Brad Marchand

The only downside of this game is that it will only count as one win.

Inside the park grand slam, just like Tapia drew it up.

I like the current goal song.

The Knights are the best magic act in Vegas. Only they could turn that many valuable assets into nothing.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's one of the first signings that drops. Take it for what it's worth, I don't usually buy too much into Twitter speculation:

Yeah, he gone.

I've complained about this for a while, the Jays don't have enough relievers that can throw with velocity. Just yesterday, the Mariners brought up two guys from the pen that could touch 100+ MPH on their fastballs. Romano and Merryweather are the only Jays relievers with that kind of velo and they tend to struggle a bit with their command at times (or with Romano, guys sitting hard on his fastball since he seems to be tipping his slider this year). Everyone else in the pen tops out at around 95-96, so they can't just blow people away with their fastballs. While I'm not saying having a good fastball is the only way to be a good reliever, most of the Jays arms don't have threatening enough fastballs to get hitters to wildly chase their off-speed stuff, so they have to rely more on pitch placement, which they also tend to struggle with at times. It's pretty reductive to say 'bullpen bad', but it's basically true. Their big fastball arms don't have much else besides their fastballs, and their finesse pitchers don't have the greatest stuff either. I'd be okay if they replaced Montoyo, but I don't think the lousy relief pitching is really his fault. He just doesn't have many options to choose from. It's also worth noting their bullpen has been overworked lately with Gausman being hurt and Kikuchi and Berrios (especially Kikuchi) not giving the team enough innings in their starts.

I'm tired of Kikuchi and this team trying to outsmart everyone by somehow thinking they can fix him. There's no point in having a starter that can't even pitch more innings than a long reliever and puts the team in a hole almost every time he goes out there. With no Gausman on Thursday most likely and Berrios also being super flaky, the bullpen will probably have to do even more heavy lifting this week. The management group at some point has to decide whether they really want to make a serious run this year because the pitching as it stands just isn't gonna cut it.

It's free money, though. Every time Alf says something, bet on the opposite happening.

That was the worst strike three called I have ever seen and I'm not even joking. Doug Eddings is terrible at his job, straight up.

It's ridiculous, you could drive a bus through that strike zone.

I give up on this game, clearly the umps have it out for the Jays.

Only took them 3 minutes to make it 9-0 lmao.

Buncha scrubs, they were on pace for 84 points at the half and now they're only on pace for 64.

I don't necessarily disagree there, I just don't find it useful to talk about framing the team's flaws in this context because what's the answer? Play better? Acquire better players? These are things they should be trying to do no matter who they play. Kikuchi can't command his pitches, Berrios has been hanging fastballs over the plate until lately, hitters aren't chasing Gausman's splitter like they were before, Richards has been bad, Merryweather gets hit super hard because his fastball has no movement, same with Romano. Guerrero can't seem to get his launch angle up. They've been chasing bad pitches for most of the year until the last two weeks. These are problems, not losing a random game to the Tigers. Losing a random game to the Tigers is the outcome of the problem, not the problem itself. I don't want to make it sound like I'm ripping you apart or anything, I just would prefer to discuss things that are deeper than 'they lost a few games to bad teams'. That being said, it's certainly something I'd rather they not get into the habit of doing too often.

They've scored at least 4 runs in 14 of their last 15 games before today. Every team has a bad day at the plate. Their only loss this week was because of bad pitching. Again, this team isn't perfect but a Saturday afternoon game against Detroit isn't something that's gonna raise my level of concern.

They won 10-1 yesterday, and won 8-0 and 7-0 against the Royals earlier this week. They also compiled a +183 run differential last year mostly by beating up bad teams. This is baseball, they aren't going to win every game against every team worse than them. The Jays only lost series this year to teams above .500. There are several areas where this team needs to improve to contend with the league's best teams (bullpen, plate discipline etc.), we shouldn't be viewing their flaws in the lens of 'can they beat up a bunch of bad teams'? One more to add - the Jays are 18-5 against teams at or below .500 this year, a better win percentage than the Yankees (27-9).

Bringing back this classic from the bubble playoffs:

Live look at the Bruins' front office:

This game was basically the answer to the question 'What if every pitcher was Tyler Chatwood?'

Rick Westhead published a more detailed article: https://www.tsn.ca/hockey-canada-chl-settle-lawsuit-over-alleged-sexual-assault-involving-world-junior-players-1.1804861 Fair warning - it contains graphic descriptions of the allegations.

Just gotta find footage of a fist fight between fans and I think we'll have the complete list.

Hold up, I thought Calgary Flames typically live on golf courses.

Bottlegate, Watergate, huh:

Bold strategy there, Florida: