The 'Bee' delay.

Today my subscription to MLB.tv paid for itself. The Blue Jays had the day off and I just happened to be watching the Houston Astros take on the San Diego Padres (mostly because Wandy Rodriguez from my fantasy team was staring the game). In the bottom of the 8th inning Kyle Blanks, the left-fielder for the Padres, threw his hands up in surrender and began to trot into the infield—seemingly in the middle of play. The problem? The 6'6" 285lbs behemoth had been chased by a swarm of bee. Yes, I kid you not: thousands of bees were flying relentlessly about left-field. Most of the bees eventually took refuge in the jacket of the left-field ball-girl.

The ensuing delay lasted about 45 minutes and was ended when a beekeeper sprayed the absolute shit out of the jacket with some type of chemical agent, killing the majority of the bees; a tragic end to such hilarity. The highlight of the entire event was when a grouping of about eight groudkeepers stood in left-field, one was holding a green garbage bag and another was holding a roll of duct tape. They were all arguing about the logistics of the situation: who was going to hold the bag open; who was going to drop the jacket—now bee's nest—into the bag; who was going to duct tape the garbage bag shut, containing the new nest. Kudos goes out to the Padres' announcing crew: they made the delay very enjoyable with about 15 minutes of bee related trivia.

All this because of mlb.tv, clearly worth the 19.99 usd/month.

What the fuck happend to Michael Barrett?

Seriously, what the fuck happened to the one-time catching prodigy of the Expo's? He injured his shoulder when he fell on a warmup bat-weight in the on deck circle while chasing down a David Purcey wild pitch. That was on April 17. Since then, Barratt has been perpetually activated on the 15-day DL (muscle tear in his right shoulder), and the Jays have been doing a great job keeping things quiet on a possible return date.

Barrett—who signed with the Jays in the offseason to help fill the massive void left when Greg Zahn was released—would have probably started 40-50 games this year, giving aging battleship Rod Barajas some much needed rest. Although, Barajas has shown that he can hold down the fort at the backstop position for at least the time being while the Jays wait for their young catching prospect, J.P Arencibia, to develop in Las Vegas.

A video of the injury can be found on this page.

Romero: the kid has got Big League stuff.

The month of June was unkind to the Blue Jays' duct tape pitching rotation and the Jays' record for the month (13W-14L) began to reflect the ad hoc promotion of youngsters to the starting lineup: Clearly, Brett Cecil is still recovering from a tanned backside courtesy of the May 20 spanking he received from Ortiz et. al; Robert Ray is no where near ready to be a consistent starter in the Big Leagues and is now where he belongs: developing a couple 'plus' pitches in Las Vegas with the 51's—where Cecil belongs too, frankly.

This is not the case for Ricky Romero.

For a guy who only had a chance to be in the lineup because Marcum and McGowan were out of the picture this spring, Romero fought hard for his well deserved spot in the roster. He's shown something that only Doc Halliday has brought to the struggling pitching staff—consistency. Sure Tallet—when he can keep his 88mhp heater down in the strike zone—and Richmond—if he can get through the first few innings of the ballgame without giving up more than 5 runs—throw good games here and there, but it just seems like Romero always has a good outing; he's exciting to watch.

The kid went into the 7th with a no hitter last week, for Christ sake. But, I was most impressed with his start today, and especially his pitching in the Top 7. With one out, runners on second and third and Ben Zobrist at the dish (who already had a single and a double in the game), the kid showed composure. Rather than pitch hard to Zobrist to try and get an out, Romero pitched around him; an unintentional intentional walk to load the bases. The result? Pitching the much easier Pat Burell (0-2 in the game at that point) into an inning ending double-play.

Most youngsters might have gotten themselves into serious trouble. Not Romero. I'm really looking forward to watching this kid pitch for many years to come.