Some links for the morning:
Empty Blue Jays get thumped in Seattle - Sportsnet.ca Mike Wilner (with an autoplay ad) talks about last night's game.
After playing 19 innings for more than six-and-a-half hours and then flying east to west across an entire continent, it was difficult to imagine that the Blue Jays would have anything left in the tank in the opener of their series in Seattle, especially given the fact that they were facing one of the best pitchers in the game in Felix Hernandez.
38 years ago today: The Blue Jays were born - Sportsnet.ca
On August 12, 1976, Toronto’s new baseball team unveiled their nickname. They went with the Blue Jays of course, and the last 38 years have shown that they made a prescient choice.
Blue Jays starter J.A. Happ back on track | Toronto Star Brendan Kennedy tells us about the improvement of J.A. Happ
He has nearly a 25 per cent swing-and-miss rate on pitches above the top of the strike zone this season, likely aided in part by the fact his average fastball velocity is up by more than two miles per hour this season compared to his career average.
Toronto Blue Jays’ Colby Rasmus is crawling when he should be running | John Lott National Post
They call it the "walk year," the season when a player is bound for free agency. The greater a player’s production in a walk year, the greater the payoff when he walks.
Blue Jays: Skipper does right by his boys ahead of big series with M’s: Griffin | Toronto Star Richard Griffin tells us about the decision not to send down Chad Jenkins.
"I never like to send him down, period," Gibbons said. "But the guy’s got options. After yesterday’s game, if we send him down that could be a morale killer too, what he did for the guys."
Tigers coach Vizquel remembers days with Blue Jays | MLB | Blue Jays | Sports |Omar Vizquel isn't John Farrell's biggest fan.
"Some days I was sad ... that it was my last year playing," Vizquel said. "Other days I was happy that it was my last year and some days I thought I was going to get released. It was a respect thing that the Jays had for myself and for my career ... I think that’s why they didn’t release me."
Toronto Blue Jays tried to sway the two-sport star Alford to play only baseball. It seems like a good idea to me:
It was a five-year deal, Alford admitted, and it was easy to see why the Blue Jays would want to further their initial $750,000 investment in the player it drafted in the third round of the 2012 MLB First-Year Player Draft. Alford showed up this summer after spending much of his energy on football and hit .320 with a home run with four stolen bases in five games for class-A Lansing.