EMK19

At least on the road, they've actually said on the radio here that the equipment manager and the players definitely knew that they had a much better road record with the blues rather than the greys, so the players just started wearing the blues at away games full time (unless it clashes with the other teams' alternates and they force us to wear something else, like in that final series in tampa). Im sure with it being the playoffs they're in no mood to mess around with that belief now, lol.

Yeah, they actually did that midway through in 1993. They were on a losing streak at home at the time and they had played well on the road so they decided to just stick to the full blue cap permanently. From what I heard though they were going to get rid of the white panel cap at the end of that year anyway, it just came half a season earlier than expected. Funny enough now a lot of people want those white panel caps back, haha. I like the alternate blues a lot too, but do think it's been way too overused this year. We're not the only team that prefer the alternates though to be fair (Houston also wore their orange alternate jersey as often as possible during their season/postseason run)

I'm starting to wonder if we're ever going to stop wearing those alternate blues, they've even abandoned the home whites now. lol... So superstitious. But if that puts them more at ease then let it be it.

I suppose we'd be very reluctant on having Price pitch on short rest for game 5, but I'm also thinking it might be a better idea to have Estrada pitch at KC instead of here at RC with his HR vulnerability. Then again I guess KC as a team aren't that huge of a power threat... Price I think could benefit from pitching at home here with all the fan support instead of away at KC (I could see their fans retaliating with their own Price chants, and I feel Price may be quite mentally vulnerable right now). There's cons and benefits to both approaches but I'd guess they'll take the safer route routine wise and go with Estrada for game 5. But maybe the result tonight may factor into that decision also.

Rogers really, really needs to make a season review DVD out of this year, like how they used to put out the season review VHS tapes in the early 90's. It is pretty much guaranteed to sell like hotcakes...

So now it's in the hands of R.A tomorrow. His last start vs. KC was actually that infamous bench clearing game here in Toronto and in midst of all that choas, many people may have forgotten that he actually had a very good game that day; 7 innings of 2 hit ball (with 2 walks and 6k's.). Another good news is that as a collective unit KC hitters are batting .226 vs Dickey lifetime. One problem though is that their best hitter vs. Dickey is Alcides Escobar (6 for 18 lifetime, .333 average vs. Dickey) who is simply on fire right now... we really need to find a way to get this guy out.

We do have a good guy out there tomorrow to end it I think. The knuckleball, when it is on and moving well, is not something that they will be able to square up on with any sort of consistency. As long as Dickey minimizes his walks I have a feeling he'll be able to keep those bats relatively quiet tm.

BTW, what was the issue with Revere after he ran down the first baseline? I was at a bar and the commentary was drowned out, couldn't hear what they were saying. He looked in discomfort but it didn't seem like a leg problem...

Right. We'll need to make a decision on which two of the three options we want to commit ourselves to long term. I can't see both Bats and EE coming back in 2017 to be honest with you, I'm thinking it'll be one or the other.

While that definitely did not end on a note that I would have liked, win is a win at the end of the day. Glad that the hitting finally came around, great to see JD and Tulo having big offensive games. Huge kudos to Goins for stepping up his game and coming up big on all fronts today after that game 2 letdown. I love players who can bounce back and respond like this from tough circumstances, I look for that a lot in a good ballplayer. ...Jose really needs to be moved out to 1st base/DH full time by 2017 (if we re-sign him) and needs to be slowly phased into it starting next year. I love the guy (as my avatar would show) but RF defence has regressed way too much for us to tolerate for much longer and if he happens to be stubborn about playing RF when contract talks come up then we need to move on from him. In general we really need to stop making those silly errors we saw today... KC is making us pay on every single one of them. Inexcusable error by Smoak there in the 9th, can't have a defensive replacement screw up like that. But in all, just happy that we won to get back into this. I hope Dickey will be able to cool off those KC bats tomorrow with the dome closed... as long as he can limit his walks and HRs I think Royals hitters will have trouble string multiple small hits together like how they have thus far. Hopefully Chris Young won't be another one of those Gallardo-type of guys and we can get to him.

I still got his jersey t-shirt from that Black Jays era. Thought about publically burning it, lol.

Wonder if Barney will be claimed. Liked him during his very brief time here.

http://www.11points.com/images/jerseytypos/torotno.jpg

Totally. He's done it before after all. EXPERIENCE!!!1!!11! ...is this thread serious?

He usually only does this s*** when he's feeling in the groove. If he really means business he usually becomes much more direct, even quick pitches. Need to make him feel uncomfortable...

Wait, is Price being pushed up early to game 5? Or is just a suggestion? I do think it may be a better idea to pitch Price at home, without the pressure of an away game (there is enough things going through his mind already probably) and have Estrada pitch at KC so that he can limit HR's that he happens to be quite vulnerable to. Then again not sure how Price would be on short rest..

Here's an interesting twist to game 3; Royals have seen very little of Marcus Stroman thus far, only once early last year to be exact, in his first career start. And that game was a victory for the Jays/Stroman, who went six innings of one run ball. Stroman's a different guy from who they saw early last year too, so I have a feeling Royals will have problems facing him come Monday. We saw Cueto for his first KC start few months ago at least, so we're at least going into this with more familiarity.

I don't think playing in Kansas City is the reason that we couldn't hit HR's, it's more so with us not being able to square up on the ball enough vs. their pitchers enough the past two games. When our guys hit a homer it's usually a no doubter anyway, I personally don't think it has meaningful difference overall versus Rogers Centre over a short span, especially when the roof is closed here. I mean, how many HR's did we exactly miss out on the first two games due to the stadium factor anyway? Maybe the Donaldson fly ball to center and that's about it (and even that probably wouldn't have cleared the fence at RC; it may have hit the wall at best). I do get your point about the overall approach though. I think that needs to happen regardless of where we're playing.

I'm starting to think that Pillar/Tulo incident has made all the fielders very apprehensive about taking charge/full committment on those in-between flies (except for Pillar himself who still doesn't give a damn and goes after everything). I can recall couple instances after that incident where we've had dodgy moments in those kind of situations.

Already said this in the other thread but I honestly see no point of adding Tepera, it's very obvious that we're not going to be using him at all in any meaningful situations. And that speaks volumes on what they think of Buehrle and Francis right now when Tepera is picked over them for this spot on the roster that basically isn't going to see much use. We might as well have added an additional bench piece if this was going to be the case...

I'm wondering more about why Tepera was even included at all. He's obviously not going to be utilized at any important vs. LHB situation so all that jazz about his splits vs. lefties being a factor is bull, he won't see any time in a non-blowout situation. We may as well have brought along another bench piece instead if this was the case...

I hate to bring this up, but if we are going to play this Bartman game with that Goins/Bautista play then our own runs can go back to that "wire" incident too. Let's not do this, it's pointless.

The first inning. Of course it wasn't THE inning where things decisively got away, but it all still adds up later and we gave up two unnecessary runs in the first.

In a way this is an interesting reality check after all the highs of that reverse-sweep of the Rangers in the ALDS, especially after that emotionally charged win in game 5. It was never going to get any easier the rest of the way and now we're back into that situation that we were in before. But thus far our team has shown to respond well to these types of adversities and we just have to believe in them to be able to do it once more.

Maybe I'm imagining things but ever since that Pillar/Tulo incident there seems to be a lot of uneasiness and apprehensiveness between the fielders on those in-between popups...