Ouch.

That could be a tough debut. Good team, on the road, in a great park for LH hitters...

I’m playing Khalil Lee until Dozier comes back. Give him some good at bats.

Meanwhile the season starts tomorrow and the Blue Jays don't have a home park.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Blue Jays’ quest to play home games at PNC Park in Pittsburgh indeed falling apart, sources tell The Athletic. Pennsylvania state government has not approved. Team exploring alternative solutions. First: <a href="https://twitter.com/Buster_ESPN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Buster_ESPN</a>.</p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href="https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/1286007267406512129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 22, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

.. just cancel the season, FFS.

Man - why do you fast-track him?

I mean I don't see Singer as a super high-ceiling kid to begin with. A nice pitcher w/ a good pitch mix that could slot in as a solid #3 starter over the long-term. But he's not gonna be a guy you hand the ball in October expecting to get 7 innings of 2 run ball. That's just not the stuff I see in him; not the arsenal.

So what's the upshot here? He's not AT his ceiling yet nor is his ceiling so high that you worry about 'wasting bullets' on him in the minors. He's one of those 'spend 2 full seasons in the minors, get called up midway through year 3 after you master polished hitters in AAA' kind of guys.

I guess it's ultimately with the idea that he wasn't gonna get any development in the minors this year so you might as well throw him out there to get some pitches in. And if he's NOT a future ace, then service time games aren't as critical.

{shrug}

So here we are in Busch stadium w/ zero fans and two major league lineups. This is...different.

But watching Miles Mikolas throw a REALLY hittable pitch is pretty damn familiar. I like Miles but man, when he makes a bad pitch, it's a REALLY bad pitch.

Why?

These guys are more likely to get COVID at a grocery store than they are on a baseball field. With no fans in the stands, what precisely does cancelling the season serve?

Because Toronto's leadership is a bunch of petulant shitheads we should just not have baseball?

I get that this is all frustrating and weird. And daily updates saying who you aren't gonna have in the lineup because of a disease is bizarre. But why should perfect be the enemy of good? Or even mediocre?

We can have SOMETHING here. If that means the Blue Jays are vagabonds for a year - well that's a Blue Jays problem.

I actually think Singer may end up as a closer personally...but anyway the thing the MLB didn't count on was Canada taking this shit super seriously and basically telling the US to **** off.

It didn't work so well for the Port Rupert Mundys, did it?

Hate to see a guy with a starter's frame 'settle' into a relief role without really working hard to see if he can shoulder a legitimate innings load.

Especially when he's shown a solid groundball rate and maybe the beginnings of a major league change up as a 3rd pitch.

You've got a big kid w/ the likelihood of having a good 3 pitch mix, plus command and groundball tendencies that should allow for pitch efficiency. You really want to spend some time on ruling out a starters role before you put him in the 'pen, IMO.

It's mainly that every report I've read on him is his 3rd pitch is not good.

I thought it was one of those standard 'young kid' 3rd pitches where sometimes it's great, sometimes it's crap.

Granted, that's not something that works long term, but if you throw a pitch that 'flashes' big league capable, you can work with that. Especially with all the pitch tracking tools available to guys these days where they can monitor exactly why a pitch did what it did in terms of release, rotation, etc...

Maybe you're right. You can't really make a living on 2 pitches as a starter these days. But that's also why I wonder what you have him pitching as a starter for unless you're really just throwing some carrion to the buzzards there.

"Yeah, this is gonna hurt Brady, but get your pitches in and work on that changeup..." all with the idea of developing that 3rd pitch long-term in a season where you have little designs of contending anyway.

I have 0 issue seeing if he can start, it's not like some of these other guys won't end up relievers also, leaning so heavily on pitching for this farm rebuild scares me, pitchers flame out so much.

This third base guy we got from the Phillies SUCKS defensively. Two games, two errors. Maybe we need to move Alex back to third?

Luckily we have Mike Matheny! He has such a track record with young arms.

Wait a minute.

That's not !@#$ing Colt Griffin, is it? He's not a thing, right?

EDIT: Nope - evidently Foster Griffin. Aight. Imma be honest, I was hoping it was Colt.