MVN - Most Valuable Network

Who will be the next .250 hitter to come through?

Which .250 hitter will be next to undo the Toronto Blue Jays?

Utilityman Miguel Cairo turned the trick on Wednesday night against Toronto, smashing two doubles and driving in three to give the Seattle Mariners a 4-2 win as the Jays dropped two of three to the AL’s worst team.

Cairo was hitting just .206 with two extra-base hits (both doubles) heading into Wednesday’s action.  

Meanwhile, the Jays, who received a two-run dinger from Adam Lind, couldn’t do anything else despite having a couple of opportunities to take the lead. Toronto loaded the bases in the fourth and had a runner on third in the fifth; both times the Jays couldn’t cash in.

Of course, on Canada Day a night earlier, the Jays blew a 6-2 lead and fell 7-6 to the M’s, with Willie Bloomquist (.250 going in) singling home the game-winner in the ninth.

Bloomquist’s heroics came after Adrian Beltre (.247) and Richie Sexson (.226) hit rare home runs to tie it.

Pre-2005, Beltre and Sexson hitting home runs or getting big hits, period, wouldn’t have been surprising. But those two, much like the rest of the Mariners, aren’t supposed to get clutch hits.

After all, Seattle is dead last in the entire AL in runs scored (though Toronto isn’t much better) and ranks in the bottom five in home runs.

The Blue Jays now face the Angels in a weekend series in Los Angeles.

The Angels (51-34 with a five-game lead over Oakland) may be in first place in the West, but are surprising not much of an offensive juggernaut themselves.

Los Angeles has a team batting average of .255, third-worst in the league, and is ahead of only Seattle in runs scored (353). As well, the Angels are only ninth in home runs, despite having stars like Vladimir Guerrero, Torii Hunter, and Garret Anderson.

In fact, the Angels were expected to be a major contender this season because of the signing of Hunter, who was supposed to bolster Los Angeles’ lineup.

And, the Angels made headlines last weekend when they had an unofficial no-hitter (for eight innings) and lost 1-0 at Dodger Stadium in the Freeway Series. In fact, the Angels scored just one run the entire weekend series against the Dodgers, but somehow managed to win one game.

Jered Weaver, who threw the first six innings of that no-no last Saturday, will start against the Blue Jays Friday night.

Despite it being Independence Day, it’d be hard to imagine the Jays and Angels putting much of any fireworks.

Weaver (7-8, 4.30) will face A.J. Burnett (8-7, 4.74), who is coming off two straight wins and has allowed just one run in his last 15 innings.

It’s unlikely Weaver will no-hit the Jays, given that feat has only been accomplished once in major league history, but with both clubs having trouble scoring runs for much of this season, it looks to be another low-scoring, one-run, nail-biter.

If the Jays lose, who will it be who gets the big hit?

Will Gary Matthews Jr. (.239, 7 homers) play Richie Sexson? Or will it be Anderson (.259, 7 homers) having a big night a la Miguel Cairo or Adrian Beltre?

At any rate, don’t be surprised if a slumping hitter busts through. That’s how it usually happens.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 5:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.