Gibbons takes the parrot for a walk, Syndergaard was almost a Marlin, Travis’s shoulder was real dicey, and other notes from a 5-2 win
7 years ago
It was Edwin Encarnacion parrot shirt giveaway day at the Rogers Centre this afternoon, and after the slugger-who-needs-to-just-be-damn-paid-already did his part with a pair of walk and a huge home run to give the Jays some breathing room in the sixth, John Gibbons did his, wearing the parrot shirt to make his post-game comments, and posing with his best “chicken wing”.
To wit:
Gibby The Best. He did during his first two answers! Pay that man, too.
Things happened in this game. Russell Martin continued to not look like dog shit, which was great! J.A. Happ looked like old J.A. Happ, which was fine, as it turned out. The bullpen did some fine work, with Floyd, Storen, Grilli, Osuna really looking like what I imagine a bonafide reliever quartet for a mediocre NL West club looks like. Troy Tulowitzi again looked like the kind of guy we might one day soon start thinking about pinning some of our hopes on, homering to give himself five hits in the four games since his return to the DL, including a double and another jack. And Josh Donaldson was lifted from the game late, which turned out to be because he’d been dealing with a sore neck all day — apparently not because of a ball he’d fouled off his leg.
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This was a game about some off-field stories that arose, as well. On a day when Noah Syndergaard became the talk of baseball, as he left his start for the Mets to go see a doctor, complaining of elbow soreness, it was revealed that the former Jays prospect almost went to the Miami Marlins before he was instead traded to the Mets in the winter following 2012. According to Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald, the Marlins were given their pick of the Lansing Three when the Jays were trying to pry Josh Johnson, Jose Reyes, and Mark Buehrle from them, and Miami chose Justin Nicolino.
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That’s crazy. There was another team that lost Syndergaard in that trade! We’re not alone!
But also: could the Jays, with Syndergaard gone to Miami, have given the Mets the option between Aaron Sanchez and Nicolino when they made the R.A. Dickey trade? Could they have ended up with only Nicolino for their troubles??? Yikes. Maybe it all worked out pretty OK.
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And there was one more notable thing, which came about because the Diamondbacks’ excellent analyst, Steve Berthiaume, had caught a Toronto Sun piece from Bill Lankhof that I certainly missed (a fact I was alerted to via a tweet from Mike Ferrin). In it we were told about Devon Travis’s injury, and specifically about how dicey the operation he had actually was. He had a problem with his shoulder, Travis says, “most doctors aren’t even comfortable doing surgery on.
“I went to see Dr. (James) Andrews and he looked me right in the eyes and said: ‘I won’t do the surgery. I’ll stand by and attend, but I won’t try it myself.’ Here I am looking at the best doctor in the world and for him — a guy who’s seen everything — tell me that. Well, that stuck in my brain, big time.”
That’s kinda crazy right there, too. And fortunately for Travis, everything seems to have gone quite well. Travis had an 0-fer today, with a pair of strikeouts, but it put an end to an eight-game hitting streak, over the course of which he slashed .452/.469/.806.
Not bad. Not bad.
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Hey! And the Jays made a trade today! Sending Wade LeBlanc to the Phillies Mariners for cash, or a player to be named later! Wow! Blockbuster!
Though, it’s actually maybe a bit interesting, in that LeBlanc was some kind of piece of depth that the Jays could maybe have used if they were… uh… yeah. Meh.
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Hey, and lastly, since nobody is causing a commotion about it, I hope this isn’t what it looks like. But if it is, and if you’re this person, please for fuck sakes don’t. (Would love a better picture/explanation of what the hell is going on here. Or then again, maybe I don’t even want to know.)
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