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I had the same thought that Moreno had a real shot to join the club as the third baseman if he could show enough ability to man the position in the minors. I was also thinking there was a good shot that Kevin Smith would get a shot later on this season, but he's gone and put up a paltry .484 OPS so far in the month of July.

Tampa was really out for blood tonight. First they placed a bounty on Orelvis, then they put a 21 run spanking on Dunedin as well.

Nothing wrong with giving him a chance to iron out his command in AAA. His raw stuff should be well suited to a bullpen role, as the velocity was ticking upwards as the season went on, and the high spin arsenal gives him the ability to miss a lot of bats. He certainly needs to stop serving up meatballs if he wants any chance to succeed though.

In the least surprising news ever category, Julian Merryweather is once again injured.

I think this should be possible as well. First the remaining dead weight needs to be removed from the 26 man roster. Thornton, Dolis and Chatwood (once he returns from injury) can all be sent packing, and then the bullpen should be in much better shape.

Watins was ripe for the picking, but in the end the Jays put up 5 runs of offence. It's tough to win many games when the pitching staff implodes to the tune of 7 runs.

The guy who produced an xERA of 4.80 and FIP of 4.14 in 2020 is our second best reliever? Our bullpen is a tire fire this season but it's not THAT bad.

Hendricks has been good hittin' this year, I'd be very hesitant to give up the necessary haul to acquire him even with Arrieta thrown into the deal. Guys with lower velocity such as Hendricks just have so little margin for error that if anything is off they end up getting lit up.

f*** it's amazing the knack Charlie has for pressing the wrong buttons consistently with his in game managerial decisions. Why he insists on putting struggling relievers into close games over and over is a total mystery, his lack of awareness is completely baffling. Thornton needs to be removed from the roster asap to prevent our bumbling manager from continuing to use him when the game is still within reach. I don't care if it's a phantom injury or demotion to AAA, get it done Atkins.

There is serious reason for suspicion as he has experienced a pretty dramatic drop in his spin rate in the second half of June. https://jaysfromthecouch.com/2021/07/04/blue-jays-trade-targets-richard-rodriguez-and-red-flags/

This is a nice little trade. Rowdy had no place on the club after Vladdy claimed the full time position at first base. Turning him into controllable bullpen help and adding a depth starter on top of that is good business. How is Richards likely to be deployed? It looks like the bulk of his innings have been in low leverage situations up to this point, but with the Jays needing help closer to the back end of the bullpen perhaps he'll see some leverage situations from time to time.

I was having flashbacks of a poster on the Athletic comments section espousing the need for the Jays to trade two of Moreno, Martin and Groshans in exchange for Richard Rodriguez of the Pirates.

3 blue chippers for a soon to be 38 year old pitcher on an expiring contract. Well that's certainly something.

This is the club's first year in the current competitive cycle. Why in the world should they be trading a franchise player now? That is just unbelievable stupid. The work that remains is to continue to build up the pitching staff, with the bullpen in particular needing to be addressed. What is this .500 team garbage that you are spouting? They are several games over .500 at the midway point of the season, and achieved this despite missing their best outfielder and almost an entire back end of the bullpen for the year as well. Once they get a few good bullpen arms back and add some reinforcements at the deadline this is going to be a deep team poised to go on a run. And if they don't make the playoffs this year they can reassess in the offseason and continue to build up the major league squad.

But don't you know you're only allowed to use your best reliever when already leading? The amount of the lead doesn't matter either, it's just too upsetting to the natural rhythm of the closer to pitch in a game where your team is behind in the score. Dolis was passable in late innings in 2020 so that makes him a lock to be good in 2021. Even though he just came back from injury. And has been f***ing terrible this season. And has been injured multiple times already. And potentially has to readjust to no longer being able to use grip enhancers/sticky stuff. If the need is great enough for a reliever to be good for your team you just need to keep throwing him into leverage situations and hope for good things to happen. It's the power of positivity, wishing for good things to happen even though they are almost assuredly are not going to happen. In the world of Charlie Montoyo this is tactical managing 101.

A normal manager with proper cognitive abilities would make Dolis earn his trust before throwing him into a high leverage situation. It seems like with Charlie that trust extends over several seasons. Dolis did a a decent job in a small 60 game sample last season, but how does this still earn him the kind of rope he's been given this season? Dolis has been terrible in 2021, and just like with Chatwood it feels like a good chance he's going to melt down with every appearance. Instead of determining which guys are going well and reacting accordingly Charlie seems more likely to play favorites and just hope for the best. This team is in desperate need of a manager who can make proper tactical decisions on a day to day basis.

It's nice to see the Yankees luck seems to have finally run out. For far too long they've been sprinking magic pixie dust onto hitters and turning them into great performers. They did this with LeMahieu, Hicks, Urshela and Voit so it's refreshing to see these guys struggling this season.

It's remarkable how bad the Yankees offence has become seemingly overnight. LeMahieu, Urshela and Hicks have all turned back into pumpkins, youngsters Torres and Frazier have dramatically underperformed compared to expectations, and father time has finally caught up to Brett Gardner. You know you are in trouble offensively when you bring in washed up shitbags like Rougned Odor to play basically every day.

Diamondbacks are like "hold my beer bro" as they are on pace to lose 118 games this season.

With the dismantling of the Rays the last few days the Jays are off to a good start.

Vladdy has some of the most impressive on and off the field presence of anybody in MLB. He has a ton of swagger and he backs it up with the performance on the field. At the plate you can tell he just has this innate understanding of hitting that only comes around once in a generation. That leads to the elite plate discipline, and when you combine it with the top of the chart hit tool and raw power you are left with a very special player.

Wow that was a really fun game to watch today. As usual the umpiring was absolutely atrocious. MLB needs to implement regular eye checkups for these guys, because a good chunk of these clowns have the accuracy of Stevie Wonder. It's nice to see the Jays get a measure of Tampa Rays horse shoe up their ass kind of good luck. Stripling continues to roll along. I was pretty much ready to give up on him providing any kind of value to the Jays, but then he goes and implements full on mechanical changes in the middle of the season. And turns into the Jays best starter ever since. Sometimes I wonder if Pete Walker is some kind of a wizard with how frequently he's been able to resurrect MLB starting pitcher careers. He's had a lot of success stories recently. Robbie Ray is throwing harder than ever before and simultaneously displaying the best command of his career. Like how is that kind of turnaround even possible? He's turned Matz into a nice rotation piece as well, just needing to work on consistency at this point is all he has left. It's kind of too bad the club didn't take a shot at resigning Taijuan Walker, I think under the tutelage of Walker and with the clubs advanced training regimens that could have been a very fruitful matchup for both sides. Is this better? I always appreciate a good grammar check, those always really work to keep a guy honest and ensures that he gives 110% in all of his posts.

Wow that was a really fun game to watch today. As usual the umpiring was absolutely atrocious. MLB needs to implement regular eye checkups for these guys, because a good chunk of these clowns have the accuracy of Stevie Wonder. It's nice to see the Jays get a measure of Tampa Rays horse shoe up their ass kind of good luck. Stripling continues to roll along. I was pretty much ready to give up on him providing any kind of value to the Jays, but then he goes and implements full on mechanical changes in the middle of the season. And turns into the Jays best starter ever since. Sometimes I wonder if Pete Walker is some kind of a wizard with how frequently he's been able to resurrect MLB starting pitcher careers. He's had a lot of success stories recently. Robbie Ray is throwing harder than ever before and simultaneously displaying the best command of his career. Like how is that kind of turnaround even possible? He's turned Matz into a nice rotation piece as well, just needing to work on consistency at this point is all he has left. It's kind of too bad the club didn't take a shot at resigning Taijuan Walker, I think under the tutelage of Walker and with the clubs advanced training regimens that could have been a very fruitful matchup for both sides.

This team has had a lot of neck issues this season. Biggio, Cole and now Chatwood. Although with Chatwood I wouldn't be surprised if this is more of the phantom variety of injury.

I'd like to see Jansen stashed in AAA for the time being. Finally getting some offensive production from the catcher position is a really nice bonus right now, so you might as well bring up Kirk once he's ready and it's murder central for opposition pitchers. Combined with the return of Springer and Biggio, Adding Kirk into the mix will just make for a crazy attack 1-9. If Jansen can find his stroke in AAA and McGuire cools down then you reassess from there.