Pretty Good Moments of 2009: Opening Day

After taking a few days to decompress, I figured it would be a pretty good idea to go back and pick out the few moments of brightness from an otherwise dark season to help remind us why we put ourselves through it day after day.

First up, opening day.

Highlighted by Adam Lind's home run and 6 RBIs, a homer by Travis Snider, hanging 8 earned runs on Justin Verlander, and the biggest crowd of the season, the Jays coasted to a 12-5 win with Roy Halladay pitching. Even Alex Rios and Vernon Wells had great games (2-3 with 2 walks and 2-4 with a walk, respectively)!

Of course, there were also the idiots who thought it would be good idea to throw paper airplanes onto the field and maybe could have caused the Jays to forfeit the game, but we can ignore that.

I've Heard This Kevin Millar Guy Isn't Very Good

Kevin Millar has been pretty awful in 2009, I think we can all agree on that. Signing him in the first place might not have been the worst decision in the world (and he's hardly making any money, baseball-wise), but having him on the 25 man roster for the whole season while putting up a line of .215/.297/.354 may be. That would be bad enough, but the fact that the majority of his at-bats have come in the clean-up spot since Scott Rolen was traded to the Reds, it's inexcusable.

However, it really doesn't make a difference in the long run and it's really nothing worth getting upset about. At this point in the season, the Jays are an awful team. Putting a superior hitter in place of Millar (which really isn't that hard) only makes them a little less awful and does it really matter if the Jays finish the season with 70 or 72 wins?

More important things to worry about are Travis Snider sitting (especially against righties, but he should also be getting some hacks in against lefties whenever he has the chance), whatever bullshit is going on with Jeremy Accardo and Cito Gaston, if Vernon Wells is going to continue to be terrible going forward, what a post-Doc rotation might look like in 2010 or beyond, and whether or not guys like Carlson, Janssen, and League can rebound in the bullpen going into next season (and I'm sure there are a million other things that I'm forgetting).

Kevin Millar is awful and a guy like Randy Ruiz should be getting his ABs, instead, but he's not the (main) reason that the Jays suck and he's not going to be a member of this team going forward. Pull your hair out over something else.

Shitty Loss: Roy Halladay Edition

I don't think I ever defined what I consider a shitty loss. Basically, since the Jays have seemed to lose an inordinate amount of games by 3 runs or less over the past 2 months, or so, I figured that was a good criteria. I will make an exception, though, for any game in which Roy Halladay loses.

Despite his 7 strikeouts, Doc clearly didn't have it in this one. Going less than 7 innings for the first (non-injured) time in about 20 years is pretty noteworthy for him. I don't know, maybe the start looks a little better if the ump doesn't blow that call on Youkilis at first, but the Sox seemed to have his number most of the night.

Not that the hitters bailed him out at all, squandering the few chances they had to try and make a game out of it, Encarnacion being the biggest culprit.

Hard to take anything positive out of this one, unlike the last few games where there was something you could point to that looked good. Maybe Wells getting a hit with RISP, as pathetic as that is, was the highlight for the Jays.