Joe Inglett? Seriously?

Far be it from me to actually agree with Richard Griffin, but these are increasingly puzzling and frustrating times in Blue Jay land, and while I might normally have taken Griff's piece on Shannon Stewart's unhappiness, with its hints at clubhouse malaise, to be another steamy helping of soft serve ice cream (flavour: mud monkey) descending slowly into the squirming face of this organization, I'm starting to come around to the idea that maybe it's OK that black helicopters seem to follow John Gibbons everywhere he goes. Maybe he really is stirring the sauce a little too fast. Maybe it's meant to be that the fucking babysitter is a lazy cow and won't leave the house to do business even though the phone is bugged.

Maybe I'm confusing Gibbers for Ray Liotta's character in Goodfellas again...

But seriously, Joe Inglett? He actually had Inglett penciled in to play left yesterday? Why????

I mean, I can actually justify-- if only to myself-- giving a day off Aaron Hill, even though Vernon Wells had just gone down. Hill did look like he could use a day off at some point, and nobody is ever going to be happy with taking one of your (supposed) better bats out of the lineup, and I could even argue that it's a bold display of faith in his players that Gibbons would run a lesser lineup out there knowing full well that he's very quickly running out of rope...

But Joe Inglett? Why????

It's almost like he's trying to make Ricciardi's ultimate decision easy for him, or... I don't even know what it is. But it's kind of a little bit ridiculous. And as much as I think that Gibbers takes way too much shit from the members of the peanut gallery who are pulling out their hair because this team is again not meeting their (probably unreasonable) expectations, this kind of stuff, to me, is mind boggling. It's just like the Johnny Mac issue earlier in the year. Why are you not using your best weapons while the season is steadily slipping away?

I mean, I totally don't buy any of the bullshit that adults need to be screamed at in order to motivate them, nor do I think there's a chance these hitters could have made it this far in their careers if they had it in them to be anywhere near this tied up by anything that a manager might or might not do, but... and I cringe as I'm about to write this... I am a little taken aback at the attitude that this team isn't prepared to do everything it fucking takes win. That doesn't just go back to the manager, though, lest we forget Frank Thomas and his "me first" attitude, or the front office decision not to bring in the greatest hitter of the last forty years. But whatever Gibbons has been doing on this front sure as fuck isn't helping.

Now, this isn't to say that I think the guy should be fired post-haste, it's more that I think he should not play Joe fucking Inglett while Shannon Stewart sits there rotting on the bench!

Other than this, I honestly do still have a hard time justifying giving Gibbers his walking papers-- though this kind of nonsense might be enough to change my mind if it continues, and I'm starting to get suspicious that I'm just being stubborn here. I mean, I'm pretty sure I'm in an ever-dwindling minority on this front. It's just... I still don't think that the fact that teams typically fire their managers during these sorts of spells (which rarely changes anything, by the way) is any kind of reason to make this kind of move. And I really do think the stuff about the clubhouse atmosphere is overblown and most likely bullshit. And that the idea of making change has already kind of been taken care of with Frank Thomas, Kevin Mench, Brad Wilkerson and whatever else they've done since last September.

But... I will admit that all that doesn't really jibe with the odd sensations I had when reading that Griffin article-- agreeing with him and being unable not to think, "Something really is wrong here."

Regardless, I suppose any of this discussion of this is purely academic, because it's only a matter of time before Gibbons really does get the axe. I'm sure Ricciardi is loathe to toss away the one last layer of protection keeping his own ass out of the flames, but he really is coming to a point where he appears to have no choice. . .

UPDATE: From the Wild Speculation Dept., the Globe is reporting that none other than Mr. JP Ricciardi has "blown into" Cleveland to join up with the Jays.

Hmmm... do you think that maybe this is because he anticipates having a conversation with, say, the manager that he might not want to have over the phone? Dun dun dunnn!

Signed, Marty York


Note: Sounds like the podcast is up. Best regards to John Brattain for joining us and to Cathal Kelly for calling to let us know he wasn't dead and being apologetic and (I think) agreeing to come back and defend Griffin another time.

Is this even true? I'm basing this on a comment from somebody who was maybe listening to the old one... (Yes, Stoeten. It's true.)