half has switched it to NBC’s THE OFFICE. While I am angered, I suppose I’ll live. Stringer Bell from, probably the best TV SHOW EVER, The Wire, plays Michael’s ex-boss pretty well.
Oh Stringer Bell, How I love you:
The live-blog shall return once Must-See TV is over.
9:22 - Dwight: “Are you saying you invented PAPER?!?!?!”
Bautista’s on third, and I’m loving Liriano’s approach. With the lesser Blue Jays’ hitters, he’s pounding fastball-change with the occasional slider, but with the better hitters he’s really cranking the slider.
Francisco Liriano pounding Aaron Hill high and inside with fastball. He finally went away and Hill went with the pitch to right-centre field. Aaron Hill and Adam Lind are both sitting at 12-RBI. I guess the concussion isn’t bothering him anymore? Hill was thrown out stealing by at least 135 cm, or for my American readers, a country mile.
9:30 - It’s Junior Jays Saturday this weekend. Last year I was lucky enough to use my good looks to participate in a 14 years old and younger contest. I got my three-stamps and got me a miniature Roy Halladay Bobble-head.
The three stamps are unfortunately a pain in the ass to get, as I believe you have to walk the entire circumference of the 500 level just to get 2 stamps. My third stamp was gotten on the 200 level, and then I had to walk my ass back up to the 500 level to redeem it.
It was definitely worth it though, and Roy Halladay is currently hanging out with the Full-Size Aaron Hill bobble-head, and the in-between size Alex Rios figurine.
9:37 – With all the advertisements I’m doing for the Blue Jays, I figure I should get paid. With that said, if you’re looking for a DIRT CHEAP NEW ERA CAP, the back room at the Jays shop currently has a bunch of crazy-ghetto Jays hats to go along with: Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, Baltimore Orioles, and a bunch of Washington Nationals caps — marked down from 39.99 to 9.99!
$9.99 Canadian for a New Era Hat is pretty garsh darn great.
Roy Halladay just struck out Jason Kubel with three-consecutive cutters, not a single one in the zone. Kubel just-a-kept-a-swingin’.
9:45 – Liriano’s starting to take something off his slider, and he’s backed to topping out at about 85-86mph on his slider. Just as I typed this, Liriano struck out Adam Lind with an 88mph Slider followed by an 86 mph slide-piece.
9:57 – Great Game so far, Jays are winning 2-1 and Liriano’s gotten the hook. 6 IP, 104 Pitches. 2 Runs, 1 Earned Run — 5 Strike-Outs and 1 Walk. Solid night.
10:00 – I was moderately impressed with Southland last week. I find it somewhat odd that Southland is airing on both NBC and Bravo. I realize they’re doing it so they don’t have to beep out the swearing, but c’mon — at 10pm on a Thursday Night, NBC should be allowed to play shows with Shit, Piss, Fuck, all the good stuff.
There wasn’t nearly as much swearing last week as there was this week. Ten beeps in the first five minutes is a lot more annoying than 4 beeps in an hour long show. Hrm…
Conclusion
With Liriano out, the live-blog dies. I was quite impressed with Liriano really amping his Slider up tonite, and hopefully he can at least get it to average 86-87mph. He’ll continue to be effective at this velocity.
If Liriano reverts to averaging 84 on his slider like he did last year, he’ll be an average fantasy-league pitcher.
Roy Halladay looked stellar, and I’m worried about the Cutter and his elbow/arm.
Toronto’s starting to bust this one open, and Guerrier replacing Liriano probably wasn’t the best short-term move, but in the long-run a healthy Liriano trumps everything.
Halladay’s pitched 6 full Innings and he’s only used 80 pitches, and struck out 7. I still can’t wrap my head around Halladay being a 7+ K per 9 guy.
It’s only the 7th inning and I’m hoping the Jays knock a couple more in, or fearing the Jays not knocking a couple more in.
This is what B.J. Ryan does to you…
Jam-Done for the night.
