Alex Anthopoulos got the hearts of Toronto Blue Jays fans fluttering when he acquired Troy Tulowitzki from the Colorado Rockies a few days before the Major League Baseball trading deadline, but the overriding sentiment was this: Why would the game’s most powerful offensive team that’s short on pitching go out and acquire one of the game’s top 10 offensive players?
The Tulowitzki trade, which also brought aging reliever LaTroy Hawkins to Toronto and sent Jose Reyes and three young prospects to Denver, was merely the first shoe to drop. Two days later, the second shoe dropped — and its thump reverberated across Canada. David Price, a lefthander who won the Cy Young award for Tampa Bay in 2012, was acquired in a ‘rental’ deal, costing the Jays a couple more of their prized prospects.
Jays fans are ecstatic: “Thank You Santapolous,” read one sign in the almost-constantly jam-packed Rogers Centre.
With those two deals, Anthopoulos was basically saying it’s now or never for the Blue Jays, who haven’t made the playoffs since 1993, the year they won their second consecutive World Series championship. It’s the longest non-playoff drought in baseball and if it continues in 2015 after those two deals, it might be another 20 years before the Jays are ready to contend again.
Price, whose winning debut at Rogers Centre was watched by more than 50,000 fans in the stadium and another few million on TV across Canada, will be a Jay only until the end of this season, when he becomes a free agent. It’s possible, of course, that the Jays could re-sign him, but it would cost them multiple millions over a long term, say, $130 million over seven or eight years. Foolish money for a pitcher who could be one pitch away from an injured shoulder or elbow.
The Jays’ offence, though, is something to behold. With Tulowitzki, Josh Donaldson, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion and Russell Martin, it’s a 21st Century version of Murderer’s Row. Even half-decent pitching is apt to win 65 per cent of the time with an offensive lineup as powerful as manager John Gibbons sends out daily. Now that 20-year-old closer Roberto Osuna and the rest of the Toronto bullpen has shaped up (the Jays’ post-all-star-game ERA is among the best in baseball), this is a team seemingly without a hole. A lengthy August win streak temporarily pulled the Blue Jays into first place ahead of New York Yankees.
No matter what the Leafs do this fall, October is almost guaranteed to be baseball season in The Big Smoke.
• Greg Cote of the Miami Herald, on the Tom Brady ‘Deflategate’ case going before a federal judge in mid-August: “So it’s official: They truly have made a federal case of whether Brady was aware of infinitesimally under-inflated footballs that had zero bearing on any outcome.”
• Headline at SportsPickle.com: “Broken jaw to force Geno Smith to miss 18 — 30 turnovers.”
• Swiss rower Katharina Strahl, to AP, on Brazil’s polluted venue: “I don’t think in this lake they’ll be throwing the coxswain into the water.”
• Marlins manager Dan Jennings, to reporters, on his team’s dismal season: “Thank God there’s no Prohibition in baseball.”
• Dwight Perry of the Seattle Times: “Some memes inspired by the rap movie “Straight Outta Compton” making the Internet rounds: “Straight Outta Competition” (Ronda Rousey); “Straight Outta Chances” (Aldon Smith); “Straight Outta Air” (Tom Brady); “Straight Outta Run Plays” (Seahawks).
• Comedian Argus Hamilton, on Bridgestone winner Shane Lowry wearing six sponsors’ logos on his golf apparel: “When he held up the trophy, he looked like the only man to ever win at both Firestone and Daytona.”
• RJ Currie of SportsDeke.com, after a dog in Arkansas somehow survived despite swallowing 23 bullets: “One problem: His hair keeps coming out in bangs.”
• Late-night funnyman Conan O’Brien: “Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams are the highest paid female athletes in the world. After hearing this, Ronda Rousey beat them up and took their money.”
• Brad Dickson of the Omaha World-Herald: “An Illinois couple held a Stanley-Cup-themed wedding. Guests are torn whether the highlight was the bride getting hit by the thrown octopus or the best man being checked into the cake.”
• Comedy writer Terry Etter: “Jets’ quarterback Geno Smith suffered a broken jaw when he was punched by a teammate, linebacker Ikemefuna Enemkpali. Apparently, Enemkpali became frustrated when he couldn’t pronounce ‘Smith.’”
• Norman Chad of the Washington Post, on Twitter: “Jets quarterback Gene Smith punched by teammate and will miss six to 10 weeks – how come no one on the Bears ever thought of this?”
• RJ Currie again: “According to the Daily Mail, for over 1,000 years The Great Wall of China has been in a constant state of rebuilding. ‘See?’ said the Chicago Cubs.”
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