10:15 PM Eastern

The Jays salvaged the finale of the series with the Orioles with help of Rodhames Baradjamas, who doubled twice, scored on a sac fly to medium centre, and made a spectacular reach-around (insert joke here) catch of a foul pop-up off the bat of Jay Payton.

Also, B.J. Ryan, scarred for life by spectacularly blowing the save against the Yankees on Thursday afternoon, managed somehow to sadly amble out to the mound and blow the Orioles away in order to pick up his 13th save in 15 opportunities.

Vernon Wells went 3-for-4 with a homer, and is now hitting .714/.625/1.286 since coming off the disabled list, and Brad Wilkerson stole home on the back end of a double steal, brilliantly executed with Marco Scutaro.

All that, and 7 2/3 solid innings from Roy Halladay.  Tremendous against everyone but Luke Scott, but solid overall.

Someone out there is going to have to explain to me, though, how Halladay got the Jays to score three runs in the bottom of the 6th after Scott’s second homer put the Orioles up 4-2.  I’m completely serious, because I don’t get it.  Obviously, there’s something Halladay can do in order to get the offense to do that that A.J. Burnett can’t, which is why Halladay wins when he gives up four runs over 7 2/3 and Burnett loses when he gives up three runs over 7.  That’s why Halladay has such a great record and why Burnett is a .500 pitcher, right?  So someone, please, explain to me what Halladay did there in the bottom of the 6th that Burnett isn’t capable of doing.

Joe Inglett and his ability to turn around 95 mph fastballs are back.  Inglett only got across the street Saturday before being called to say “don’t go anywhere”.  He had been staying at Brian Tallet’s place, and was there packing, planning to go to Syracuse today.  Shannon Stewart is on the disabled list with that sprained ankle, he’ll be out at least a month, maybe more.  When he comes back, assuming everyone else is healthy (including Aaron Hill), it’ll be decision time, but it’s too early to worry about that.

What we can worry about is the batting order, which today had Alex Rios up top, followed by Matt Stairs, Scott Rolen, Wells and Lyle Overbay.  I don’t like Rios leading off, but there’s no good option on this team right now.  I wouldn’t mind Overbay and Stairs switching spots, either.  I don’t love Wells hitting fourth, but he certainly looked comfortable.

I hope you got to listen to The Blue Jays This Week, I especially enjoyed the conversation with Mike Flanagan, reminiscing about the end of the season in 1987.  Terrible time for Jays fans, of course, but it was great to re-live a bit of it again.  I was amazed that Flanagan called that team the best he’d ever played for, considering that he went to the World Series twice with the Orioles in 1979 and 1983, winning the second, and also played for an O’s team that won 100 games in 1980 but didn’t make the playoffs.  I could have spent another half-hour with him, and will be sure to hook up with him again when the Orioles come back to town next month.  We didn’t even get to talk about the 1989 ALCS!  If you didn’t hear it, the interview is available in the hot audio section on the front page of the website.

If you didn’t hear The JaysTalk, here it is:

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Comments are encouraged, as always.  Remember, the Seattle Mariners, who have the worst record in baseball, are coming in for a three-game series.  Everyone who is sure that the Jays will get swept, get your predictions in now!  But don’t say you’re sure unless you’re willing to bet your house.  I may just take that action.

6:00 PM Eastern

One more time, for all the kids back home: “Wow, did that ever suck.”

It was a big-news day in Blue Jay-land, with six roster moves before the game. Goodbye, Armando Benitez; see you later, Joe Inglett; go get healthy, Aaron Hill – and welcome back Vernon Wells, John McDonald and Brian Wolfe.

Wolfe arrived by car from Syracuse, and got to the clubhouse around 11:00 AM, but Wells and Johnny Mac had to fly up from south Florida, changing planes in Atlanta, and they didn’t arrive in the clubhouse until about 15 minutes before the first pitch. Good thing they weren’t much later, because Vernon was needed pretty much right away. Shannon Stewart tried to avoid Kevin Millar’s tag on a wild throw in the bottom of the first, by twisting his body away from Millar’s, towards the infield, and his foot slid across the first-base bag, with his ankle turning badly. Just like that the Vernon Wells era began anew.

The Jays played 26 games without their centre-fielder, and went 15-11 without him, which is far better than most expected given how lousy they’d been beforehand. The Jays are still without Hill, Gregg Zaun (who will be back Wednesday) and Jeremy Accardo (who will throw a simulated game in Florida tomorrow and could be back by the end of this homestand).

I’m going to try to make these things shorter on the weekends, as opposed to not doing any weekend bloggage at all, as one commenter suggested (though it may come to that), so let me touch on a few things quickly.

-A.J. Burnett was awful today. Just terrible. On consecutive pitches in the 5th inning, the O’s lit him up for two singles, then back-to-back doubles – the first with the bases loaded – and the last three balls were just plain smoked. This was easily his worst outing of the season, and he was booed off the field by the Toronto faithful. Just like in the 8th inning last night, the boos were well-earned. I noticed from some of the JaysTalk callers and the commenters (not unexpectedly) that people used this opportunity to talk about how bad Burnett is, how much of a waste of money, what a disappointment, etc. I’ll reiterate my response here:

Going into this season, Burnett had 20 wins in 36 starts with the Jays, which is a hair over one season’s worth of starts. That doesn’t mean a lot to me, but it seems to mean a lot to most of the people who rag on Burnett. As well, this game was Burnett’s 13th start of the season, and only the FOURTH in which he’d given up more than three earned runs. Burnett doesn’t suck. He’s not the worst pitcher in the rotation and, believe it or not, he’s not overpaid. I’d tell you to get over it, but I know it’s not possible. Minds were made up about this guy on the day he signed, and if not then, then on the day he got hurt in Spring Training his first year.

-When Burnett was deservedly booed off the mound, he tipped his cap to the fans, which turned a lot of those boos into cheers. A lot of people seem to be very upset about this reaction by A.J., and he did apologize for it after the game, but I really didn’t have a problem with it. He could have kept his head down and trudged mournfully into the dugout, he could have gone into the dugout and taken a bat to a Gatorade cooler in a show of anger and frustration that would have been nothing more than just that, or he could have done what he did. I didn’t think he was being disrespectful, sarcastic maybe, but he didn’t flip anybody off. I thought it showed a reasonable sense of self-awareness and a sense of humour, to be honest, and this from a guy with whom I’ve had as many unpleasant dealings as not, so there’s no personality bias there.

-It was great to see Vernon Wells back in the game, but I was stunned by the lack of reaction from the crowd at Rogers Centre. Maybe more disappointed than stunned, I’m not sure. People often criticize Toronto fans for not knowing a lot about baseball and sitting on their hands, and while I echo the sentiments of those who take shots at the latter, I am quick to defend a lot of Jays fans on the former. Today was different, though. After Scott Rolen flied out to end the first inning, Wells came out of the dugout to play centre field. He had been out four weeks, and most of the fans, I’m assuming, weren’t even aware that he’d been activated. However, almost no one noticed that it was he who was going out there. There was no “hey, check that out” buzz that you often get when something cool and unexpected is going on. They showed him on the scoreboard, and there was a smattering. He was announced, and there was some applause. Not a lot, and not nearly the reaction that any Maple Leaf who had missed a month would have gotten, regardless of his stature with the team. That really stood out for me, I thought it was terrible. John McDonald got a bigger ovation when he went in to pinch-hit for Rolen in the 6th and that’s cool – Johnny Mac is a great guy and people around here love him, but Wells is, arguably, the Jays’ best player.

The JaysTalk was outstanding, as usual on a Saturday afternoon. GREAT caller, I think it was the opening one, who started off by taking shots at fans who don’t know anything then insisted that Joe Inglett got sent down because he can’t hit a fastball that travels over 91 miles per hour. Simply can’t. As he continued to talk, he conveniently changed the 91 to 95, but a couple of minutes of at-bat by at-bat research led me to discover that one of Inglett’s three triples this season was on a 95 mph Ervin Santana heater that he belted over Torii Hunter’s head. Enjoy it, it’s right here for your listening pleasure:

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Tomorrow, another pre-pre-game at noon Eastern on the station and on this very website, then Roy Halladay vs. Radhames Liz, then The Blue Jays This Week. So chances is, no bloggage tomorrow. Comments are encouraged, though, as always! I’ll try to get to them tonight and maybe tomorrow afternoon.

12:45 AM Eastern

I’ll spare you the gory details, but for the second straight game, the Blue Jays blew a lead late.  This was no two-run-lead-with-nobody-on-and-one-out-to-go , but it might have been worse.

Melvin Mora.  Kevin Millar.  Adam Jones.  Really?  I mean, this isn’t exactly A-Rod, Matsui and The Giamustache.  But Mora took Brian Tallet deep, and then Millar and Jones left the yard against Armando Benitez, turning 4-0 Jays into 6-4 Orioles in the space of seven batters in the 8th inning.

It was a pitiful display, and wholly unexpected, given the way this bullpen had been pitching, but maybe it shouldn’t have been.  I’ve been up front with my praise of the Jays’ pitching staff, relief corps included, and I have expected the ‘pen to be among baseball’s best, and it has been.

But the top pitchers in the ‘pen that I expected to be baseball’s best weren’t any of Benitez, Tallet, Jesse Carlson and Shawn Camp.  It makes me wonder how much of this is just simply good old regression to the mean.  How far above their heads have all four of these guys been pitching, if at all?

Tallet has never been this good before, and Camp hasn’t even been in the same area code.  Carlson came out of nowhere and has looked amazing, but he’s allowed 14 baserunners in his last 10 appearances, covering 6 2/3 innings.  As for Nando, the big flies to Millar and Jones were the first two hits he’d allowed to right-handed batters all year.

Maybe a week of it all coming crashing down is enough for Karma to feel as though the odds have been evened, and now we can get down to normal, regular, reasonableness.  We shall see.

I’ll never believe that this loss had anything to do with the loss to the Yankees on Thursday afternoon.  People can (and will) bring up the “I told you so”s , and go on about how the season ended when Giambi powdered that flat 0-2 offering from Ryan deep into the gloaming in the Bronx (though it was probably still too early to be gloaming), but that’s a massive load.  We’ve all seen too many times that momentum can mean nothing, that the team everyone expects to either roll over or run roughshod goes out and does the exact opposite.  If the Jays win the next five in a row, these two games are just a blip.  Will they win the next five in a row?  Who knows?  They’re certainly capable of it, though.

They’ve lost five of six now, three of them in walk-off style and this one tonight that may have been even worse that those prior.  But they had gone 14-4 in the previous 18, which means that as badly as they’re playing now, they’re still a  .600 team over their last 25 games.  These are the ups and downs, and they may or may not be the ups and downs of a mediocre team, but as long as there’s one more up than there are downs, they’ll have a shot.

I thought it was interesting that a caller on The JaysTalk offered up that the offense just isn’t good enough to put together a six-run inning like the Orioles did tonight in the 8th.  It certainly feels that way, doesn’t it?  But then you remember that the O’s are one of the teams that the Blue Jays have actually outscored this season.  And you also remember that over the course of the last week and a bit, the Jays have had games of 8, 9, 10 and 12 runs.  Here’s the JaysTalk for your listening pleasure:

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It’s an exceedingly long season.  To look at any one week, never mind one or two games, as an indicator of what a team is or isn’t not only isn’t fair, it’s not accurate.  To say that it’s not just one week, or this last game or two, simply isn’t true.  The Jays were 11-17 in April.  That’s horrible.  They were 20-10 in May.  That’s unbelievable.  Right now they’re 1-4 in June, which sucks.  Help is on the way, though.  Vernon Wells got another couple of hits, both doubles, in a rehab game in Florida, John McDonald has played three games in a row in Florida, going 4-for-11 and hey, Reed Johnson is coming to town in a week – maybe he’ll spread his Reedness across the field and the Jays can gather it in and become a winning team!

As always, comments are encouraged, but I more than likely won’t be able to respond until after Saturday’s game.  If you’re coming down to the Dome, though, stop by Gate 6A and say hi.  I’ll be out there from noon-1:00 pm every weekend home game from now until September.  The extra half-hour on the air, though, has to take away from the weekend bloggageness.

6:00 PM Eastern

No time to go into great deal here, but boy, did that suck. Hope all of you who think that The Captain is a better defender than Gregg Zaun were watching that one, too.

Gotta go – softball tonight! I’ll have a full post and The JaysTalk up here when I get back.

UPDATE – 2:50 AM Eastern

Tweaked the back again playing softball, and have no idea how (which worries me even more), so I have spent the last few hours icing and now feel like I should sit down and do this just in case I can’t in the morning.  We won 13-3.  I went 2-for-4 at the dish with a pair of singles, but I did hit a Grand Slam (very cool) which was, sadly, ruled foul (not cool).  We played at a park with no fence, no foul lines and no foul pole, and I hit it past the lights down the left-field line, so I can’t really be that upset at the umpire.  My runner on third confirmed that it was fair by at least a couple of feet  And he’s a doctor, so he’d tell me the truth.  The umpire, by the way?  None other than Mr. Marty York himself.  I slapped the next pitch back through the box for a single and it got through the centrefielder, so the bases emptied anyway and I wound up at third.  I got hit twice running to first, which has never happened to me before, both times by their shortstop.  The first was legging out an infield single – his throw hit me on the right heel as I was stepping on first with my left foot, and the second was trying to beat out a double play ball – his throw hit me on the left shoulder.  Very weird.  Anyway, since I’m keeping track for you people, I’m now 6-for-13 on the season, hitting .462/.462/.692.  That slugging percentage should be .923, though.  Thanks again, Marty.

That game was fun, even though my back wouldn’t allow me to play the field for the second half.  The Jays’ game, not so much.

Since it’s mostly been hashed and re-hashed already, I’ll be brief and say that maybe karma had a bit to do with it.  The Jays five-run fifth was, plain and simple, a gift.  Joe Inglett got caught either not knowing how many outs there were or making an incredibly bad read on a line drive, and was taken off the hook when Melky Cabrera dropped the ball.  999 times out of 1000, that’s an easy inning-ending double play, and Chien-Ming goes to the dugout having allowed two runs on three hits through five innings, in a 2-2 tie, ready to rock and roll in the 6th.

Instead, Wang has to stay out there, hits Scott Rolen to load the bases, then gives up rockets to Matt Stairs (two-run single) and Lyle Overbay (two-run double) and gets yanked.

Never mind how cheap the first two runs the Jays got were, as Stairs’ homer in the 4th hit the top of the fence about five feet left of the 314 sign.  It still went further than Melky’s deciding homer off Roy Halladay on Opening Night, though.

Really, the Jays should have scored two runs in this game, not eight.  They were unlucky when Stairs’ double bounced over the wall in the 9th, costing them a run and Stairs a 6th RBI, which would have tied a career high.  That reminds me, boy, did Matt ever look done out there today, huh?

So maybe it was just karma coming back.  She did try in the 8th, but Brad Wilkerson turned her away with a sensational catch of Johnny Damon’s long fly to the wall in right-centre.  If Wilkerson doesn’t stretch out and make that highlight-reel play, it’s 8-7 Yanks and the Jays have to deal with Mariano Rivera in the 9th.

How else can you explain a two-run lead with two out and nobody on in the bottom of the 9th vanishing?  I mean, it wasn’t exactly Calvin Schiraldi out there on the mound for the Jays.

I’m not going to get on B.J. Ryan for this.  Blown saves happen, and if he’d blown his 7th save opportunity and then his 14th, no one would be up in arms.  It was the 13th and 14th, so fans are wondering if his elbow is bothering him.  As I mentioned in the comments section, in both blown saves, Ryan got to two outs with the lead still intact.  Also, in neither blown save did he walk anyone unintentionally (although he did hit Howie Kendrick with a pitch in Anaheim).  Remember what he looked like last year, when he couldn’t throw a strike?  That’s not what’s happening now.  Hopefully he gets a couple of chances to prove it against the Orioles on the weekend.

The Jays wound up 4-5 on the road trip, which is fine.  Frustrating, because there were three walk-off losses, but the bullpen hadn’t given up a single run in almost two weeks before Thursday.  They can’t be perfect all the time, which is too bad, but that’s why they call it baseball.

It should be noted that the Jays went 3-3 on the west coast swing through Oakland and Anaheim.  The Red Sox had a west coast swing a couple of weeks back, through Oakland and Seattle, and went 1-5.  Just for the record.

Finally, I need to expand on the comment up top about Rod Barajas.  He did throw out Damon trying to steal in the sixth, and by a whole bunch, but in the overall he had a terrible game defensively.  He dropped two throws from the outfield, both one-bouncers right into his glove.  The throw from Mench in the first was relatively excusable, since he was trying to catch the ball, block the plate and apply the tag on Derek Jeter all at the same time.  The second one, on the throw from Joe Inglett in the 5th, was not.  Damon was still about 10 feet from the plate, Barajas had all kinds of time and still couldn’t squeeze it, despite the fact that it was a perfect throw that hit him in the glove.  He did come out of Wednesday’s game with a bad back, but if it’s bad enough that he can’t defend his position, he shouldn’t have been out there.  The third one was the passed ball in the 8th, when Snakeface’s pitch hit him in the chest protector.

Barajas has done a wonderful job with the bat, and he does have a better throwing arm than Gregg Zaun, but Zaun does everything else behind the plate better, and that’s important.  It’s why, at the very least, they should split time when Zaun gets back next week.

David Cooper is the newest Jays’ first-rounder.  A first baseman out of UC-Berkeley, he’s up for a ton of awards this year and came through huge at the College World Series in ’06. He’s got a power bat and a good eye, and should be up with the big club by September.  Of 2010.  At the absolute earliest.

The Jays made six picks on day one of the draft, three high-schoolers (OFs Kenneth Wilson and Markus Brisker, SS Tyler Pastornicky), a college pitcher in Andrew Liebel of Long Beach State (3rd round, average stuff, great idea, competitive nature – sound like Shaun Marcum, anyone?) and college third baseman Robert Sobolewski out of Miami.

The Jays missed out on the Canadian, Brett Lawrie, by one spot, but he was never going to get by Milwaukee anyway, the way the draft shook out.

I’ve never seen any of these guys play, before you ask.

Comments are encouraged, sorry that there’s no JaysTalk to post tonight.  I lied up above.  It’s what I do.  ;-)

1:03 AM Eastern

Far be it from me to praise Mike Mussina, who may be the professional athlete that I like least as a human being (as should all Blue Jays fans), but he had the Jays eating out of his right hand tonight. Mussina brought back memories of his glory days of the mid-90s, keeping the Jays off-balance and using a gorgeous knuckle-curve to great effect in his six dominant innings.

This was one of those games for the Jays. There have only been four this year, which is amazing, but this was one of them. They just plain weren’t going to win it. Jesse Litsch would have had to have run his scoreless innings streak to 25 for the Jays to take the game, and the Jays already had that number working for Alex Rios, who has now hit in that many consecutive games against the Yankees thanks to his 2-for-3 performance.

Litsch wasn’t terrible. despite allowing 10 hits over 5 1/3 innings of work. He only walked one (unintentionally) and even with the 12 baserunners, the homer he gave up was a solo shot. Four runs on 10 hits isn’t so terrible against the Yankee offense in such a short stint, if you’re going to give up 10 hits, that is. It’s not good by any means, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not like Litsch has hit the wall, the bubble has burst and he’s now going to go 2-7 to even up his record. He might, but take nothing away from how well he has pitched to this point in the season.

Honestly, who would have thought that a Jays-Yankees game in June that would pit an eight-game winner against a seven-game winner would have those two pitchers be Mussina and Litsch? It’s crazy, this game, and that’s a great part of why we love it so much.

The Jays didn’t manage to score against what some have deemed the “worst bullpen in baseball”, though Joe Girardi was smart enough to leave Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez and their respective gas cans in the bullpen all night.

Even with that, the Jays have a chance to go 5-4 on this road trip, which (it was written here before they left) would be a wonderful outcome, and the worst they can do is one game below wonderful – it’s been a good trip, despite the manner in which those last two losses out west came to be.

Some rostery stuff – Aaron Hill still hasn’t played since taking David Eckstein’s elbow to the face back in Oakland. It’s doubtful that he’ll be out there for the series finale, which will make it a week that he’s missed. On Wednesdays with J.P., Ricciardi mentioned that they won’t think about putting Hill on the D.L. until they have to make a roster move, which could happen by the weekend with the return of John McDonald. He’s hopeful, though, that Hill will be able to play in the very near future.

Rod Barajas left the game in the 5th when his back started to tighten up on him. The Captain has been at the forefront of this recent Jays’ resurgence, and losing him would open up a big hole in the line-up that Curtis Thigpen would have to try to fill until Gregg Zaun is eligible to come off the disabled list next Wednesday. The catcher’s back (not backcatcher) is a scary thing when it acts up, so a close eye will be kept on Barajas.

And Brian Wolfe was activated from the disabled list before the game and optioned to Syracuse so that he can continue to get innings and, as J.P. said, pitch his way back to the big club. Wolfe seems to have been doing just that while rehabbing, pitching four shutout innings while allowing two hits and a walk and striking out five. Brandon League did get lit up tonight in Syracuse, though.

We had a good, long chat with the G.M. on tonight’s edition of “Wednesdays”, with a lot of people, as always, wanting to know about stuff that’s two, three and four years down the road. I don’t get that, but with the draft about to go down, it’s excusable this week. Not a single caller mentioned anything about tonight’s game, about this road trip, even about the 20-10 May. It’s mind-bottling but, as I say, the hour is yours, you can talk to him about whatever you want. A caller did ask about Marty Pevey’s adventures at third, and J.P. acknowledged that there have been some issues, but he feels that Pevey is growing into the job. You can listen to the whole thing right here:

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Comments are encouraged, as always, but with the day game after the night game coming up, don’t expect a response with your morning coffee!

1:35 AM Eastern

After an inning or two, I thought that the title of this post was going to be something along the lines of:  1 hit + 3 walks + 1 passed ball + 1 balk = 1 run???????  But the Blue Jays nicely took care of that wasted opportunity by slapping up a six-spot in the 7th inning and beating the heck out of the Yankees in the opener of the series in the Bronx.

The Jays are now 4-3 on the road trip, and have reached the point where, when they left, you wouldn’t be able to be disappointed even if they dropped the last two games.  Of course, now that they are 4-3, you’ll be disappointed if they don’t go 6-3, but such is life.

They took the perfect approach with Joba Chamberlain in his pitch-count-shortened debut as a starter.  From Shannon Stewart’s eight-pitch walk to lead off the game, the Jays were determined to dispose of Chamberlain as quickly as possible to get to Dan Giese and the rest of the Yankees’ bullpen.  Two batters in, Joba had thrown 14 pitches, and he totalled 38 in the first inning alone, more than half his allotment.  Even though the Jays didn’t take better advantage of their chances in that inning, they did what they needed to do to get rid of the 22 year-old phenom, and he was done with one out in the third.  Enjoy the Cookie Crisp, drunkies!  Make sure they don’t send you the peanut butter flavour.

The Jays didn’t pound Giese, but they did tie the game on a Scott Rolen grounder and go ahead on a David Eckstein sac fly.  They saved their best for the Jose Veras-Edwar Ramirez combo in the 7th inning.  The two of them combined to face seven hitters and retire just one, and the six that reached base all scored.  And hey, hands up everybody who thought Alex Rios was going to hit into a double play with a runner on first and nobody out in the 7th.  See?  It doesn’t happen every time!  It doesn’t even happen most of the time.

Back to that Eckstein sac fly for a second.  It seemed as though Melky Cabrera’s throw from medium-depth centre field hit the pitching rubber and took a big bounce up before settling in Jose Molina’s glove, which was a huge break for the Jays.  If that throw hits anywhere else and takes a truer bounce, Rod Barajas is meatcake at the plate.  Barajas appeared to double-clutch while running from third, if that’s possible, and barely beat the throw.  On the broadcast, Alan Ashby mentioned that Barajas seemed to be looking at third-base coach Marty Pevey as if to say “what should I do?” and that’s not good news.  It’s not the first time that’s happened with Marty, if that’s indeed what did happen.  Regardless, unless the ball is caught at the warning track, The Captain should NEVER be asked to tag up and try to score.  He’s faster than Frank Thomas, but not much.

It was great to see the Jays’ big rally in the 7th inning, they did it with walks and two big hits, the two-run doubles by Barajas and David Eckstein.  Good for both of them for really starting to hit.  For Barajas, it’s the carryover from a terrific May in which he hit .370.  He’s off to a nice little .375 start in June and he’s making a very, very strong case for a greater share of the playing time when Gregg Zaun comes back.  Be forewarned, though – Barajas is 32 years old, and he’s never once in his career even hit .260 over a full season.  And outside of last year’s injury-ravaged campaign, his high-water obp is .306.  Don’t expect this to continue, but he’ll be ridden hard as long as it lasts.  I still like Gregg Zaun better overall, especially as a defender.  Barajas doesn’t get down on balls in the dirt nearly as well, not even close.

As for Eckstein, he has seriously turned it up since coming back from the disabled list, hitting .429/.538/.571.  He’s actually hitting hard line drives, too, like the one that got down the line in the 7th tonight.  The guy can hit, the .285 average over almost 4 000 at-bats says as much, we just didn’t see much of it before he got hurt.

The Blue Jays have scored 36 runs in their past five games, including a 9, a 10 and a 12.  That’s way more than this offense needs to do to win on a consistent basis, but it’s nice to see that they’ve got it in them, I know there were plenty who doubted they’d ever score more than seven in a game.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, provided by audio editor Eric Prime, who requested a shout out:

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Comments are encouraged, as always, and remember – next time, it’s Wednesdays with J.P.!

UPDATE – 8:55 PM Eastern

Here’s the corrected edition of The JaysTalk from Sunday:

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Also, for more 24/7 JaysTalk, check me out on The Grill Room tonight at 11:00 pm Eastern, with Warren Sawkiw and Steve Sandor.

12:12 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays just can’t seem to win in June!

For the first time this season, B.J. Ryan blew a save, and since the Jays have lost two games in a row, out come all the Rios haters and bunting lovers. You could set your watch by it, if watches were set by losses in baseball games, or some such.

A.J. Burnett was terrific yesterday, throwing arguably his best game of the season. He took a two-hitter into the 8th inning and allowed only one baserunner with two outs over his entire outing, avoiding the two-quick-outs-then-blow-up that many of his detractors have gotten on him for (because they believe it happens all the time). The one mistake he made was taken out of the yard by Sean Rodriguez for a two-run homer. A two-run shot, by the way, because David Eckstein’s dive on a Brandon Wood grounder came up just short, with the ball hitting the edge of his glove. It was a very nice try, but a play that a better shortstop makes.

Burnett’s best game of the year, and wonder of wonders, he didn’t come out of it with a win. He handed a one-run lead to a closer who hadn’t blown a save yet this season, and B.J. Ryan picked that game to be unable to hold a lead. Somehow, there will be people out there who believe that this loss happened because “A.J. Burnett is a .500 pitcher.”

In the wake of the way the Jays lost the game, and the Alex Rios double-play ball in the top of the 9th to snuff out a potential rally for some insurance runs, the fact that Burnett pitched so well won’t get enough attention, so I want to draw some to it. I also want to, once and for all, obliterate the myth of “A.J. Burnett, .500 pitcher”.

Now, anyone who has read or listened to me knows that I believe that a pitcher’s winning percentage is one of the worst ways, if not the absolute worst, to assess that pitcher’s effectiveness. Yesterday’s game points that out beautifully, as does Rich Harden’s game against the Jays on Wednesday (7 IP, 1 run on 5 hits, no walks, no decision), Shaun Marcum’s against the Indians in Cleveland (8 IP, no runs on two hits, no walks, no decision), I could go on and on, there are literally thousands upon thousands of examples. But a lot of people can’t get past it – Burnett is 74-71 in his career, and therefore a mediocre pitcher at best.

It’s such a load of crap, but don’t just take my word for it. Here’s some TRUTH coming your way. This is Burnett’s 11th season in the major leagues. Over that time, he’s played for the Marlins and Blue Jays, which have combined to go 756-760, a .499 winning percentage. So, over the course of his career, Burnett has a BETTER winning percentage (.510), though just slightly better, than the teams for which he has played, His teams win MORE OFTEN when he pitches than when he doesn’t.

But wait, Burnett has been hurt a lot over the course of his career, maybe that will skew the numbers. Let’s see. It doesn’t change his record, which remains 74-71, .510, but what about his teams’? When Burnett has been on the active roster, his teams’ overall record is 452-475, .488. That’s not too much of a difference from the record whether he’s on the disabled list or not, but A.J.’s winning percentage is that much better than his teams’ overall winning percentage when he’s healthy.

Yes, A.J. Burnett is a .500 pitcher (.510 actually, but whatever), but even though winning percentages are pretty much useless, if you MUST consider them, consider that A.J. Burnett is a .500 pitcher who has pitched his entire career for teams that have averaged out to be under .500, which is an accomplishment, is it not?

Back to yesterday’s game. B.J. Ryan blew the save, and that’s going to happen. In his dominant debut season with the Jays, 2006, he blew four saves. The year before, his breakout season with Baltimore, he blew five. You never know when they’re going to happen, but you know they’re not going to happen often. If Ryan has the ball in his hands with the lead in the ninth inning or later, the Blue Jays have done enough to win. Could they have done more? Sure, but that has been the case pretty much every game this year. As I mentioned in the comments section, had the Jays won every game that the fans believe they “should have won” this season, they’d be 56-3 – which is just a tad unrealistic.

So, what could they have done better? Well, Shannon Stewart could have caught Vladimir Guerrero’s fly ball that led off the 9th, for one. He didn’t get the best jump on the ball, and John Gibbons said after the game that he thought Stewart either hesitated or lost it in the sun. After that play, Torii Hunter smacked a line single to right,with Vladdy going first to third. Casey Kotchman followed with a grounder to first, and with the infield in, Lyle Overbay came home. Guerrero got himself hung up between third and home, but made the right play to almost stop, which made Rod Barajas have to chase him back to third, giving time for Hunter to move into the bag and Kotchman to get to second. The Jays almost had Hunter diving back into third when The Captain faked to second, but it looked to me like Hunter did have his hand on the bag as Barajas tagged his foot, Kelly Gruber-style, which is what the umpire saw.

With runners on second and third, Mike Napoli was intentionally walked to load the bases, which was absolutely the right move. Napoli is the Angels’ home run leader, and a lefty-masher, and you need to set up the force at the plate in that situation. Ryan then struck out pinch-hitter Juan Rivera before hitting Howie Kendrick in the hand/wrist/knob of the bat to force in the tying run. Maicer Izturis flared a single to right on the next pitch to win it.

Two situations where the Jays could have added on to their lead stood out as well, stranding a leadoff double in the 6th and Rios’ double-play ball in the 9th.

When Wilkerson hit that double in the 6th inning, I thought it might be another one of those times where he gets his 1-for-4 but makes it count by scoring a big run, but it wasn’t to be. After a Kevin Mench grounder got him over, Stewart struck out (pinch-hitting for Joe Inglett), then David Eckstein hit a routine fly to left.

What was Stewart doing on the bench, by the way? I know it was the last game of a west coast trip, and the Jays hadn’t had a day off in a while, but I found the decision to sit both Stewart and Matt Stairs curious, especially with Aaron Hill already out of the line-up dealing with his concussion. I understand the desire to get an extra left-handed bat in there with Inglett (even though he has been exposed, hitting just .200/.259/.360 in May), but why put Kevin Mench in over Stewart, who had been hitting so well lately?

Maybe Stairs needed a day off, what with going just 3-for-17 since coming back from the sore neck he’d suffered through last week, but I don’t get the decision to go with Mench over Stewart. Still, that’s a pretty minor thing.

Alex Rios grounding into that double play in the 9th inning wasn’t such a minor thing. Over the last 13 games, Rios is hitting .291, so he’s no longer in the throes of that brutal slump. But with the return of his batting average hasn’t come any sort of power infusion – 13 of his 16 hits over that span are singles, the other three doubles, for a .345 slugging percentage. That’s not the bat you want in the three-hole, at least not until the power comes back. I think that Lyle Overbay should be the one swinging up there for the time being, in front of Scott Rolen and Stairs, with Rios getting bumped down to 6th. That might be a wake-up call for Alex, as well, who we haven’t exactly seen be a bastion of all-out hustle. Every time Rios hits a ground ball, or a routine fly, he seems to take an extra second or two to release his frustration before starting his trek down to first base, and that has to stop. I’m not sure he could have beaten out that double play ball in the 9th had he been moving from the get-go, but I’d like to have been able to see what would have happened. What I am sure about, though, is that he shouldn’t have been bunting. You don’t bunt your 3-4-5 hitters, almost ever, and certainly not when you have the lead in the 9th inning.

We’ll get back to the regulation-type JaysTalk tomorrow night, after the Doc vs. Joba conflagration at Yankee Stadium. I’m looking forward to it, it should be a great pitching match-up for five innings!

Comments are encouraged, as always, though I don’t get why some people throw in 3-6 comments in a row sometimes. Oh, well. Let’s keep The JaysTalk going 24/7!

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1:38 AM Eastern

No, it’s not because the esteemed Marvin Lee Aday paid a visit to the broadcast booth a few years back – one of the greatest moments of my broadcasting career was actually referring to him on the air as “Mr. Loaf” – but because two out of three is what the Blue Jays managed to do for the entirety of the month of May.

The extra-inning loss tonight wound up the season’s second month with the Jays going 20-10, a phenomenal mark that translates over 162 games to 108 wins.  That’s 1986 Mets good.  And, of course, since baseball is life and life is baseball and the circle of life is everlasting and unbreakable and all that stuff, the common thread that runs between the ’86 Mets and the ’08 Blue Jays?  Why, none other than John Michael Gibbons, of course.

This is not to say that I believe the Jays will win 108 games this season, they’d have to go 77-27 the rest of the way, and that’s not going to happen.  But May was a great month, and a 16-10 June would be terrific, although they do hook up with Baltimore, Seattle, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati a combined 16 times in the month.  Of course, April looked as though it had some soft touches in it, too.

On to tonight’s game, which was definitely a weird one, at the very least.  Shaun Marcum gave up 11 hits, for one thing, including a ball that bounced over Lyle Overbay’s head and another that hit second base and kicked off into short right-centre.  Twice after the Jays took a one-run lead, Marcum gave it right back, which isn’t something we’re used to seeing.  And both times he gave back the run right away:  A leadoff homer by Torii Hunter in the 4th, and leadoff back-to-back doubles by Reggie Willits (the bounce over Overbay’s head) and Howie Kendrick.

The Jays’ offense was nowhere to be found after scoring 22 runs in the last two games, which is going to happen.  They had two really good chances to open things up, though.  In the 5th, a rare baserunning error by David Eckstein snuffed a potential rally.  He wandered too far off first on a little looper by Shannon Stewart that was caught easily by Kendrick, and was meatcake trying to get back to first.  In the 8th, Eckstein made up for it with a leadoff double down the line, but with the top of the line-up coming up, they couldn’t move him even 90 feet, let alone 180.

In the bottom of the 9th, the umpiring crew did something you’ll never see in the bottom of the 9th at Yankee Stadium – they called a runner out for being inside the baseline on the way to first on a bunt.  Reggie Willits dropped it down with a runner on first and nobody out (Robb Quinlan had hit a little looper to left for the first hit the Jays’ bullpen had allowed on this road trip).  Willits was running on the grass, well inside the line, and The Captain didn’t even bother trying to throw to first, he just threw the ball right at the runner, as he should. Willits was called out, a very ballsy call by home plate ump Hunter Wendelstedt.  It would be great to see stuff like that happen more often.

So emboldened, the Jays got out of the inning, Armando Benitez coming in to pop up Vladdy Guerrero to end it, and then went 1-2-3 in the top of the 10th.

In the bottom of the 10th, Gibbons made a couple of moves that got the second-guessers out.  He yanked Benitez after Nando got Hunter on a weak grounder, with a lefty then a switch-hitter coming up.  I didn’t mind that move, since Benitez really hasn’t retired a left-handed hitter since 2004, but I can see the side of the people who think that he should have been allowed to at least put a runner on before being asked to leave.  Casey Kotchman isn’t a huge threat to go deep, even though he has as many homers as the Jays’ team leader, Matt Stairs.

With the lefties looming, though, the call went to the ‘pen for Brian Tallet.  This was the surprise to me, because I expected to see Jesse Carlson.  I know Carlson was up earlier in the game, and maybe he had some trouble getting loose and was therefore unavailable, but if that’s not the case, I don’t know why he wasn’t the guy.  His emergence has been one of the great stories of the season, and he’s pitched well in very high-leverage situations ever since he got here.  No knock on Tallet, it’s just that Carlson has been better.

Tallet gave up a looper to centre for a single, then threw away a Maicer Izturis bunt to make it runners on second and third and one out, which meant the Jays pretty much needed a miracle to get it to the 11th.  They didn’t get it, as after an intentional walk to Jeff Mathis (who, I think, was 4-for-his-last-51, but you still have to put him on there, which sucks), Juan Rivera came off the bench to line a game-winning single to right-centre off Jason Frasor.  Don’t despair – it was the first run a Blue Jay reliever had allowed since May 18th, a total of 22 innings.

Kudos to Rod Barajas – The Captain continues to swing it well, homering off the top of the wall to give the Jays a short-lived lead in the 7th.  He hit .370 in May after a .189 April, well done.

A big hand as well for the Best Blue Jay Ever.  Scott Rolen made an amazing diving stab of a hot shot by Hunter in the 7th, then threw Torii out from one knee to end the inning, and this with the go-ahead run at third base.

Post-midnight editions of The JaysTalk are always fun and exciting, and this one even had an appearance by Neil!  Amazingly, he said that he has admitted his mistakes here on the blog, though anyone who has read it knows that’s just not true.  You can hear the whole show right here:

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Sunday, we’re on at 3:00 pm Eastern for the series finale, and at 7:05 PM Eastern (assuming the Jays game doesn’t go long), it’ll be our first-year player draft edition of The Blue Jays This Week, featuring Jays’ scouting director Jon Lalonde, who didn’t say the Jays would take B.C.’s Brett Lawrie with their first pick, but didn’t say they wouldn’t.  We’ll also hear from some former first-rounders, including Gabe Gross, Dustin McGowan and John Gibbons.

Keep those comments coming, to paraphrase Stormy Normie, The 24/7 JaysTalk rules!