So what do I do? I go to old reliable, a Blue Jays post. 2 out of 3 on the weekend against the Tribe is a good start to the season, but of course the only game I was able to watch out of the series was the game they lost on Sunday (I wonder if that's an omen).
I have a 3 row box of cards, 2 of the 3 rows containing Blue Jays cards. Being the fool that I am, I figure I'll leave it in the fates of someone else to prod me along. I call to my wife, "pick a number between 1 & 250". After laughing at me for a moment, she comes up with the number.....139.
So I go through the first row to the 139th card in the stack.
Yeah, I know. Figures doesn't it? I don't get a random player card, or an oddball set from some year that I hardly collected.
2007 Topps # 591 Jays Team Card. Yikes.
OK, well the picture is of the 2006 team, so let's take a look at the team then.
They didn't fare too badly, 87-75, 2nd place 10 games behind the Yankees. This team definitely could hit the ball. Out of the 10 players who had the most plate appearances, only 2 of those hit below .280. One of those was Troy Glaus, who had 38 HR, 104 RBI and led the team in runs with 105. The club as a whole hit 199 HRs, a solid number for the dome, but couldn't run worth a lick. 65 stolen bases shows that the team was made more for the long ball rather than taking extra bases and playing small ball.
The pitching, well that was a different story. There were only 2 starters that took their turn every 5th day. Roy Halladay has his normal 16 win season, 3.19 ERA, 1.100 WHIP. Ted Lilly manages to win 15 games even with a mid 4 ERA and 1.431 WHIP. After that, the rotation is full of part timers that must have had John Gibbons pulling his hair out. The only other 10 game winner was A.J. Burnett, and every other starter who started at least ten times had an ERA over 5 (Josh Towers' ERA was 8.42).
BJ Ryan and Justin Speier both had excellent campaigns in the pen. Brandon League also had a decent season, alas he is now the closer in Seattle. Other than that, there was a whole lot of ordinary. Jeremy Accardo's ERA was near 6, Dustin McGowan's ERA was over 7. Scott Scheoneweis was trotted out there 55 times and had an ERA of 6.51.
Here's a stat to illustrate the season in a nutshell. The Jays had 53 games that were blowouts (decided by 5 or more runs), and they were 29-24 in those games. That's crazy. They scored 10 or more runs 13 times, the most being 13 runs which they accomplished 5 times. They gave up 10 or more runs 9 times, including a 17 run and a 15 run game. Chances are if you were playing the Jays in '06, you were in for a lot of scoring.
Their longest winning streak of the season was 5 games...June 27 through July 1.
Their longest losing streak of the season was 7 games...July 29 through August 5
They were in 4th for one day during the season, every other day they were in 3rd place or better in the division. Maybe the turning point of the season? 4.5 games out on July 23rd, they went on a 9 game road trip and went 2-7, including being swept by the Yankees at the end of the trip. The Jays scored a total of 4 runs in the 3 games in Yankee stadium, and were 8.5 GB when it was said and done.
OK...next time we get a player card...
thanks for reading, Robert
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