MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

Girardi or Madden?

 

Great news dump by the Jays with the Toronto media obsessing over second level free agents the Leafs are chasing.

 

Bench coach promoted. Cue Dukes of Hazzard jokes

 

I haven't watched enough Blue Jays baseball to know if they're underachieving, but for those who have does this make a lick of sense?
The Blue Jays are 15 1/2 games out of first because the Yankees are putting together a season for the ages. Everybody in that division is playing for second place and a wild card spot — which the Blue Jays have an excellent shot at. They're tied for the second wild card and four games over .500 in a loaded division. So why fire the manager?

 

Don't forget that before the season began, the Jays were the AL East team seen likeliest to make a quantum leap. Somewhere in the files of the Jays' offices, there's a projection done in March by one of their quants modeling that Toronto should win 100 games in 2022. That's what the manager was judged on, not the humdrum reality of the actual standings.

 

Aside from Alek Manoah starting pitching has not been great. Ryu is done, Kikuchi has been varying degrees of horrid, Berrios has been up and down and Gausman is hurt after pitching pretty well. The bullpen isn't bad but has been overworked.

They've been inconsistent at the plate too, when they are going they are scary but pretty much every guy has struggled at some point. The whole team looked awful in Seattle last weekend. Maybe I am old school but there seemed to be too much yukking it up at the one end of the dugout in games they are losing - same goes for the home run jacket when they are losing - and hopefully John Schneider, who has a history with many of the young guys, can help this group focus on the task at hand.

I have never been a Montoyo fan, a guy I work with says he often looks like a guy who can't remember where he left his keys. Too often he just looked happy to be there managing in the bigs. Lots of chatter on Twitter that the front office had soured on him after signing him to an extension before the season. He seems like a really nice guy, good family man but as Blake said in Glengarry Glen Ross, "Good family man? Fuck you, go home and play with your kids."

 

They also extended him through next year like three months ago

 

Wait.

I leave the country on vacation and I look at the internet for the first time in a week and the Orioles and Mariners both win nine straight?!?

They’re in the playoff chase?

What the hell is going on?