Theres a legitimate gripe that allowing even three fielders behind squa

TORONTO -- Francisco Lirianos first start for the Toronto Blue Jays on Friday against the Kansas City Royals would be interesting enough under normal circumstances.The deadline trade to acquire him from the Pittsburgh Pirates is a gamble.The left-hander struggled this season with the Pirates, going 6-11 with a 5.46 ERA. The Blue Jays hope that being reunited with catcher Russell Martin will be a factor in turning around Liriano.Martin and Liriano worked well together with Pittsburgh in 2013-14. Liriano has a 2.92 ERA with Martin catching. I think were pretty much on the same page, Liriano said. We have a pretty good connection.Adding to the interest is that the start also comes during the on-going quandary of what to do with Aaron Sanchez, who has performed so well in his first full season as a major league starter that some in upper management are concerned about limiting his innings.A temporary compromise was reached Thursday when it was decided to go with a six-man rotation for the time being. The Blue Jays had said Sanchez would be going to the bullpen after his next start, a move that Martin and other players openly opposed.It takes some heat off Liriano for now. He is not being asked to replace a starter who is 11-1 with a 2.71 ERA. When general manager Ross Atkins visited Houston to clarify the situation with Sanchez, Liriano offered to go to the bullpen if necessary.Liriano still must show better than he did with the Pirates this season, however. Sanchez will start Saturday in the middle contest of the three-game series at Kauffman Stadium instead of Friday. Liriano is 6-5 with a 4.55 ERA in 17 games (14 starts) against the Royals.Atkins discussed the situation with the starting pitchers and found a favorable reception to using a six-man rotation instead of moving Sanchez to the bullpen.The biggest thing is input from different people after something was more concrete, or closer to it, and the fact that Francisco Liriano was so open to everything, Atkins said. Then the more we thought about the potential of a six-man rotation not just benefiting Aaron but benefiting the others in the rotation at this point in the season.The Blue Jays got the 15th win of the season Thursday from left-hander J.A. Happ in a 4-1 victory over the Houston Astros, They won three in a row from the Astros after dropping the opener of the four-game series in 14 innings. The Blue Jays are 19-9 since July 1 and are a percentage point behind the Baltimore Orioles in the American League East.The struggling Royals, who lost 3-2 to the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday on a three-run homer against reliever Joakim Soria in the eighth inning, start right-hander Dillon Gee (3-5, 4.66 ERA) on Friday. The bullpen is without Luke Hochevar and closer Wade Davis who are on the disabled list.Were to a point with our bullpen -- if we could get to a four-out save -- we might have used Kelvin (Herrera) there, manager Ned Yost said after the game Thursday. But we just never got there. ...Were just real thin down there.The Royals, the 2015 World Series champions, are 51-57 after a 2-6 road trip. They are 6-14 since the All-Star break.Gee makes his eighth start and 22nd appearance of the season. He suffered his third straight loss when the Texas Rangers defeated the Royals 5-3. He allowed seven hits (including two home runs), one walk and four runs in six innings against Texas, his longest outing of the season.He was with the New York Mets in 2012 when he made his only career start against the Blue Jays, a 6-5 win when he allowed three runs in 6 2/3 innings.Just get us through five and keep us in the game, Yost said. Hes done that. Thats what we need from him. He got us through six innings last time and kept us in the game, and gave us a chance to win. Howie Long Raiders Jersey . They reached the 100-point plateau for the fourth time in five games, bested the visiting Trail Blazers by 34 in the paint and scored 19 of the final 25 points in regulation. Foster Moreau Raiders Jersey . Carey Price didnt, but he still came out on top against one of his rivals for the No. 1 job at the Sochi Games. The Anahim Lake, B.C., native was stellar in making 39 saves in his home province and Lars Eller got credit for a bizarre short-handed winner as the Canadiens defeated the Canucks 4-1. https://www.raiderssportsgoods.com/Womens-Ronnie-Lott-Inverted-Jersey/ .ca! Hi Kerry, Its another day and here we are looking at another dubious hit to the head. In this case Blue Jackets forward Brandon Dubinsky elbowed Saku Koivu in the head about a second after he dished off the puck to a teammate, knocking him unconscious. Marcus Allen Jersey . The catch: It needs a lot of money, and it needs it fast. Johnathan Abram Womens Jersey .1 million pounds ($61.2 million) on Saturday, giving the beleaguered English Premier League champions a major lift. How do you go about solving a puzzle like Virat Kohli? Such will have been the question taxing Englands management on the flight from Visakhapatnam to Mohali, where this intriguing Test series rumbles, already, into its third act.While Virats Vizag contributions - utterly imperious in first wresting the initiative and then snuffing out the light as England sought an unlikely route back into the game - ensured the plot played out to pre-series expectations, he probably hadnt imagined hed spend the final session in Rajkot in survival mode. Nevertheless, he rose to and embraced the challenge, displaying the timeless virtues of batting on capricious, turning pitches: quick to judge length, light on his feet, poised, balanced, judicious and pragmatic in shot selection, and, as always with Kohli, doing everything he can to cow the bowler with that strutting body language.Two Tests, then, and two masterclasses of technical brilliance and adaptability. Kohlis transitions from defensive resolve to relentless, single-minded orthodoxy to counterattacking flair as the differing match situation and pitches have demanded have served to remind of crickets endless variety and richness, its ceaselessly modulating challenges.While Visakhapatnam kept relatively low and (eventually) offered sharp, red-earth sidespin, the bounce and overspin in Rajkot presented a different examination, of both the Indian captains defensive game and of Englands trio of spinners. Picking Adil Rashid from the hand and, frankly, toying with Zafar Ansari, Kohlis biggest threat - in line with Duncan Fletchers theory that the ball spinning in is more dangerous when its spinning miles - was Moeen Ali, who bowled perfectly respectably (no worse than the standout fingerspinner in county cricket the last five years, Jeetan Patel, recently pawed like a ball of twine in Kolkata), yet could find no way through. Kohlis relentless excellence squeezed Moeens margins down to the finest calibrations: above a certain pace to challenge the footwork, on an ultra-precise length and exact line (the absence of left-arm seamers, or scarcity of left-handers in the India line-up that would justify the heavy-footed seamers going round the wicket to create rough magnifies this), and then hoping the pitch obliged by having the ball spit.The varying degrees of bounce and spin have brought a subtly different geometry to the game - angle of attack, alignment at the crease, arrangement of fielders - to which Englands itinerant spin-bowling coach, Saqlain Mushtaq, has helped his charges adapt. Most noticeably, Moeen has regularly eschewed the standard long-on in favour of a deep straight midwicket (cow corner, if you prefer), which serves both to prevent the easy bunt down the ground (making the batsman play slightly more across the ball for an easy single), while also covering, from an offspinners attacking line, the natural arc of the slog sweep. Its a canny move, yet there was another aspect of this absorbing Rajkot cat-and-mouse that even Saqlains voodoo couldnt overcome.With one of the more likely modes of dismissal being the gloved catch round the corner, Moeen was unable to attack Kohli exactly as he would have liked, all because of an archaic law devised over 80 years ago in the aftermath of the Bodyline Ashes series. Once the initial furore over the leg-theory line of attack had abated, in 1935 umpires were given explicit powers - and the moral responsibility - to intervene if they felt the bowler was deliberately trying to injure the batsman. Then, in 1960, a new clause was added to Law 44 (today, Law 41.5), since which time, as every daydreaming young square-leg fielder knows, only two fielders are permitted behind square on the leeg-side.dddddddddddd For an offspinner bowling to a right-hand batsman (or slow left-armer to a leftie) on a surface offering bounce as well as turn, the leg slip is de rigueur (and even then this area still feels undermanned from a close-catching perspective). But where to put the other man permitted behind square? If hes at deep-backward square, then anything marginally short can be nudged, fairly safely, into that area for a single. Bring him up, on that same angle, and the hard sweep almost certainly goes for four. Either way, a well controlled lap-sweep would run away through short fine-leg, with a top edge falling safe - unless, that is, you move your backward square-leg finer, in which case...Its all part of crickets cat and mouse, of course, but theres always an escape route for the batsman, always an in-built restriction for the bowler. This is especially true at those times when the pitch is really spitting, or when youre really pushing for wickets - times such as in Rajkot - and two close catchers behind square on the leg side - a fine leg slip and a leg gully - is optimal. Doing this, though, means that any hard sweep will go for a certain four, and, save for a freak rebound-off-the-body dismissal, any poorly played lap-sweep will arc unfailingly to safety. In these conditions, the Bodyline Law means there is no way for the bowler simultaneously to stop the batsman scoring with impunity in this area and attack him as he would like (with more than that of-necessity lone catcher).And therein lies the quandary for our trusty fingerspinner: always, in some sense, at a disadvantage. Why should a fast outswing bowler presented with ideal conditions for his craft be able to fill his preferred quadrant with five or six catchers when the same possibility is denied the fingerspinner? Is it time, therefore, to consider repealing the Bodyline Law - or at least modifying it slightly?One objection is that such a change could pave the way for tediously negative leg-side bowling at the back end of a Test match (We flippin murdered em territory), or perhaps for tediously intimidatory bowling at any stage - not that the West Indies teams of the 1980s saw rules preventing four leg gullies as any sort of disincentive for a rib-rattling attack. Besides, there is already ample provision in the current Laws for umpires to nip this in the bud.Rather than doing away with the Law entirely, it could simply be tweaked to allow one extra fielder behind square. And if a team wishes to assign three fielders there for a quick bowler, despite the restrictions on the number of bouncers bowled per over, then so be it. (Theres a legitimate gripe that allowing even three fielders behind square enables a pace bowler to pound away at the ribs with both a leg gully and two men back for the hook, thus covering both the attacking and defensive options, but the amendment could stipulate that the wicketkeeper has to be stood up to the wicket for the third fielder to be allowed.)It seems that, regarding the games variety, the pitch giveth but the Law taketh away. Allowing three fielders behind square - on the rare occasions it is expedient and desirable to have them - wouldnt close off all scoring options in that area, nor stack everything in favour of the bowler, especially with most contemporary batsman having the field-mangling reverse sweep in their locker. It would merely bring a new dimension to the bat-versus-ball problematic, enhancing the cat-and-mouse struggle of a batsman attempting to manoeuvre the spinners field, among the most compelling the game has to offer. ' ' '