After 2+ years of being the worst first baseman in the major leagues, the Toronto Blue Jays have announced today that they have demoted Lind to AAA Las Vegas, where he will have a chance to get things right. Despite Lind’s struggles at the plate, the move still comes as something of a surprise….okay, actually, it’s pretty much out of the blue. Of all the options that the Blue Jays had (platooning him, relegating him to the bench, etc), I think a minor-league demotion is something that not many of us would have expected. It’s a stunning fall from the time that Lind signed the 4-year extension that still goes to the end of next season, in any case.

I’m not sure what Las Vegas will end up doing for Lind, other than rebuild his confidence the way that only the PCL can….but maybe that’s the whole point?

Replacing Lind on the Blue Jays roster will be Yan Gomes, who is apparently the first Brazilian-born player to make the big leagues. Gomes is having himself quite a season in Las Vegas, as hitters tend to do, posting a .359/.391/.565 slash line with 5 home runs in 138 PAs. He’s posted a .200+ ISO in each minor league level over the last few seasons, so there’s some power there, though Gomes is also fairly strikeout-prone. The multi-positional player (Gomes is a catcher, but has also played at first and third) will presumably share time at the DH spot with a host of bench players like Ben Francisco, while Edwin Encarnacion moves to first base, and we wait for Vlad’s results as he completes his obligatory tour through the minors.

Sure, we could (well, I could) grumble about how it should be Travis Snider, and not Gomes, etc; but hey, taking Lind out of the lineup, even if it’s temporarily, is a positive step for the Blue Jays offense.

Not that most of us really know what it’s like to lose as a professional athlete, but I assume it’s probably not the easiest thing to swallow. Sometimes, it’s probably extra-difficult, as it was for the Toronto Blue Jays during a disheartening 4-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. Now, it’s not a normally disappointing thing to be losing to arguably the best team in the AL East, but I think it was more the way the team lost that really gave that extra kick to the disappointment tonight…

- Just ask Brett Lawrie. The 3rd baseman was at the plate in the bottom of the 9th inning, representing the Blue Jays’ 2nd out. It was a pivotal moment in the game against closer Fernando Rodney (I’d like to see how long that lasts), when Lawrie took a ball outside with the count at 3-1…that home plate umpire Bill Miller called a strike. Lawrie then took another ball up and away at 3-2, and started advancing to 1st – except that was called a strike too, ending the ball game. That was it for Lawrie, who in no uncertain terms absolutely lost his s*%t at the call, doing his best Hulk impression as he stepped up to Miller, then tossing his helmet, which bounced off the ground and inadvertently hit the umpire. Uh-oh. Lawrie was promptly thrown out, and after John Farrell stepped in to get him to not rip Millers head off, the skipper was thrown out too after an argument. I think it’s fair to say that we can expect a somewhat lengthy suspension on the way for Lawrie for the helmet toss, despite the lack of intent.

- There are really two different things at play here: a) Bill Miller made a couple of terrible calls, and b) Lawrie throwing a temper tantrum. While I can obviously understand the frustration of being screwed by bat calls at the plate, a) simply doesn’t justify b), and now, the team will be looking at a stretch down the line where they will have to play without their young star. Should someone have given Miller some choice words? Sure – Farrell did the job just fine. There’s just no excuse for Lawrie there. If the counter-argument is the rhetorical “what, do you expect him to just calmly walk back to the dugout after that?”, the answer is yes. What, do you expect a player to flip out at the ump and get himself ejected every time there’s a bad call?

- Besides, the Lawrie incident was only an exclamation mark to how the team lost the game. No, the 2 unearned runs on a combined 4 errors on the night did that just fine. The Blue Jays defense has been a bit of a circus the last couple of days, and it was particularly bad in a decisive 3-run 7th that saw errors from Yunel Escobar, Rajai Davis, as well as a wild pitch from starter Henderson Alvarez which erased a then 3-1 lead. So sure, we can all get mad about how Lawrie got screwed, because it was the more exciting event…but the game was turned on the field before that, too.

- Also not helping: the idiot who threw a beverage at Miller as the game ended. These guys are going to be here over the next couple of days for the Yankees series, you know. The ump may have been an idiot, but fighting that with idiocy doesn’t make anyone look better.

Thus ends the special Lawrie-only edition of thoughts on Blue Jays baseball. I’m sure we’re all somewhat cranky at this point, but a nice couple of wins over the Evil Empire should fix that right up, I think.

The simplest solution, and the one that’s currently being employed, is to try to get him going again. The team has recently (not sure how it took this long) decided to move Lind down in the batting order, from the cleanup spot to 8th. It’s traditional baseball wisdom that by batting lower in the order, Lind would not face as many high-leverage situations, and be able to relax instead of “pressing”. The problem with that is…well, pitchers are still trying to get you out just the same, whether you’re batting 4th or 8th. Even if we roll with the lower-leverage angle, it’s still not working: Lind responded to his demotion with a 2-hit game that included a homer, but has since gotten on base just twice in 10 at-bats.

If you were a fantasy baseball player who owned Adam Lind, chances are you’d have dropped him in essentially every format sometime ago. It’s not an option that the Blue Jays can necessarily afford in real life, though. Lind’s contract will make him $5 million dollars this year and the next (with a series of club options that follow), so it’s not as though the Blue Jays can just cut him loose – well, not unless they’re prepared to eat the remaining $5 million+ on the contract anyway. Fortunately, we haven’t quite hit BJ Ryan territory with Adam Lind yet, so we’ll just skip right over this bit…

The most “fun” option to speculate on, or the most common one when it comes to struggling athletes, is the trade route. As GM Alex Anthopoulos has demonstrated, there is no such thing as an unmovable player in these parts. But which teams in the MLB might have a been for a player like Lind? He’ll be 29 this year, so the struggling young slugger angle isn’t entirely in play, though Lind is still in his prime. I’m not very good at speculating trade partners, but perhaps a team like the Rockies (Helton) might have use for a player whose hit 84 home runs over the last 3 seasons? The team has its fair share of struggling players (Chacin, Fowler), and might be a good partner for a change-of-scenery trade that fills a hole on both teams. It’s all just armchair-GM guessing though, and anyone’s is as good as mine, really.

With all that being said, I think the likeliest result to actually happen from the Adam Lind situation…is nothing at all. With the signing of Vlad, the team has established a plan-B (even if it’s just a look), even if it’s a platoon partner for Lind. Regardless of the reasons, we’ve lived through 1279 PAs of a below-replacement numbers from him over the last couple of seasons, so really, what’s another year? Maybe he has a couple of big 2-3 week long streaks here and there, and reminds us of what he was once thought to be once in a while, and the team simply cuts ties with him after ’13. There’s always the chance too, that Lind could find his ’09 bat at some point in the future, and that next time we talk about the 1st baseman, it’ll be on much more pleasant terms. After all, it’s a lot more fun to talk about a player who is doing well vs one who is struggling.

I just wouldn’t hold my breath, that’s all.

- Jose Bautista. It used to be that any post-game thoughts would inevitably involve some sort of heroics from the Blue Jays slugger, but as we all know, he’s been rather terrible lacking in the first month of the season. No more. Bautista hit a video review-approved homer today against the Twins, his 3rd in 2 games, giving him 10 on the season, and puts him on a pace for 38 in the season. Do we call this a return to form? I’m tempted, but you do have to consider that Bautista has a ludicrous 1.534 OPS at Target Field in his previous 9 games there. Maybe it’s the park, but I think the last couple of games provides a fair bit of optimism that Bautista is about to say goodbye to his season-starting funk for good.

- What’s with the bugs at Target Field, anyway? It wasn’t quite the insectarium that was last night’s contest, but I can’t imagine having giant moths flying around you not being at least somewhat distracting to baseball activities.

- Remember when Edwin Encarnacion was arguably the hottest hitter on the team through the last couple of weeks of April? That seems quite far away now, as the newly-minted (again) cleanup hitter has seen his batting average tumble from .323 to .262 in a 12 game span, following a 0-for-4 night that included 3 strikeouts. It is of note that Encarnacion has homered in 2 of his last 3, but his 3-for-33 slump on this road trip is perhaps a good reminder of how cruel the baseball gods can be, no matter how much we may want to fall in love with the idea of a home-team breakout. Not to say that it’s a bad idea to slot Edwin behind Bau or anything, though…

- …because his predecessor is still not working out, even after the lineup drop. It looked like being “demoted” in the lineup would give Adam Lind some extra motivation, especially after he homered on Wednesday; since then however, he’s just 1-for-9, and looks as subpar as ever. Subpar would be putting it nicely, actually. Lind has been a below-replacement level player for the last 2 and some years, and is one of, if not the worst 1B in the bigs playing today. His -0.6 WAR and .712 OPS accumulated since 2010 is below the production level of names like Lyle Overbay and Aubrey Huff. I don’t want add too much to the (very justified) hate-on for the Blue Jays first baseman, but something has to give at some point. The Blue Jays didn’t sign Vlad to sit around, after all.

- Casey Janssen pitched the first clean 9th inning in the Blue Jays season after the closer carousel turned this week, and tonight, he did it again, getting his 2nd save of the season after retiring all 3 Twins batters in the 9th without incident. He’s just in the chair temporary, of course, with Sergio Santos and his slider due to return at some point in the near future. Still, fans tend to like their saves as un-dramatic as possible, and Janssen is definitely stocking up on some goodwill with his performances as temp closer thus far.

Vlad is obviously a name that still carries a good amount of cache, and despite the “minor league” nature of the deal, this is a signing that could very quickly yield major-league results. It’s clear that the Blue Jays didn’t want to sign a 37-year old for minor league depth, so the question is how much of a role on the big league ball club can the slugger have? Despite his age and inability to draw a walk, there seems to be little reason to doubt Guerrero’s ability to hit – he posted a .290/.317/.416 slash with the Baltimore Orioles last season, hitting 13 homers in 145 games. You already know the struggles that the Blue Jays are having with Adam Lind; while the team is officially non-committal about Vlad being a significant part of the lineup – and to be fair, there’s a fair amount of risks here – it wouldn’t be any stretch of the imagination to see Lind being the odd man out. The most apparent scenario would see Vlad at DH, with Edwin moving to 1B permanently.

Now, of course, that’s a whole bunch of speculation at this point. Vlad has been out of action for a while – it’s unclear what his level of baseball readiness is. Meanwhile, Adam Lind had a pretty good first day in the 8th spot himself, so it’s very possible for things to turn around. That being said, it’s one game in what’s been 2+ mostly poor seasons for Lind, and with Vlad looming now, the Blue Jays have got themselves a plan B in case the spiral continues for the 1st baseman. For a minimal amount of money (Vlad’s salary will be pro-rated to his major league PT), it’s a low-risk move to take a look at a guy whose done nothing but hit during his career. Not too shabby at all.

- I think we’ve all beaten the “our bullpen sucked” storyline to death in ’11, but no matter how many guys the team brings in, the late-innings drama simply won’t go away. Tonight, it wasn’t so much a drama as much as a comedy. I don’t generally like to transcribe innings, but this was one for the ages. The scene: Francisco Cordero taking the mound in the bottom of the 9th. The Blue Jays had just squeezed out a go-ahead run in the top of the inning. A double by Michael Taylor greets Cordero to start the innings, and the alarm bells immediately start ringing. Sure enough, a sac bunt and a Cliff Pennington single later, the game is tied at 3. Pennington then steals 2nd, forcing an intentional walk – standard procedure to set up the double play. Then, with Jonny Gomes batting, Jeff Mathis whiffs on a Cordero slider, allowing the runners to move to 2nd and 3rd. So he gets intentionally walked too. John Farrell runs a 5-man infield gambit to try to induce the double play with Brandon Inge up – at worst, Inge would hit a single and the game would be over with another standard blown save, right? Not tonight. Inge jumps on a 2nd pitch slider from Cordero, and takes him to deep left for the walk-off grand slam. Brandon Inge. In the Coliseum. If there was a more spectacular way to blow a save, I think I’d like to see it. Cordero has had a tough go with his move to the AL, but there is simply no reason for him to be in the 9th inning role as soon as…right now. Literally any arm in the Blue Jays bullpen would be a better option at this point, I think. It’s a good thing Sergio Santos has started throwing, because this just isn’t working out.

- That wasn’t all, though. Mathis, whose defensive reputation is well known, actually whiffed on 2 pitches during the inning, with the 2nd one to Gomes being to key that set up the intentional walk that preceded the final act. So I guess it really wasn’t all within Cordero’s control, though it was overwhelmingly so. The reason why Mathis was in the game? With runners on 1st and 3rd in the top of the 9th with one out, Farrell had decided to pinch-hit for JP Arencibia with…Omar Vizquel. Why? To set up squeeze bunt, instead of letting one of the hottest hitters on the team swing the bat. Naturally, Vizquel popped up for an out. Were it not for Kelly Johnson’s heroics (go-ahead single in 9th, 2-run HR in the 3rd), we wouldn’t even be treated to the spectacular meltdown. So, at least there was that.

- May is no time to bury a player’s season, but with each passing day, Adam Lind is inching closer to that territory. The “cleanup hitter” went 0-4 with a strikeout, dropping his average to .186. Our 3rd and 4th hitters are now hitting .187 and .186 respectively. Their combined average is lower than Jeff Mathis’ OBP. It’s getting hella ugly in the middle of the order, folks.

- Juuuuust to add to Lind’s misery, he also made a fielding error – his 3rd of the season. Whatever happened to Edwin Encarnacion being put there anyway? Actually, El Fuego has cooled a bit too, and is in a 0-18 slump after today’s 0-fer.

- Brandon Inge! Grand slam, in Oakland Coliseum! The veteran has 141 big league home runs over his 12 seasons, with just 2 of them (3 now) coming in that park.

- Ricky Romero‘s performance would normally be counted on as a lone bright spot for losses like these, but even the Blue Jays ace wasn’t all himself on the mound tonight. Romero needed 110 pitches to get through 6 innings, throwing just 61 strikes. His 6 IP, 2 ER, 5 H, 7 K line would’ve been pretty good, actually, if it also didn’t include a season-high 5 walks. I suppose you could say he was effectively wild, but it could have been a lot worse.

So, the closer carousel continues to spin for the Toronto Blue Jays. Who will be in there next, should a chance presents itself? Maybe Brandon Morrow can just throw a CG shutout just to make it easier.

- It had to be said, I suppose, but rookie starter Drew Hutchinson now has the “guy who Albert Pujols busted out of his HR slump against” tag for the season. Not that I think it’ll be remembered that way…but how crazy is it that it took the best hitter of a generation that long to finally go yard? In any case, Hutchinson actually managed quite well against the Angels the first time around, allowing just one baserunner (on a double) over the first three innings while striking out 4. Things went downhill from there, culminating with the 2-run long ball given up to Pujols. Hutchinson, who barely put in any time in AA at all, has been managing commendably so far in a trial-by-fire situation in Toronto, but the stuff is too hittable right now (.315 Opp Avg). For a guy who doesn’t miss many bats (6.6 swinging strikes %)…well, I think some uneven performances are to be expected. Then again, we are talking about a guy who’s basically coming straight from A-ball…

- Omar Vizquel is old. Really old. The oldest, in fact, to ever take the field as an MLB shortstop. The 45-year old future hall-of-famer broke the record after being given his first start of the season, and even got himself a hit to celebrate the occasion. After being ejected from a game from the bench earlier this week, I’d say Vizquel’s May has been pretty eventful thus far.

- Don’t look now, but with a 3-for-4 day today JP Arencibia has almost caught up to Jeff Mathis in batting average (I really didn’t think I’d be able to say that at this point of the season). Not that either guy is going to be of any real help in the average department this season, I think; still, Arencibia has now recorded at least a hit in 10 of his last 14 starts, with 5 of them being multi-hit affairs.

- Speaking of guys who are on these days, 2nd baseman Kelly Johnson is having a pretty good start to the month so far, hitting .348/.478 since the calendar turned over to the new month. He’s now added nearly 30 points to his batting average, after finishing April batting just .235; his batting eye is as good as it’s ever been (15.1% BB rate), even if his K% continues to climb. He’s struck out 7 times over his last 5 games – imagine what we might have on our hands if he could just cut down on the Ks?

- …that if you were to issue in-game MVP awards, that Henderson Alvarez would be the guy taking home the hardware for this game. What else can you say, really? 6 hits, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts, a plethora of ground balls, and best of all, the 22-year old managed the feat with under 100 pitches (97 in all). The sophmore continues to be a FIP-defying machine, and it’s starting to make me wonder if the normalization won’t be quite as harsh…or if it’ll come at all.

- Brett Lawrie has just two stolen bases on the year (along with 2 caught attempts), but if you watched his steal off Jason Isringhausen in the 9th inning, you’d swear he could probably have triple that number of swiped bags if he just tried more often. That kid can hustle on the basepaths – that, or I’m just looking at everything he does through a set of Lawrie glasses, where by he makes every play look amazing.

- I’ve done the “signs-of-life” thing with Jose Bautista before, and it is now May, so I can only not be worried for so much longer. He did hit his 5th homer today (along with a walk), though, in a 1-for-3 day that saw him raise his average to….177. It’s not pretty, but it’s not Albert Pujols’ 0 homers and .194 average either.

- I understand why John Farrell won’t move Bautista out of the 3rd spot in the batting order, but it feels like ever since he declared Edwin Encarnacion his clean-up hitter, we’ve been seeing more and more of Adam Lind and his .581 OPS in the 4-spot. It’s getting pretty ridiculous, especially when a clear-cut better option exists in Edwin Encarnacion. What does Lind have on the Blue Jays organization, that they’ve refused to cut bait with him for so long, or at least pursue some different options? You can sell Lind’s home run numbers, but you just can’t sell him as a good hitter. The Blue Jays can do better, and already have better.

- With Alvarez pitching, Jeff Mathis got the start again in place of JP Arencibia. It was Mathis’ 2nd start this week – is a slight platoon situation starting to emerge here, as a result of the unexpected performance with the bat of Mathis? Probably not, but it’s something worth thinking about as the team continues to roll with the former Angel a couple of times a week.

Wouldn’t it be quite something if Kyle Drabek could make it 3 shutouts in a row? The Blue Jays are on a row right now, where as the Angels are trending in the wrong direction. Good time to take advantage of a team still looking to find its groove, I think.

- Just what the hell is up with Edwin Encarnacion? Taking over at first base for Adam Lind against lefty Matt Harrison (not sure how long the team will continue to roll with a 1B with a .609 OPS,but I’d expect to see this more often in the future), Encarnacion homered yet again in today’s game, this one a 3 run shot in the 6th inning that extended the Blue Jays lead from 3 to 6. He’s quickly creeping up the MLB home run leaderboards, and the hot streak is giving me opportunities to do crazy things like mention “Encarnacion”, “Hamilton” and “Kemp” in the same sentence. Doesn’t matter how crazy it sounds, Edwin Encarnacion is among the hottest hitters in the big leagues right now.

- Jose Bautista could probably use some of whatever Encarnacion is having. The slugger is still in a hell of a slump (despite last night’s home run), and was one of only 2 Blue Jays who were held hitless this afternoon (dropping his avg down to .180 on the year). 11 runs, and only 1 RBI from J-Bau from a sac fly – who would’ve figured? Looking at Bau’s perhiperals, we see a spike in his infield fly rate (20.6%, up from 15.2%), but for the most part, his contact profile looks on par. He’s striking out less, but hitting for much less power these days – perhaps it s timing issue? Given his body of work over the last two years, I’d say the home run binge is still to come, but another 100 PAs of this, and I think the alarms will start going off.

- Even when staked to a 8-1 lead, the Rangers still don’t make it easy for anyone, even without two of their top hitters. Ricky Romero found that out the hard way, walking 3 straight batters (including the 8th and 9th hitter) to start the 5th, eventually allowing all of them to score on 2 hits in a 4-run inning. A switch then went off in the Blue Jays ace, who did not give up a hit or a walk over his final 3 innings, with just a sole baserunner getting on due to an error. A mental lapse, perhaps? Romero’s final line (8 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 6 K) would have looked a lot more dominant without that one inning, that’s for sure. Either way, Romero did impress with his composure despite the damage done, and moved to 4-0 for the season thanks to a good day from the bats, who backed him up today and then some.

- After sitting on the bench for Jeff Mathis last night, JP Arencibia came back with a strong outing of his own, going 2-for-4, including a key 2-run double that kickstarted a big 6-run 4th inning. Two weeks ago, Arencibia was hitting just .068; since then, he’s gone 12-for-36, bringing that average up to .206. The power that he’s known for hasn’t quite emerged yet, but Arencibia is swinging the bat well these days.

With a series win against the best team in the AL West, the Blue Jays will now head westbound to face the slumping LA Angels, who have pulled off two wins in a row themselves, and showing signs of life despite being dead last in the division. Let’s hope the Blue Jays keep them there, though.

- …like the starting pitching we got today from sophmore Kyle Drabek, who continued his transformation into the guy that we thought we’d have at the beginning of last season, this time holding strong against the best offense in the AL (even though Josh Hamilton was out with back problems) for 6 innings, giving up just 2 runs on 5 hits and 2 walks, and striking out a career-high 8 batters. That’s just one inning and a K short of what Darvish did against the Blue Jays, and it kept Drabek’s ERA at a clean 2.40 after 4 starts. I know, I know, he’s serving up a pretty sizable FIP-ERA differential – almost 3 full points – and his perhiperals suggest that he’s only been a slightly better pitcher than he was last season, with a unsustainably high 94.5% strand rate…but maybe we should just enjoy his little run while it lasts?

- Speaking of unsustainable, but highly entertaining runs: Yu Darvish shut down a lot of Blue Jays bats tonight, but he couldn’t stop Edwin Encarnacion. No sir, not even after plunking him on the arm in his first at bat. Encarnacion got his revenge in the next at bat, taking a Darvish slider to left to cut the then 2-0 Rangers lead by half. Encarnacion has now homered in 4 straight games. Last season, he didn’t hit his 8th home run until July 28th. The DH is doing him wonders.

- Weren’t the Japanese baseball contingent in Toronto supposed to come out for Darvish? At least, that was part of the thought when everyone (including myself) was speculating about the feasibility of Alex Anthopoulos putting out a monster bid for the Japanese righty. The 21,945 attendance numbers seem to suggest that just maybe, the Asian market that some talked about was a bit overblown.

- The bullpen management tonight by John Farrell was…curious, to say the least. Down 2-1 in the 7th, the skipper decided to have rookie Evan Crawford come out and try to hold the fort. It was against the Rangers’ 8-9 hitters, but the move still backfired, with Crawford giving up solo shots to Mitch Moreland and Craig-freaking-Gentry, who doubled his career home run total. After Jason Frasor came out to limit the damage (despite loading the bases), Farrell then decided to go to Luis Perez for a pair of innings to what, hold the increased Ranger lead? It probably should have worked the other way around in my mind, but I suppose it’s kind of a minor gripe…

- …because really, the reason the Blue Jays lost wasn’t Evan Crawford’s appearance. It was because outside of Encarnacion, the team just couldn’t hit Rangers pitching at all. No one in particular to point out here, as there were 0′s all over the board, with everyone besides Adam Lind and Eric Thames striking out at least once against Darvish. 1 run on 4 hits just isn’t going to win you too many ball games.

Drew Hutchinson will get his work in tomorrow against Neftali Feliz. I think if he could replicate what Drabek did tonight, the Blue Jays should be in pretty good shape.