New Manager and Preview Pittsburgh Series

Preview Toronto v Pittsburgh series.

Of course the series has been overshadowed by the news that John Gibbons AND all three coaches, coach Ernie Whitt, Marty Pevey and hitting coach Gary Denbo are gone. Replacing them will be Dwayne Murphy at first base, Nick Leyva at third base and Gene Tenace hitting coach.

This is not that incredible as some commentators are already saying. Cito was in Dunedin in the Spring knows the players on this team and also the young stars in the minors. He was there watching Lind, Snider, Kratz and Coats and his strength has always been his hitting coach experience.
Gaston, who has been working as special assistant to Paul Godfrey, had a 681-635 record as manager during his earlier stint.

It is the hitting that is the problem with Jays right now and Gaston in my mind is a good choice even though I personally am not his strongest fan by any means. I always felt that although he was Manager during the two World Series his team basically chose itself. We never got to see him develop the teams that struggled after the two World Series. He also didn’t help himself with his taciturn approach to the media and sitting impassively in the dugout corner during the games.

That being said I am very eager to see his skills with this team and hope that he does well. He is also very popular with many Jays fans and received a standing ovation when he threw out first pitch in Dunedin. I think he will get similar reception in Toronto next week.

The last two games in Milwaukee I really felt that the bats are starting to come around. They lost both games by one run, and could have won both. The big sign to me was the fightback yesterday in the eight and ninth innings. Although Overbay and Inglett get the glory with their big rbis hitting, the whole lineup was involved in the ninth and the patience with two outs and still seven runs out was excellent to see. Anyone one of those hitters could have swung at pitches and the game would have been over, and everyone on the plane and no finger pointing. None of them did this and that is to their credit as a team. I believe they will take this into Pittsburgh today.

The media AP states that these two teams have not met, this is not true, they met several (four) times in fact this Spring in Dunedin and Bradenton. Both teams know each other. Of the current Jays bullpen Halladay, Burnett, and McGowan all started the games. Frasor, Wolfe, Camp, and Ryan were also in the games.
They won two and lost two. Overbay, Wells and Stairs had good games.One game Eckstein had a grand slam.

As a taste of tonight’s game pitcher for Pittsburgh, Zach Duke pitched five scoreless innings against the Jays in one Bradenton 4-1 game.
In the 4-1 win for Jays in Dunedin game Halladay pitched five good scoreless innings.

Jays at 35-39 have a better record than Pittsburgh 34-39. At home Pittsburgh though are 21-15 and Jays on the road having lost three in Milwaukee are now 17-22.

Both teams are on losing streaks Pittsburh 0-3 and the Jays 0-5.