Random Thoughts Tuesday

 Wow today for the first time in a while I actually have a few genuine random thoughts that aren't big enough for their own post but are definitely worth thinking. It helps when the Jays game was fun last night, despite the loss. Lets get right into it!

Bobby Webster is the Head of Basketball Operations 

Some Raptors news in August! This one came through yesterday morning as a nice surprise. After the Raptors let Masai Ujiri go in a move that I came on here and hated on, they said they would be looking for a new president of basketball operations to work alongside Bobby Webster as the GM. I thought that sounded discouraging. Bobby had been around for a while as the GM and if Masai was going to be let go, I was hoping we'd keep some kind of stability at the top and just let Bobby run the ship. Yesterday they announced that Webster will be the Head of Basketball Operations and they will stop their search for a new president, at least for this season. My initial reaction was good! There were rumors after Masai was let go that Bobby had some slight differences in opinion to Masai. The biggest one was Bobby wanted to extend Pascal Siakam whereas Masai wasn't as keen on that idea. Who knows if that's true or just made up to cope with the loss of Masai, but the fans are about to find out! My other thought was this likely means the scouting team that's worked under Bobby this whole time should stay in place. If there's one thing the Raptors have been really good at during his tenure it's drafting, so I was hoping the guys who ran that would be sticking around. Overall I was happy that there isn't going to be some big shakeup at the top of an organization that's had really good stability over the last decade. 

Then I got a text that made me realize what was announced: Bobby Webster is the new "Head of Basketball Operations" not the President of Basketball Operations. This kind of seems like a weird backhanded promotion where he gets to be in charge but doesn't get the title or the pay bump that would come with it. Maybe I am reading too much into semantics, but it would be pretty easy to just call him the President rather than the Head wouldn't it? I can't prove it and I don't know how but I have a feeling this is Rogers being cheap and shady again. Anyway, hopefully it doesn't matter and the Raptors have a good season so that Bobby can get the official promotion at the end of the year. Screw you Rogers!

Tommy Pham 

There are some figures in sports that are such jerks that you just have to love to hate them. Tommy Pham fits that mold perfectly. The first instance I can remember of this guy being just the worst was 3 years ago. There's very grainy footage of Tommy Pham in the outfield slapping Joc Pederson hard in the head. It was later revealed that a full year earlier, Pham and Pederson were in a fantasy football league together. Pederson explains that he had put a player on his IR and added another player. Pham apparently took exception to this and called him out. Later in the season Pham did the same thing and Pederson called him out in return. Apparently that was worth walking up to the guy and slapping him silly. Hilarious, but only because it's not happening to me and because it's so stupid it's hard to believe that's the whole story. But if you get to know Tommy Pham a little better, you start to believe it more. 

In the game last night during either the 7th inning, Pham takes a walk. Generally, when a player takes a walk it's not an eventful situation. Generally, players just jog to first base, it's not like they did anything besides not swing at balls which is widely understood. In this situation, Pham felt pretty gassed up by this walk he took so he flipped his bat. Again, generally this doesn't happen, in all my time watching baseball I can't remember someone bat flipping a walk. I thought it was absolutely hilarious. Clearly Pham had ulterior motives for this action as it looked like he was just waiting for Tyler Heineman to say something about the bat flip from behind the plate. Heineman says something to the umpire, likely taking exception to the ball call, which Pham takes as a chirp apparently. Pham then turns back and attempts to get into Heineman's face while Heineman is explaining that he wasn't talking to Pham. Again, this whole thing was very funny, it looked like Pham was just in the mood to fight and was going to come at Heineman no matter what there. It was the most pimped walked I've ever seen. Pham later took to Twitter to talk more about how he was right to bat flip after a walk and then attempt to fight a catcher. When a Blue Jays fan with an Addison Barger display photo responded to tell him to relax, Pham said: "your profile pic is someone who takes steroids, loser." What a classy guy! The Jays have bigger fish to fry than the Pirates this season for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if Pham wears a fastball in tonight's game, which of course will probably lead to more entertaining stuff for us fans! Pham is a guy that I would hate to know in real life, but in sports I love those guys, it's just good cinema. 

Frustrating Game 

Besides the Tommy Pham incident, it was a pretty frustrating game overall for the Jays last night. In the 3rd inning I believe, Bo Bichette made a great throw on the run to Vlad Guerrero who did the splits to get the runner at first in time. This saved a run with a runner on 3rd base and 2 outs, so I was reasonably hyped. A couple innings later when it was Vlad's turn to hit he was pulled from the game with hamstring tightness, presumably from the big stretch he did to complete that play. That sucked, we've seen Vlad make that exact type of play dozens of times a season. It's said that it's likely precautionary for now, but Vladdy was really heating up and literally willing them to wins at this point of the year. The Jays are deep and they can stomach a couple of weeks without their best player, but it will make the division race tighter than people want to see. 

John Schneider got tossed, I believe in the 6th or 7th, for arguing balls and strikes. To be fair to John the umpire was calling low pitches strikes pretty frequently in this game, but I thought he was doing it for both sides so I didn't have a huge problem with it. Then after that, the bullpen let the Jays down not with poor pitching but with poor defense. Brendan Little came in to try and get out of a situation with a runner on third, and he throws a wild pitch allowing the runner to score from third base. He then walks a guy and airmails the first baseman on a pickoff attempt allowing him to get to second base. Luckily the Jays escaped this situation with a couple of strikeouts. The next inning with Seranthony Dominguez in, he strikes a guy out but then allows a walk but then gets a comebacker to the mound with the next batter. Dominguez fields it cleanly, but then trying to turn 2 he throws the ball into centerfield, so now instead of an inning ending double play the Pirates have runners on first and third with 1 out. The runner on first tries to steal second, Heineman now throws it into centerfield allowing the runner from third to come in and the runner on first to get all the way to third. He then scores on a sacrifice fly and just like that the Jays pretty much gift wrap 3 runs for the Pirates. Pretty uncharacteristic stuff from the Jays in last night's game, but it does happen. If you're going to drop 1 game against the Pirates, at least it's the one where Paul Skenes was pitching. Lets get em back tonight! 

And that's that! Fun random thoughts today, thanks Tommy Pham!