12:25 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays are all here in Bradenton for their pre-only-off-day-of-the-spring tilt against the Pirates. Even Matt Stairs, proving that he does, indeed, have grey road pants. In your face, Justin Morneau!

Scott Rolen, not so much, though. The only Blue Jay who actually lives here in Bradenton and commutes back and forth to Dunedin every day, he’s allowed to just meet the team here at McKechnie Field when they’re in town. Today, though, he’s stuck in traffic, on a bridge behind a transport truck that’s lost its load, I hear. If he’s here by 1:00, he’s batting clean-up. If the Jays go 1-2-3 in the top of the first, I guess he has until 1:10 or so to get here. Kind of reminds of the guy who’s running late to the beer league slo-pitch game when you need that ninth to avoid a forfeit.

Frank Thomas was quite a sight to see, staying loose and relaxed by power-shagging and then taking BP with his iPod buds still in. I guess maybe he’s taking a cue from the basketballers or something. Thomas still has two weeks left to slump if he wants to, but everyone expects him to be ready when the bell rings, and avoid a three-peat of the atrocious April-Mays of 2006 and ’07.

The bad news for Reed is that, even though he’s on the trip, he’s not in the starting line-up. Every little hint we get here and there seems to indicate the Jays prefer Shannon Stewart to Johnson as the right-handed-hitting half of the left-field platoon with Matt Stairs, and we got another today. Stewart is in left, hitting 6th, with the rest of the regular line-up in there, and the Jays are facing a lefty. Saturday we got the Opening Day batting order against a righthander, and today I think we’re getting the regular batting order against a lefty.

It’s not a good sign, Reed playing beyond all the regulars in pretty much every game (when he starts) and making all the road trips. I have to think that the job is Stewart’s, but I’ve thought that ever since they brought him in – he didn’t come here to not make the team.

First pitch is in 40 minutes, and the live bloggage will begin then!

1:15 PM Eastern (for Blair – mid 1st)

Eckstein started the game with a terrific at-bat. Got behind 0-2, then fouled off a pair around a ball, then bounced one up the middle for a single. Rios followed with a liner to right that the wind knocked down for a routine out, then Wells bounced into a 5-4-3 double play. Not on the first pitch. Actually, I thought the play at first would have been closer, it was a bounding ball that took two high bounces before Bautista got it, but Wells wasn’t busting it down the line. He wasn’t jogging, but he wasn’t in “I smell a hit” mode.

1:28 PM Eastern

A long inning for Burnett in which he didn’t give up a run or a hit. He popped up Nate McLouth – looked like it was routine to second, but the wind pushed it over behind the bag and Eckstein had to come charging and make the grab as he fell. Eckstein was in on the next one, too, running out from under his cap to pick up a slow chopper up the middle by Jack Wilson and actually side-arming the throw to first to beat him. Burnett then hit a bit of a wall, unable to get strike three past either Sanchez or Bay, he walked them both on seven pitches each, but got Adam LaRoche to ground to second after he fouled off a couple of two strike pitches himself. 29 pitches for A.J. in the inning, 18 strikes.

1:35 PM Eastern

Not much of a breather for Burnett as his teammates go 1-2-3 on a trio of veryroutine groundballs. Rolen’s to first (yep, he made it), Thomas’ to third and Stewart’s to short. I’m not counting Duke’s pitches, but I don’t think he made it to double digits that inning. Oh, by the way, in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, the Pirates are wearing bright green caps and the bases are green. They make a REALLY big deal about St. Patrick’s Day down here in Florida, and I don’t understand why.

1:40 PM Eastern

Well, that was a very different Burnett what came out in the second. It took him just eight pitches to get the side in order. Xavier Nady popped up the first to right, and Paulino and Bautista were retired on routine grounders. Two in the books, 0-0.

1:45 PM Eastern

Wow, this game is flying! (I wonder if that’s the kiss of death in Spring Training, too.) Duke struck out Overbay looking, on three pitches, then Aaron Hill stroked a smooth liner over Rivas’ head that dropped in right for a single. Stewart followed by ripping a liner to short, but Hill strayed too far and Wilson doubled him up at first.

2:10 PM Eastern

So wouldn’t you know it, the scoreboard gets dented, but the Bradenton internet goes down so I can’t tell you about it until now. Burnett ran into quite a bit of trouble in the bottom of the 3rd, but would have emerged unscathed if not for this killer wind.

With one out, he walked Nate McLouth, who then stole second. Impressive, though, was the fact that it was a bang-bang play at second base even though the pitch was down and away and tough for Zaun to handle. Jack Wilson then hit what should have been a routine fly to right, but the wind knocked it down so hard that Rios couldn’t get it even on the dead sprint-and-roll. It fell for a double, but McLouth stopped at third. Freddy Sanchez then singled hard up the middle to score one, and a second run scored on a little nubber to third by Jason Bay. Rolen made a fantastic play to charge and bare-hand it then throw Bay out at first. The inning ended on a pop-up to second by LaRoche that had Aaron Hill winding up on his back because of the wind.

Both teams went in order in the fourth, Burnett saving his strength by getting three groundouts on 10 pitches, and in the 5th, Frank Thomas got his third hit of the spring! It was a hard line shot past Bay in left field that bounced to the wall. But Thomas got ambitious in thinking double, and kept going even though he appeared to blow a tire halfway to second. The relay got him easily.

2:15 PM Eastern

A NEW BLUE JAY! VP of Communications Jay Stenhouse just came in to tell me that the Jays have claimed lefty Bill Murphy off waivers from the Arizona Diamondbacks. I don’t know how to link to his page on The Baseball Cube, so I’ll tell you that he’s 26 years old and has spent the better part of the last three seasons in AAA, but got 6 1/3 innings of big-league time with the D-Backs last year.

Looking at his AAA numbers, I see a guy who gives up about a hit per inning, with a lot of strikeouts and too many walks. I’m sure I’ll find out more later on, but it looks to me like another arm to contend for that last lefty spot with Tallet and Parrish and help out in Syracuse, though he may well be out of options. Again, more info forthcoming. To make room on the 40-man roster, Casey Janssen has been placed on the 60-day disabled list.

2:30 PM Eastern

A.J. didn’t make it out of the 5th inning, facing three batters and allowing all of them to reach. Rivas led off with a double right down the left-field line, it hit the line as it bounced just past the reach of Rolen at third, and McLouth followed with a first-pitch gapper to right-centre that rolled to the wall for an RBI triple. With Wilson at the plate, Burnett fired one past Zaun to the backstop, and didn’t get to the plate as McLouth scored. Wilson eventually walked, and A.J. came out for Mike Gallo, who got Sanchez to bounce into a 3-6-3 double play before walking a pair, then getting Nady on a foul pop. Burnett’s line: 4+ IP, 4 hits, 4 runs, all earned, 4 walks, no strikeouts. 78 pitches, 48 for strikes.

2:40 PM Eastern

The Jays got off to a good start against reliever Franquelis Osoria, with Overbay ripping a leadoff double over the head of Nady in right. Hill followed with a grounder into the 3-4 hole that I thought was through for sure, but Rivas came over and made a tremendous diving stab to his left to rob him. Zaun popped foul on the first pitch and Eckstein grounded out to strand Overbay. Now shhhh, B.J. Ryan is coming in.

2:50 PM Eastern

The Beej started off beautifully, with a gorgeous slider to ring up Paulino looking, but Bautista got him with a solid line single to left.  With the runner going and Hill going to second to cover, Rivas hit a wormburner just to the right of the second-base bag.  Hill grabbed it and looked to flip to second to start a double play, but Scutaro (who had come in for Eckstein) wasn’t there yet, so Hill just threw to first for the out.  Scoot made up for it with a tremendous leaping grab of a line shot by McLouth that was headed into centre for an RBI single.  Instead, Ryan gets 1 IP, 1 hit, 1 strikeout, 17 pitches, 12 strikes.

Now, time to head downstairs to catch up with A.J. and B.J.

8:10 PM Eastern

I was originally going to title this post “AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz” in honour of all the amazingly cheezy ’80s music I got to listen to on the way down to, on the way back from and at Hammond Stadium in Fort Myers. It was a veritable treasure trove of great tunes, though it wasn’t quite a no-repeat Sunday. I heard “Who Can It Be Now” in both the first and last five minutes of my 11 1/2 hour day, but the standout has to be Jenny/867-5309.  I don’t know what it is about that song, maybe (hopefully) it’s the beat, because I’m really hoping it’s not the subject matter, but I love it.

Stunningly, not a single member of the Blue Jays traveling media circus made the trip, excluding your intrepid reporter and the rest of the radio crew, and really, they didn’t miss much. Nobody got hurt (except for Carlos Gomez, who crashed into the wall making a great catch on a Matt Watson fly ball that wound up scoring Marco Scutaro from second – he was just winded), and Dustin McGowan was just OK. He was a lot happier with his performance than I thought he’d be, actually. I thought he struggled to throw strikes – actually I didn’t think that, it’s true, he threw 70 pitches and only 38 were strikes – and he seemed to be frustrated by some pitches and some calls and had a couple of very long innings. Afterwards, though, he said he thought he did pretty well, but that he still needs to work on command of his breaking pitches. He used the slide step with some success, as only Gomez stole a base (with catcher Brian Jeroloman’s throw sailing into centre field), but Johnny Bench or Ivan Rodriguez in his prime would have a hard time throwing out Gomez, even with Jimmy Key on the mound. The guy is fast.

How about John McDonald? 3-for-3 with a walk, with all three hits coming against round moundsman Livan Hernandez. Johnny Mac has rededicated himself to strike-zone discipline, and he raised his spring average to .286 with his big day. He did a great job taking pitches that were off the plate and getting himself into good hitters’ counts.  One can only hope he can keep it going. The Jays would have more options if McDonald was actually a threat at the plate.

Jeroloman had a big day, too, with two singles, a double and a walk. He also showed a quick release and a strong arm behind the plate. J.P. Ricciardi says he’s the best defensively of the four prospect catchers (Thigpen, Diaz and Arencibia being the others), and his plate discipline is off the charts. Last year at Dunedin, he walked 85 times with only 57 strikeouts, and for his two years in the pros, his “isolated on-base” (obp minus batting average – dig me, I made up a new stat!) is .151, which is just sick. He’ll be at New Hampshire this year, and he’s worth keeping an eye on.

Finally, I got to chat with Justin Morneau for the pre-game show, and he remains a delight to talk to. He’s really, really excited about next year’s World Baseball Classic, telling Ernie Whitt that he’s already trying to recruit guys who didn’t go in 2006 like Ryan Dempster and Russell Martin (both of whom should be locks to go), and planning on a return to health of Rich Harden. Team Canada should be able to pitch, with Harden, Jeff Francis, Erik Bedard and Adam Loewen in the rotation. Hopefully, Stubby Clapp can hang on one more year to play second! Morneau also suggested to Larry Walker that he come out of retirement and DH for Team Canada at the Olympics in Beijing.

He said the best thing about today’s game was that he got to hear two anthems. Morneau is everything that I wish Simon Pond had been, personality-wise. The two of them are good friends, which is strange, because Pond is as effusive as a can of soup.

Tomorrow – Bradenton! And back to the live blogging. A.J. Burnett is scheduled to throw five innings, just with his sinker and change-up, and the “A” team should be making the trip, though I didn’t get a look at the bus schedule. Some of the slackers who didn’t spend 5 1/2 hours driving back and forth to Fort Myers probably did.

Comments, as always, are encouraged, and I’ll try to reply briefly if I can.

11:45 PM Eastern

Still putting together the pre-game show, so just a quick word. We’re on at 12:30 PM Eastern, and the show will feature Jerry talking to Ernie Whitt about Team Canada’s big win yesterday, I’ll have an interview with Jeremy Accardo, and we’ll delve deep into the Casey Janssen and B.J. Ryan situations, one good, one not good at all.

The Jays are starting what might just be the Opening Day batting order today, for the first time. Scott Rolen is batting fourth, between Vernon Wells and Frank Thomas. David Eckstein and Alex Rios are at the top, Matt Stairs, Lyle Overbay, Aaron Hill and Gregg Zaun round it out. This way, Rolen’s speed is on in front of Thomas, and when Stairs homers, it doesn’t matter how slow Hurt is. I don’t think it’s the ideal 1-9, but this seems to be the direction in which John Gibbons is leaning.

Before the game, the gathered throng spoke to J.P. Ricciardi about all manner of things, but two things stuck out:

1 – J.P. feels the Jays have five major-league starting pitchers. Janssen would have given them a sixth. This means, pretty much, that Litsch is the fifth guy, regardless of J.P.’s “in the mix” comments earlier or Gibby’s unwillingness to answer the question yesterday.  He also mentioned that Josh Banks and Kane Davis are guys who could help out if there’s rotational trouble, and Purcey might not be that far away, either.  Chacin is a non-factor until at least July.

2 – J.P. said that if it comes down to Stewart or Johnson (that is, if nobody gets hurt in the next two weeks), he would go with what makes Gibby feel more comfortable. That likely means Reed. However, in the next breath, he said he wants the club to be as good as possible offensively, and didn’t think that if Stewart was on the team they’d need to go out and get a 5th outfielder who specializes in defense. That means Stewart. My money is still on Shannon.

I’ll be back after the JaysTalk!

1:40 PM Eastern

When there’s a rain delay off the top of a Spring Training game, everything gets backed up a bunch. We hang in the dugout trying to find out what’s going on, guess at changes to pitching plans, basically wait as long as possible because we don’t know whether there will be a game about which to talk to people afterwards.

There is, so far, though it’s very doubtful they’ll get the whole thing in, and since there’s a threat of rain, B.J. Ryan is starting! He’s on the mound now, and just retired lead-off man Elliott Johnson, who tried to bunt one past the big lefty. I’ll update you when B.J.’s inning is finished, then probably have to head downstairs to talk to him. The Jays went in order in their half of the first, by the way.

1:45 PM Eastern

Ryan wound up striking out Carl Crawford swinging, and then ringing up Willy Aybar looking. He threw 12 pitches, 8 of them strikes, and only one looked bad – a pitch down and in that Aybar had to skip out of the way of. Ryan continues to look good, just as he had in the simulated games, and you’d have to think that so far, it’s all systems go for the Jays’ once-and-future closer.

1:55 PM Eastern

The skies aren’t clearing, but it’s getting brighter and I’m certainly more optimistic about getting most of this game in. In the top of the second, the Jays scored a pair, thanks to a couple of one-out walks to Matt Stairs and Shannon Stewart. Lyle Overbay followed with a soft liner towards the left-field line that fell for what they’re calling a double, scoring Stairs. Really, Overbay slowed up rounding first and only went into second when he saw the throw going to third, but whatever. On the next pitch, Aaron Hill smacked a fly ball to deep centre, long enough to score Stewart for a sacrifice fly. 2-0 Jays, and now I’m going downstairs to hunt B.J.

2:50 PM Eastern

Back upstairs now after talking to B.J. and having spent some time up here reloading the blog which, since the relaunch, had lost some posts.

I’m going to spend the next little while cutting up the Ryan tape so that you can hear it on the radio, but I’ll tell you that the Beej feels happy and strong and ready to stay on his program to get set for Opening Day.

Since I left, the Rays tied the game on a pair of groundouts to first with the bases loaded, one of which was an out only because of a spectacular diving play by Lyle Overbay to his right.  Of course, Lyle owed Jesse Litsch, because the single that loaded the bases was a liner right at Overbay, which seemed to almost go right through his glove.  He catches it, and it’s an easy double play.  He doesn’t, and two runs wind up scoring.

The Jays re-took the lead on a two-run homer by Alex Rios to dead centre that I didn’t see, and the Rays got one back on a hard line single to left by John Rodriguez, which cashed Eric Hinske, who had doubled into the gap in left-centre.

Before I go, I just want to share one more thing with you, and it’s something I never though I would see in my life.  Carl Crawford just hit a slicing liner to left that barely dropped in fair.  Crawford chugged around first, but when Shannon Stewart came up throwing, he stopped in his tracks and headed back to the base.  Amazing.  It wasn’t a good throw or anything, and he would have beaten it easily.  I just can’t believe he stopped.

5:20 PM Eastern (March 13)

Updated 8:20 PM Eastern – down at the bottom

So here I sit, in my last-ever game at the dump known as Chain Of Lakes Park in not-so-beautiful Winter Haven, Florida, and I’m done for the day. Ready to go back to the family to spend a lovely evening – my last night as a 37 year-old. And what am I doing? Waiting for damn Bastian to finish writing his stories so we can get on the road. Actually, the ones I should be blaming are whoever they are what make decisions at mlb.com, because they’re making Bastian write full stories about everything now instead of putting smaller things together in his once-legendary notebooks. Oh, well.

Two things came out of this game: 1. Shaun Marcum, to his credit, will continue to pound his new sinker even if it’s getting smacked all over the lot; and B. Gregg Zaun’s new stances and swings work really, really well.

First, Marcum. A terrific young pitcher who did some great things last season (no-hitters into the 7th twice, a shutout into the 7th in 8 of 16 starts during one run there) , he gets hitters out with great control and a fantastic change-up. Now he wants a sinker. You can’t really blame the guy, he’s a fly ball pitcher in a hitter-friendly ballpark, and he’s been watching hitters beat the ball into the ground against guys like Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett and Brandon League, among others. A good sinker would help him out a lot, and he threw it a whole lot today.

I have always liked Marcum’s mentality on the mound, and it shone through here as he was giving up five runs (three earned) on 10 hits over 3 2/3. “They’re beating the crap out of my sinker,” said he, mayhaps, to himself, “but goshdarnit, I’m going to keep throwing it because it’s the only way it’ll get better.” And so he did. Kept throwing it, kept getting hard line drives getting hit back at him, over him and around him. In a regular season game, he’s a moron. But he’d never do that in a regular season game. THAT, sports fans, is what Spring Training is all about.

Mark my words: If Marcum’s sinker is as ineffective his next time out, it’s gone until next spring. If he can get it working, it’s just another arrow in the quiver.

As for Zaun, he has been working with new hitting coach Gary Denbo and Al LeBeouf, the Syracuse hitting coach. They have changed his stances and swings from both sides of the plate, opening him up so that he gets a better look at the ball. He certainly saw it well today, going 3-for-3 and missing the cycle by a triple. The homer came in his lone at-bat from the right side, the side where he usually hits for a better average but with less power. Not that these things matter a whole heck of a lot, but Zaun raised his spring average 164 points today, all the way to .235. Again, it’s spring, so we’ll have to see if Zaun keeps up with this new hitting style, or abandons it if things don’t keep going his way.

I didn’t get to see John Parrish pitch the 6th, the inning in which he walked a guy and got his only strikeout, but I continue to be impressed by what he’s been able to do down here. In the 5th inning, with a runner on, he got ahead of Casey Blake 0-2 and then walked him, and the immediate thought was “uh-oh, this is the guy we knew the Jays were getting.” But he came back to get the next hitter on a ground ball, though he was helped out by an amazing diving stab by Robinzon Diaz at third. I’m thinking the old John Parrish winds up walking a couple more guys that inning, getting himself into huge trouble.

Of course, this new John Parrish wound up giving up hard line drives to the next two hitters – one that should have been a single, but Buck Coats played it into a triple with a too-ambitious dive, and another that almost took Parrish’s head off but wound up as a 1-4-3 groundout. Baby steps, I guess, but at least he continues to throw strikes. His not coming out for the 7th probably meant more that they wanted to make sure to get an inning each for Shawn Camp and Mike Gosling than anything as to Parrish’s role as a starter or a reliever.

Tomorrow, I’ll be 38 years old, and will make sure to kiss a girl. Three, actually. Then I’ll head down to St. Petersburg to watch the Jays and Rays before the birthday celebrations begin in earnest (and in southwestern Tampa). Jesse Litsch is scheduled to go five innings, and he’ll be joined by most of the “A” team against righty Edwin Jackson. Also, B.J. Ryan makes his Grapefruit debut, likely throwing the 6th.

The Jays made some cuts when they got back to Dunedin – off to minor-league camp are Adam Lind, Curtis Thigpen, Joe Inglett, Buck Coats and Robinzon Diaz (all of whom will play for Syracuse), as well as Wayne Lydon and Ryan Patterson, who are off to the more amorphous “camp” in general.

Comments are encouraged, as always, and I’ll try to reply briefly if I can.

12:45 PM Eastern

Getting set for the last game I will ever see here at Chain of Lakes Park, and I have to say that I’m not going to miss this place a bit. It’s a nice enough ballpark, if you’re a spectator, but as a place to work – not so much.

They have their own mini-version of US-192 out in front of the ballpark, stocked with fast food jernts and the like, but it’s only a block, as opposed to 11 miles. By the way, when we were driving back from Kissimmee on Monday, I made it a point to count all the craziness on US-192, and on that 11-mile stretch, there were no less than 66 cheap motels! Six per mile! And for the first two miles and the last one, there were hardly any at all. Included among them were such well-regarded establishments as the Golden Crystals Inn, the Golden Link Inn, the Royal Celebration Inn and, for us Canadians, the Maple Leaf Inn. And, of course, FOUR HoJos.

I also took on the massive task of recording all the artery-clogging chow joints on the way, and Burger King took the crown with four locations along the 11 miles. In all, we saw 34 recognizable fast-food places along the 11-mile stretch, the worst America has to offer. There were also two places that featured “Comida China” – which means they were Chinese Food restaurants run by Spanish people. Interesting.

Anyway, onward and downward to Winter Haven, where it’s not Winter and it sure as heck isn’t any kind of Haven. Bastian and I carpooled again, and made our annual trek to Waffle House for breakfast. I love The House, because I’m a huge fan of their smothered and covered hash browns. Unfortunately, when our fine waiter, Trampus, brought them over, they were most definitely smothered, but not covered, which would have meant there’s cheese melted in among them.

Ever the helpful server, Trampus took the plate back to the “kitchen” and returned less than a minute later, with the cook having place a slice of Kraft cheese atop the hash browns. I’m not complaining, not at all, that’s a solid part of the Waffle House experience. Though I must admit I never thought I’d encounter a human being named Trampus.

The live blog begins in about half an hour! Jays and Tribe! I’m keeping an eye on John Parrish today, and let’s also see if Buck Coats does anything notable – he has so far pretty much every time he’s gotten a chance.

1:20 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays broke on top in the first with a little help from the Indians. After Reed Johnson struck out, and looked pretty bad in so doing, Zaun lined a hard single to centre. He moved to second when Joe Inglett grounded to second with the hit-and-run on, and scored on Overbay’s soft liner to right. Ben Francisco came up throwing just as Zaun hit third, but for some strange reason, Casey Blake cut the ball off in front of the mound and turned to fire it home, just late. If he lets it go, Zaun is meatcake.

1:33 PM Eastern

Marcum deserved a bit better in his first inning of work, but he got smacked around nonetheless. He gave up a single up the middle to leadoff man Josh Barfield, then got Dave Dellucci on a fly ball and popped up Travis Hafner, but Sal Fasano staggered under the pop-up in foul territory and dropped it. Must be a tough sun today, because there’s no wind. Given a second life, Hafner singled to left, and Victor Martinez followed with a line single to centre on a 1-2 pitch, scoring Barfield. Ben Francisco was next, and he ripped a shot to left. Lind cut it off on his backhand and then made either an incredibly heady or incredibly stupid play, throwing behind the lead runner. I’m hoping he realized it was Vic running, and he wasn’t going anywhere. Jamey Carroll grounded out to Johnny Mac to end it. 20 pitches for Marcum, 14 strikes, and though both runs are unearned, he gave up four line drives.

1:35 PM Eastern

That was quick. 1-2-3 go the Blue Jays on three ground balls, though Casey Blake bailed out Danny Sandoval on the last one with a nice scoop at first.

1:40 PM Eastern

Marcum looked like a different guy in the second, pitching ahead and getting Sandoval and Jason Tyner on routine pop-ups before Barfield hit a routine fly to right. 12 pitches, 7 strikes.

1:55 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays charged back into the lead, with Sal Fasano leading off the inning by getting hit to kickstart the rally. Johnson followed with a double down the left-field line that moved Sal to third, and Zaun scored both runners with a double into the right-field corner. The Jays couldn’t add on, though, stranding Zaun at third as Inglett, Overbay and Lind all grounded out. After the inning ended, John Parrish started to loosen up down near the Jays’ bullpen, which probably means that Marcum won’t come out for the fourth. Maybe not, though.

2:03 PM Eastern

Cool – while I was on the air doing the 2:00 update with Sara Buchan, lots of stuff happened, like Jamey Carroll singling in a run and Ben Francisco getting caught trying to steal third.

Not cool – Shaun Marcum getting his ears pinned back. He gave up five hard line drives in the inning, including a ground-rule double to Dellucci into the gap in right-centre and a two-run homer to Travis Hafner to about the same place, only a bit deeper. After Victor Martinez flied out to centre, Marcum gave up three straight line singles – the last of which, by Carroll, scored Casey Blake. The caught stealing and a subsequent ground ball got Marcum out of the inning. 26 pitches, 20 strikes.

2:10 PM Eastern

An uneventful top of the fourth for the Jays. A fly ball and a couple of grounders around a stand-up hustle double by Buck Coats (I didn’t know you could do that). Coats hit a liner to left, and Dellucci came over to cut it off, but Buck never stopped running and cruised into second. Stayed there, though. Marcum is back out for a fourth inning, having thrown 58 pitches.

2:15 PM Eastern

Marcum got Jason Tyner on a second-pitch grounder to second, then struck out Barfield on three pitches. Dellucci followed with a line drive that just got over Inglett’s glove as he jumped, though maybe it was beside the glove. Either way, Aaron Hill more than likely makes that play.

That was it for Marcum, who had thrown 65 pitches (47 strikes). John Parrish came on to get Hafner on one pitch, on a grounder to second.

Marcum’s line: 3 2/3 IP, 10 hits, 5 runs, 3 earned, 0 walks, 1 strikeout, 1 HR

2:25 PM Eastern

The Jays got one back, after Johnson led off by grounding out on a high chopper to second. Zaun took reliever Aaron Laffey just over the wall down the left-field line – a line drive homer that didn’t have much of an arc to it at all, his first homer of the spring. Inglett followed with a line single to left, but Overbay bounced into a textbook 4-6-3 to end it.

2:35 PM Eastern

The Indians struck for two more off Parrish, thanks in part to a poor decision by Buck Coats, who’s now in left field. Martinez led off with a single, and after Parrish got ahead of Blake 0-2, he walked him. Francisco then smashed a hard grounder into the 5-6 hole, but Robinzon Diaz (in, thankfully, for Looner) made a great diving stab to his left and got the force at second. Then Coats came into play. Carroll hit a liner to left that Coats charged hard and dove for, but the ball landed ahead of him and bounced past, getting Carroll a two-run triple. I understand that Coats is trying to show the Jays what he can do, but sometimes you can hustle yourself into a mistake, and he did. If Coats had just pulled up and taken the liner on a hop, it’s a single, and he actually has a chance to throw Vic out at the plate, since he’d held up waiting on the liner.

Parrish stranded Carroll at third, but not without a scare. Sandoval ripped a liner back through the box that seemed to get a piece of Parrish, but it probably just hit his glove. It rebounded right to Inglett, who was playing in, and he froze the runner and got the out. Jason Tyner ended it with a grounder to first – Parrish got over nicely to get to the bag before the speedy little back-up outfielder.

2:45 PM Eastern

The Jays went quietly, with two groundouts and a fly to centre around a Buck Coats walk. Time to go downstairs and talk to Marcum. Be back when it’s all done!

11:15 PM Eastern

Headed out to Shepherd’s on Clearwater Beach for dinner with the family, so forgive the late posting. I’m also unsure whether or not I’ll be able to live blog tomorrow’s game against the Indians, or even post at all, because the facilities at Winter Haven are embarrassingly horrendous. We’ll have to see how it looks when we get there.

As far as today went, I continue to be astonished that A.J. Burnett can have such good results with only two pitches – fastball and change-up – and when the opposition knows he can’t throw his curveball. He only gave up one run on four hits over four strong innings, and even got out of a runner on third, one out jam in the first by striking out Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay.

I really do hope that he continues to use the change-up into the regular season, but I don’t see it happening. Pitchers are always trying to figure out a new pitch in Spring Training, but usually it doesn’t carry over into the season, and if it does, it generally only takes that pitch to get powdered once for it to disappear for a few months. The difference for Burnett is that, without the curve, he has had to give the change-up a real shot this month, and maybe it’ll stick. With his 98 mile an hour heater and that devastating curveball, the addition of a good change-up that he can use 10 or 12 times a game in good fastball counts would make him that much better. That said, I’d be surprised if he throws it as many as a half-dozen times in any regular season game.

The bullpen did a great job today, with Jason Frasor, Randy Wells and Josh Banks contributing a shutout inning each and Brian Wolfe throwing two of his own. Wolfe has a second life now, with the injury to Casey Janssen. He was on the bubble so long as Casey was in the mix, despite his tremendous second half last season. He and Frasor could both be pushed by Armando Benitez, but it’s doubtful.

It was nice to see, and to call, Vernon Wells’ first homer of the spring. I’m convinced that 90% of last year’s craptacular performance was a result of the shoulder injury, and that he’ll be back to his 2006 self this season.  Wells has been showing his great sense of humour with regularity this spring, quipping that his new approach at the plate is to keep his eyes closed and swing, since he kept them open last year and that didn’t work so well. He added that he’d probably bail out of it when he posted his first 0-for-20, though. It would be great if Wells finally lets his guard down to us fine members of the media. Through the years, I’ve seen him crack his teammates up countless times, doing things that include putting in a set of fake Bubba teeth while standing on second base to double over Michael Young, and his mischievous cuts in front of Alex Rios to snatch away balls Rios had settled under. Vernon is a very bright guy who knows how to stay loose and have a good time. I’m hoping he shares more of that side with us so we can share it more with you.

Shaun Marcum will pitch tomorrow in Winter Haven, a misnomer if there ever was one, and the only other starters who will be making the trip are Gregg Zaun and Lyle Overbay. Reed Johnson, Marco Scutaro and John McDonald are on the list for the bus as well, Johnny Mac always seems to make the trips to The Haven, and we’ll get another look at John Parrish, who may now be in the running for the 5th spot. Let’s watch how many innings he throws, he was up to three last time.

I’ll be back with more tomorrow, I hope. If not, it’s because the fine municipality of Winter Haven, FLA has STILL not gotten its act together.  No wonder the Tribe is bailing after this season.

Comments are encouraged, as always, and again, I’ll try to respond briefly if I can.

12:00 PM Eastern

Sorry for the bad pun, it was all I could come up with. I’m not that bright.

The Blue Jays revealed this morning that Casey Janssen will miss the 2008 season because of a torn labrum in his right shoulder. He’s expected to have his surgery performed by the noted Dr. Lewis Yocum in L.A. early next week, and should be able to start throwing four months later. The Jays say they expect Janssen to make a full recovery and be able to participate in Spring Training next year. Although – David Romero had his torn labrum operated on last spring, in late February or early March, and he’s still clearly behind everybody else here at camp, having only thrown three innings.

Here’s the thing: Noted injury guru Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus wrote an article in 2004 that noted that 36 pitchers had had surgery on a torn labrum in the five years previous, and only ONE returned to his previous level. Former Expo and White Sock Rocky Biddle. That information shouldn’t have Jays fans all that excited. Mike Sirotka had a torn labrum and never pitched again, super-prospect Ryan Anderson tore his labrum and was done, Robb Nen, Mike Harkey and Robert Person are other examples of guys who never recovered.

Don’t bury Janssen yet, though. A shining more recent example of a pitcher who was able to overcome labrum problems is Gil Meche, who has had two solid years in a row, and may yet be able to approach the levels for which he seemed to be headed early in his career with Seattle. One the other hand, it took WAY more than a year for Meche.

So what do the Jays do now, besides hope that Jesse Litsch is ready to be the 5th starter and that Brandon League is sufficiently recovered from his “lost” 2007 to be a significant factor in the bullpen? Well, in talking to J.P. Ricciardi, he suggested that he would look outside the organization to bolster the bottom of the rotation, which means either a trade or taking a shot at one of the still-available free agent starters such as Kyle Lohse, Rodrigo Lopez or, Lord help us, Jeff Weaver and David Wells. Freddy Garcia is available as well, but he had surgery on a torn labrum last August, so forget that.

John Parrish would seem to have thrown his hat into the 5th starter’s ring with his strong spring so far, but I think it’s safe to say that Litsch has the job unless the Jays make a trade. And I believe that League is going to have a big year in the bullpen, so they’ve got Casey covered both ways.

As I said yesterday, this team is deep enough to withstand one or two major injuries. Three, four or more, not so much.

On the field today, A.J. Burnett will try to go four innings for the first time this spring, still without a curveball. Jason Frasor and Brian Wolfe will be among those who follow. The top six or seven is the regular line-up, with Aaron Hill getting a bump up to the sixth spot because below him are Reed Johnson, Rod Barajas and Marco Scutaro. Gregg Zaun and Lyle Overbay have the day off.

Zach Duke starts for the Buccos, who brought Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Andy LaRoche, Xavier Nady, Jack Wilson and Jose Bautista among their starters.

The webcast begins just after 1:00 Eastern – make sure to tune in for Jerry’s, Alan’s and my play-by-play. See you after the game!

5:30 PM Eastern

There’s not much at all to wrap up about what was a pretty boring game after Gustavo Chacin blew up real good over the first four hitters. Chacin allowed four runs before getting an out, giving up a bunt single to Melky Cabrera then walking Derek Jeter ahead of a two-run double by Bobby Abreu. Alex Rodriguez followed with a two-run bomb that cleared the fence just to the right of the batters’ eye in dead centre, and that was that.

The Jays mustered no offence against Chien-Ming Wang – Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay each had a two-out single, and David Eckstein drew a walk – and they didn’t do much better against the bullpen. Their only run came on a two-out RBI double by Shannon Stewart in the 7th. Stewart, by the way, has four doubles among his five spring hits. He’s at .294/.368/.529 over 19 plate appearances. With his 1-for-2 today, Reed Johnson is now at .190/.261/.190 over 23 plate appearances. Spring stats don’t matter, if Reed goes 3-for-3 tomorrow his average will go up to .292, but I just wanted to keep you updated on the battle for half of left field.

After the game, we got the first official word that Chacin was never a candidate for the 5th starter’s job, as you’ve been reading here all winter. When asked whether Chacin was up for the spot, John Gibbons said, “No. And he hasn’t been, really. We knew that.” Yeah, we did, but thanks just the same for coming out and saying it.

He also agreed with the assessment that Casey Janssen is going to need some time to rebound from whatever this elbow thing is (we should find out the results of the MRI tonight or tomorrow), but wouldn’t go so far as to say that Jesse Litsch is now the 5th starter, even though he is.

The injury to Janssen is a tough one for the Jays, but even if he’s out a while, it’s not devastating. The team has enough depth to overcome an injury or two, as most teams do. When it gets to six or seven at once, long-term, that’s when it gets ridiculous. Right now, it appears as though Brandon League could slide into what was going to be Janssen’s spot in the bullpen (if that’s where he would have wound up) and perform very well, so long as he keeps being able to throw that power sinker for strikes. In the rotation, though I continue to think Janssen is better, Jesse Litsch is a fine 5th starter.

Having Armando Benitez is a fortuitous thing, now that Janssen has gone down, but it’d surprise me if he makes an impact on the major-league team anytime soon. It’s basically been four years since he’s gotten a left-handed hitter out, which is problematic. But you can never have enough arms, and if somebody else gets hurt, he could slide into the ‘pen. Maybe. He’s the same as John Thomson, Tomo Ohka and Victor Zambrano were last season – very low risk, with the potential of a reward. Didn’t happen with those three, could happen with Nando, you never know.

One more thing before I go. I have seem Zambrano’s name brought up a few times lately by people who are arguing that the Jays need to be more cautious with B.J. Ryan. I really don’t think one has anything to do with the other. The Jays weren’t cautious with Zambrano last spring, stretching him out to the extent that he felt comfortable. He kept feeling comfortable, and they kept stretching him out. If I remember correctly, he threw five or six very effective innings in the last or next-to-last game of the pre-season, and was good to go. Nothing was wrong with him at that point, but he got buried in the back of the bullpen, only throwing 3 2/3 innings in all of April. THAT was the mistake. He lost all the gains he’d made in March by never getting off the bench in April. That is not going to happen with B.J. Ryan. If he’s ready to throw 18-25 pitches every other day at full strength by March 31st, he makes the team. If not, he stays down in extended spring, and the Jays hope that League stays effective so they don’t miss Janssen too much.

Tomorrow, a webcast from Dunedin, so no live blog. Make sure you tune us in on mlb.com. A.J. Burnett is scheduled to go four innings, to be followed by Jason Frasor, Josh Banks and Randy Wells. Most of the regular starters, if not all, are scheduled to play. Lefty Zach Duke will start for the Buccos.

Comments are encouraged, as always, and I’ll try to respond briefly if I can.

1:30 PM Eastern

Just got settled here at Legends Field, with its tiny, cramped press box. I thought I was going to be stuck in the third row, from where you can’t actually see anything on the field except the top of the left field scoreboard, but miracles of miracles, the visiting radio booth was open, and since we’re not doing the game today, empty.

I have invited John Lott of the National Post and He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named of the Toronto Sun to join me, because they were stuck in that third row, too.

Given what happened to Janssen this morning (read the last post if you haven’t already), nothing that happens here this afternoon is going to matter unless somebody else gets hurt, though all the starters but Rios are here. David Purcey is scheduled to follow Chacin, so that’ll be nice to see.

1:40 PM Eastern

The Jays went 1-2-3 1/2 in the top of the first, with Vernon Wells flaring a broken-bat single to left with two out. He was caught trying to steal second with Scott Rolen at the plate on a very good, very strong throw by Jose Molina.

Nice to see, by the way, that the Yankees aren’t afraid to show Chien-Ming Wang to the Blue Jays, even though he’ll face them on Opening Day in New York. The Jays hid Dustin McGowan from the Yanks. I asked J.P. Ricciardi about this relatively new practice this morning, and he said that it wasn’t his choice, but that Brad Arnsberg preferred it that way.

In the bottom of the first, it took Gustavo Chacin a while to find his footing, but he settled right down after giving up a bunt single, walking Derek Jeter, coughing up a two-run double to Bobby Abreu and allowing a mammoth two-run homer to Alex Rodriguez. As soon as that was done, he got the next three hitters on a fly ball and a couple of ground outs. Mid-season form, our Gussie.

1:52 PM Eastern

Rolen worked a walk leading off the inning, but Frank Thomas broke a bat hitting a weak grounder to third, and that means 5-4-3. Give Frank credit, though, the relay only beat him by about half a step. Overbay followed with a hot shot through the box, right under the glove of Wang and into centre for a single, but was left at first as Stewart grounded out to third.

I have to start cutting up the Janssen/McGowan/J.P. tape from this morning, so I’ll be in and out for a while.

2:45 PM Eastern

Checking back in between editing clips. The Jays had a grand total of one baserunner in the third and fourth – a David Eckstein walk. Wang was removed after striking out Rolen for the second out of the fourth – he had thrown 59 pitches, so he must have been on a strict 60 count. Chacin came out after two, having allowed four runs on five hits, two walks and no strikeouts. Kane Davis came in to replace him, and just struck out Abreu amd A-Rod to end the 4th, getting out of a second-third, none-out jam without allowing a run, though he had allowed one on a Melky Cabrera double that got him into that jam.

3:15 PM Eastern

All the Yankee starters are out now, save for Jason Lane, and the Jays’ regulars will go after they have had one more at-bat each. Reed Johnson came in early, for Stairs, and grounded out to third , and Vernon’s day ended with a broken-bat grounder to short. Rolen followed with a high fly out to deep left. Inning over – here come Hector Luna and Buck Coats. David Purcey has come on to pitch to the Yankee scrubs.

3:25 PM Eastern

Purcey gave up a line-drive homer to deep left field to Lane to lead things off. Stewart turned and took two hard steps before realizing the futility of his actions. The lefty then got the other Yankee scrubs around a long double to Greg Porter.

3:33 PM Eastern

With only the top four hitters having had their three plate appearances, everybody else had to stick around for the seventh inning, the deepest penetration into the game for the regulars to this point in the spring. Darrell Rasner got two quick outs – Thomas on a fly to right and a called third strike on Overbay, but Stewart kept the inning alive by drawing a walk. This thrilled Aaron Hill, who realized as he came to the plate that he wouldn’t have to go back out on defense, and Hill smacked a liner to right-centre that dropped for an RBI double. Brett Gardner dove for it and missed, and Porter leapfrogged over him to go get the ball. Greg Zaun then finished his longer-than-expected afternoon by striking out on a high 3-2 heater from Rasner.

3:45 PM Eastern

Ran down between innings to grab some food, because I missed lunch hopping between Dunedin and here, and stumbled across a cart that was selling empanadas. Marvelous! I grabbed a couple of broccoli/cheese and got back up to the booth in time to see Buck Coats make a fantastic, leaping catch up against the centre-field wall – on the dead run – of a Jorge Posada blast. With that huge assist, Jesse Carlson got the Yanks 1-2-3 in the 7th.

4:05 PM Eastern

An uneventful top of the 8th saw Reed Johnson single and almost get doubled off on a hard line drive to short by Coats.  Jean Machi came out for the bottom of the 8th and hit leadoff man Morgan Ensberg.  He got Chris Woodward (nice to see him again) to fly out deep to right, then got an inning-ending double-play ball from Chad Moeller, but Joe Inglett’s relay throw went into the Yankee dugout, keeping the inning alive.  Machi followed up by walking Gardner and Cody Ransom, loading the bases for Porter, who flied out to deep left.

Time to go down and get John Gibbons’ reaction to Janssen’s injury and the Benitez addition, and see if he has anything at all to say about this game, which seems to matter even less than all those other Grapefruit affairs, given the events of this morning.  Be back with a wrap-up later on.