You mention that if he can’t go, Marcum goes tonight, Litsch on Friday and “Halladay on his regular day, Saturday”. In fact, I believe with the postponement of Halladay’s first start to Tuesday, his “regular” day would now be Sunday, not Saturday. So effectively McGowan would have to be ready for Saturday, in order for the Jays not to have at least a minor problem.

MW: You’re right, the postponement totally slipped my mind. I think I blocked out that whole experience.

Stewart is a great table setter, and should returned to that role.

Cheers,

Paul

MW: The 73 comments a day from you would indicate that you don’t sleep much, either. When the Jays led after 6 innings last season, they were 63-11, which is a few games worse than I thought they’d have been.

Just wondering if you have talked to Gary Denbo to see what his impressions are about how people have been batting ?

I must say i have been quite impressed with Eckstein, that at bat against Mussina was very good and his bat speed is incredible. I don’t think people should rag on him. In all his at bats he hit quite well, only that he hit the ball at ARod a buncha times.

I think like Thomas, once he gets in the grove he will rock it out for us.

Oh — and what do you think of Juan Pierre ? Not as a potential BlueJay, but in general. I didn’t realize just how much he hits.

MW: Eckstein’s 5th inning at-bat was tremendous. He fell behind 0-2, but got it to a 10th pitch before hitting into the double play. He doesn’t walk a lot, it’s true, but he can make pitchers work. I don’t think that Eckstein will ever “rock it out”, I’m confident that no Jays regular will make more outs this season, but he will hit better than Johnny Mac, which is why he’s here.

I think Juan Pierre is a terrible baseball player. Relative to other major leaguers, of course. He is a huge out-maker, which is really, really bad.

MW: He’s pretty fast, but I wouldn’t say “lightning quick”.

Not sure if I can complain about the TV coverage here. It will make me feel better. Please delete if I can’t.

MW: You can’t complain about TV coverage here. It’s not fair to rag on someone who doesn’t have a chance to defend himself.

MW: He’s an ass. Two things that Mike Mussina has done in his career show you exactly the kind of person he is. First, in the 1993 all-star game which was in his home ballpark in Baltimore, he got up on his own and started warming up in the bullpen in the 8th inning, making all the fans expect him to come in for the 9th, which he knew wasn’t going to happen. In Baltimore, they still hate Cito Gaston for not bringing Mussina into that game after “having him warm up.” Secondly, and far worse, he had the stones to blame his poor performance in the Jays-Yankees game on Tom Cheek Day a few years ago on the fact that the ceremony to honour Tom caused the start time of the game to be pushed back a few minutes. Jackass.

Just wanted to add that it was the YES announcers who asserted that Doc was upset and was chirping back at the Yankee bench because the curtain call was made during the first pitch.

MW: Good to know, but they know their Yankees, not their Jays, although I hear they had good things to say about A.J. Burnett tonight.

First of all, I love that you interact with everyone in the comments here.

Do you think we’ll see a bit of Johnny Mac once Rolen comes back and, presumably, adds a lot to the offense? I know Eckstein won’t be this bad all year, but he’s done nothing to change my opinion that he’s a bad defensive shortstop in most areas, and has a little-league-caliber arm. He may have a World Series MVP, but the play last night where he threw to first when Giambi was going to 2nd was terrible. I wouldn’t have been impressed with the 14-year-old kids I coach if they did that.

MW: I don’t think Eckstein is a bad defensive shortstop, he’s just no John McDonald. But the fact that McDonald wasn’t in the game in the 9th tonight screams out to me that Eckstein is the guy,period.

MW: I think the leash on Eckstein is VERY long.