Daily Duce: Wednesday, May 3rd

Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki are both down in Dunedin, rehabbing. “Neither player has a specific timetable for his return, but Toronto should have a better idea this weekend when the club travels to Florida for a weekend series vs. the Rays,” explains Gregor Chisholm of BlueJays.com tells us about. “There’s a chance they will return for a homestand series vs. Cleveland, which starts Monday, but nobody really knows for sure.”

Aaron Judge damaged the Blue Jays on Tuesday night, but on Monday Marco was masterful against him, and Israel Fehr explores how at the Athletic.

LATE ADDITION: The Jays have made Salty’s release official, which suggests that it wasn’t already. (Before this he was technically D.O.A. Oh, wait! I mean D.W.I.!)

Awesomeness at FanGraphs, as Anthony Alford appears among their list of KATOH’s most improved prospects so far. “Given his speed and athleticism, his hitting is an exciting development,” they writed, adding that “Eric Longenhagen recently checked in on Alford in his daily notes.” And in those notes? This beauty: “He has star-level tools — plus raw power and plus-plus speed — and if the bat-to-ball piece of the profile is starting to come now that he’s been focusing on just baseball for a third consecutive year, he could become an offensive force.”

Elsewhere at FanGraphs, Travis Sawchik takes a fascinating look at the dimensions of the new Yankee Stadium, which are supposed to be identical to the old one, but sure don’t seem like it.

Devon Travis tells Steve Buffery of the Toronto Sun that he was “saddened” to hear about the racist taunts Adam Jones experienced in Boston on Monday. NPR has a good overview of the incident and the response to it, including the fact that “the team is considering a possible lifetime ban for anyone caught making racist remarks at the ballpark.” No word yet on punishment for those expressing their economic anxiety, tho. *COUGH*

Jones got a standing ovation when he approached the plate at Fenway for the first time on Tuesday night, which is the nice and human thing of the crowd to do at that point, although…

Speaking of the trash Red Sox and the trash Orioles, they continue to be trash. Ted Berg of USA Today looks at the escalating beanball war between the two clubs. Manny Machado ranted about this on Tuesday night, which you can see in a video at ESPN.com in which he is absolutely bang on. Here are his uncensored words: “If you’re going to fucking hit me, hit me, go ahead. Fucking hit me. Don’t let the shit keep fucking lingering around and keep trying to fucking hit people. It’s fucking bullshit. It’s fucking bullshit. MLB should do something about it. Fucking pitchers out there with fucking balls in their hands throwing 100 mph trying to hit people. I’ve got a fucking bat too. I could go up there and crush somebody if I wanted to. But you know what? I’ll get suspended for a year and the pitcher only gets suspended for two games. That’s not cool. ”

Back to FanGraphs, where Nick Stellini implores baseball players to stop throwing things at each other. Meanwhile, Michael Baumann of the Ringer makes the correct point that what happened to Adam Jones this week isn’t just a Boston problem — and that by making it one we’re letting everyone else off the hook.

Great stuff, as always, from the folks at BP Toronto, as Richard Lee Sam waxes about Marcus Stroman, who he says is “unapologetically good, and that’s not a bad thing.” Meanwhile, Rachael McDaniel looks back at April and examines a bunch of turning point moments that… well… didn’t actually end up turning anything.

Mark Zwolinski of the Toronto Star looks at the signs of a turnaround that we’re starting to see from José Bautista.

Joel Sherman tweets that Noah Syndergaard has packed up his ElAttrache case and flown to Los Angeles for a second opinion on his lat tear. He adds that “initial conservative estimates is he’ll be out 3 months.” Oof.

Our old friend the Tao of Stieb writes a paean to… Erik Karlsson??? (Worth noting: the Ottawa Senators winning the Stanley Cup would be the funniest thing. Embrace it.)

Elsewhere at Sportsnet, Greg Mercer catches up with Robinzon Diaz, one of a long list of former Blue Jays catchers of the future, but is more notable as the player that went the other way in the 2008 trade that brought José Bautista to Toronto. He’s now Milwaukee’s bullpen catcher.

Blue Jays From Away looks back on the first month of minor league action for Jays affiliates, looking at their pitching and hitting leaders for April.

Callum Hughson of Mop Up Duty revisits his own predictions as to the Jays’ Opening Day lineup, and reflects on where the Jays are, where we thought they’d be, and where they’re going. Good stuff, despite the use of the term “Shatkins.”

Jays Droppings walks us through a delightful hall of Bautista stares and a list of all-time Jays badasses… or something.

Back to MLB.com, where Paul Hagen looks at a new autobiography from former Expos owner Charles Bronfman.

Lastly, Bluebird Banter polls their readership on the question of whether or not John Gibbons is doing a good job, and it turns out that, at the time of this writing, 61% of BBB readers aren’t clueless weirdos.