12:07 AM Eastern

It looked for a while as though we might have a repeat of the 14-1 shellacking that the Jays laid on the Reds a couple of weeks ago, with A.J. Burnett getting a big lead early and coasting to a win, save for a minor second-inning blip.

This time, Burnett was again staked to a big lead, as his teammates took advantage of some horrendous Baltimore defense, but this time he almost gave it all back – the Jays’ 7-run 4th just barely outdid the Orioles’ 6-run 6th.

No doubt it’s a performance that will have many of you calling for Burnett’s immediate dismissal, for anything the Jays can get (some already have), but that would be ridiculous, and I’m sure most of you fine readers are aware of that.  Yeah, he had a horrible inning tonight, but that did nothing to lower his value on the trade market.  Just like David Eckstein sitting behind Marco Scutaro for three weeks has done nothing to lower his value on the trade market.

Burnett is the most-coveted starting pitcher on the trade market right now, and the Blue Jays won’t deal him for a bag of balls, or a grade C prospect, just to run him out of town.  He’s probably here for another two or three starts – maybe not, but probably – so enjoy the roller coaster ride until then.

The greater concern for the Jays, of course, is the health of Dustin McGowan, who was placed on the disabled list today with a tear in the “rotator cuff area” of his right shoulder, according to J.P. Ricciardi on tonight’s post-game.  They don’t yet know the extent of it, or whether it will require season-ending surgery, but McGowan is going to be seen by Dr. Timothy Kremchek, who performed B.J. Ryan’s Tommy John surgery last year, once the shoulder calms down.

Without McGowan, the Jays have shuffled their rotation.  John Parrish will get the finale against the O’s and Roy Halladay will be bumped to Friday’s opener against the Yankees.  It’s a move made, they say, to get a leg up on New York, but the truth is they didn’t want to face the Yankees starting Parrish, Jesse Litsch and Brian Tallet in three games, and I can’t blame them.

If McGowan’s injury is a long-term one, we’ll likely see David Purcey up here after the all-star break, though Cito Gaston said that Tallet was given the start because he earned it, and he’d like to see him make more than one.  There’s a chance that the Jays’ second-half rotation will be Halladay, Litsch, Parrish, Purcey and Tallet – if Burnett gets dealt and Marcum isn’t quite ready to come back.  J.P. Ricciardi said that Marcum is still on track to be in the rotation out of the break, but Cito didn’t sound as confident.

Here’s tonight’s edition of Wednesdays with J.P.:

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One thing I have to say, and I said it on the show, is that the reason that this team is disappointing so many people is because it was expected to be good.  If you think that this is just a collection of below-average, aging, mostly useless hitters, then you have no right to be disappointed by the fact that they’re currently 44-47.  You should have been expecting that, or worse.  But I know I didn’t hear any callers in the off-season and the spring saying that they thought this was a last-place team.

There are still 71 games left in the season – 1989 update, they were 44-47 after 91 games that year, too.  I don’t understand why so many of you so desperately want me to say the season is over.  It’s clearly not.   I’ve said many times that it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult for them to make the playoffs.

Comments are encouraged, but not those kinds of comments.

1:03 AM Eastern

Well, there’s a first time for everything, and tonight was just that on a couple of levels.  First, the Blue Jays got themselves a walk-off win – first time since last September.  Second, the Jays trailed by four runs in a game and came back to win – first time in 13 months (last was June 5, 2007 against the then-Devil Rays, that six-run bottom of the ninth, remember?).  Third the Jays won a game that they trailed after six innings.  OK, that wasn’t the first time this season, but they’d only done it once before, which is nuts.

This was a good win for the Jays, regardless of the fact that the winning run was handed to them by a pair of Baltimore errors in the bottom of the 9th (the first error wasn’t a big issue – Rios would have scored from second on the Bynum boot just as easily).  They were down a bunch early, lost their starter four innings in, and rallied with a HUGE hit with the bases loaded and two out, a situation in which we have seen the Jays go wanting time after time after time this season.  Alex Rios provided the pop – a three-run triple in the bottom of the 7th, a 3-2 pitch drilled into the gap in left-centre.  Vernon Wells followed with a grounder into the 5-6 hole that Brandon Fahey dove for and smothered, but there was no chance for him to throw Wells out.  Never mind bases loaded and two out – how many times have we seen them fail three times with the bases loaded and nobody out?

The Dome felt just as dead going into the bottom of the 7th as it had in any other game in which the Jays were trailing this season, and the Jays looked just as flat and “disinterested.”  They look that way, and it feels that way, when a team isn’t hitting.  This time, they got up off the mat and won a ballgame.  It was kind of interesting, though, how loud the sparse crowd was when good things happened.  The announced attendance was just over 23,000, but at game time it looked like there were easily fewer than 15,000 people in the building.  But when Wells scored Joe Inglett with the two-out single in the 1st to tie the game, they were pretty loud, and when Rios hit his triple, it was as loud as I’ve heard it in this place in a long time, including the Cubs series when it was almost full.  Good for the leather-lungs, the real fans who come out thick or thin.

I heard one loud dude from the outfield seats, I think in the 3rd inning when the O’s scored a pair to go up 3-1.  I think he said something like, “this is incredibly dissatisfying.”  I enjoyed that quite a bit.

It’s pretty ironic that the Jays would win a ballgame in this fashion today, because today was the day that both Cito Gaston and J.P. Ricciardi went as far as they ever have in saying that they don’t think this team is going to succeed this season.  And by succeed, I mean make the playoffs.  Did they actually come out and say “we’re done, it’s not going to happen”?  No.  But……….

In his pre-game scrum, Gaston talked about the upcoming schedule, how the Jays have to face the Orioles and Yankees, then go to Tampa, hit Texas and play a couple of series against the Red Sox in the upcoming weeks.  He said it was a particularly daunting stretch, and while they could use it to gain some ground against division opponents, it’d be tough.  He added that turning the hitters around could take weeks or months.  I definitely walked away from that thinking a white flag was waving.

Ricciardi was even clearer in his statement.  When talking about the fact that he expects that the team can play better he said, “Now does that mean we’re going to be a playoff team? No, chances are probably not good that way.”  The G.M. added that he’d be “foolish not to listen and be open-minded” to offers on players who don’t fit the long-term plan, or who aren’t going to be in Toronto long-term (like Burnett, Eckstein and Zaun, and maybe Stairs for example).

J.P. also mentioned that Travis Snider and J.P. Arencibia could very well be September call-ups this season.  He went on to say that he’d like to see David Purcey get a long look at this level, as opposed to the pair of one-offs that he’s had – though I assume he meant in place of a traded A.J. Burnett, not an injured Dustin McGowan.

McGowan will have an MRI done on his sore right shoulder Wednesday morning.  I can’t imagine that he’ll be able to make his next scheduled start, Sunday against the Yankees, no matter what they find.  So it certainly appears that will be Purcey’s day.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk.  A solid night, save for the one guy who thought he trapped me in a contradiction.  What a waste of a good 27 seconds that was.  Enjoy:

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Tomorrow – Wednesdays with J.P.!  He told me today that last week, his son’s Little League game was moved and pushed back two hours, which is why he couldn’t make it.  He’ll be here tomorrow, though.

Comments are encouraged, as always, and I appreciate that the amount of pure hate has dropped off lately, save for Bruno.  But there’s always an outlier, right?

8:00 PM Eastern

Fire the manager and nothing changes. The Blue Jays seem to be right back in their early-June doldrums, having gone out west and dropped four of six. They only managed even a semblance of offense in two of the six games, and even with putting up a six (in a loss) and a seven (in a win), still scored just 20 runs on the trip. They’re coming home to wrap up the unofficial first half (which will be, officially, the first 57.4%) with three each against the Orioles and the Yankees. That kicks off a stretch of 13 straight games in the A.L. East, and 16 of 19. Should be fun.

I can’t write this every day, I don’t think, but it continues to astound and baffle me that the Jays are playing so badly. Today, the Angels’ better batting average with runners in scoring position was pointed out (they’re pasting the Jays in that category, .274 to .238). That’s utterly irrelevant, though, since the teams have basically scored the same number of runs. The fact that the Angels hit better with runners in scoring position hasn’t translated into them scoring more runs, which is the goal. What it does illustrate, though, is how much better the Blue Jays should be, since they’ve had almost 100 more at-bats with RISP than the Angels have.

It is amazing how futile they have been in the games they’ve lost, relative to the production that they’ve had in the games they’ve won, but is that really so unusual? I might take on a bit of a research project on the off-day (though I’m not even sure where to start looking) to try to find out how much better the average team hits in a win than it does in a loss. I would expect there to be a pretty large disparity in the numbers.

The frustration of the fans is readily apparent, both here in the comments section and on The JaysTalk – but it’s mind-bottling to hear things like “this team is going to be 4-5 games under .500 for the foreseeable future”, “they couldn’t hit last year and they can’t hit this year, so why are we surprised?” This is a team that is coming off consecutive winning seasons, and even though they were obliterated by injury last year, they still wound up with 83 wins, with an offense that was almost as bad. There’s no reason to make those sorts of leaps. It’s not an awful team, it’s not a lost cause, it’s not the worst team in the history of anything ever – it’s a team that’s maddeningly frustrating, causing fans to tear their hair out on a regular basis, and has lost five more games than it has won.

Today, they did nothing against Jon Garland, who has been a thorn in the Jays’ collective side since his career began with the White Sox in 2000 (11 wins in 16 starts), though four of their six hits were doubles, which was nice. Only one of those doubles came with a man on, though, and Vernon Wells got thrown out at the plate on Lyle Overbay’s into the right-field corner with two out in the 4th.

Nice to see The Captain come through and prevent the shutout – he homered in the 5th to snap a personal 0-for-17. Not nice to see Adam Lind get turned around on a Howie Kendrick liner in the 6th, playing a fly out into a double. Even not nicer to see Alex Rios have an on-field brain cramp in the 9th. Not that it mattered in a 7-1 game, but to get doubled off second on a line drive to left field is inexcusable. We discussed Rios on The JaysTalk, and I’m not sure what the deal is with him. Even if he is, as some fans suggest, a guy who just doesn’t care, he’s most certainly not a guy who wants to embarrass himself on the field in front of tens of thousands of people (plus the TV audience, and highlight shows and whatnot). Is it simply a lack of focus, or is he so caught up in his hitting slump that he’s taking his at-bats out to the basepaths with him as opposed to just onto the field for defense?

Roy Halladay is the only Jay going to the All-Star game, and couldn’t be more deserving. I’ve referred to the man as a “monster” in the past, and questioned whether he’s actually human or if he is, in fact, a robot, and I do that with the utmost respect. I know Cliff Lee is scheduled to start, I’m hoping that Halladay gets in next so people can see him pitch before they have to go to bed.

It’s a shame that Shaun Marcum wasn’t named to the team. It wouldn’t have cost them anything, since he’s hurt and wouldn’t be able to pitch anyway, but he leads the league in opponents’ batting average (.198), has a WHIP of 1.00, good for 2nd, and is 4th in the AL with a 2.65 ERA. Justin Duchscherer has very similar numbers to Marcum, except that he has 9 wins to Marcum’s 5. How sad is it that the Jays’ brutal offense is what’s kept Shaun Marcum from a spot on the all-star team?

It seems as though C.C. Sabathia has been traded to the Brewers, so forget about all the Matt LaPorta stuff on The JaysTalk, which is right here for your listening pleasure:

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It’s now A.J. Burnett and Erik Bedard who are the big stars on the trading block among starting pitchers, and the Jays have the advantage there because the Mariners seem determined to get close to what they gave up just a few months back to get Bedard. The Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Rays, Red Sox and maybe Rangers will be among the suitors. It’ll be interesting to see if the C.C. deal opens those floodgates a little bit.

By the way – softball update. It was a gorgeous day, but less-than-pleasant results as we got swept in our double-dip 13-12 and 15-4. We were really spent by the second game, and we’re really old, so that didn’t help. We played both games without our regular pitcher, regular back-up pitcher and regular third baseman (who is one of our best players). I had a solid first game at the plate, going 2-for-3 with a walk, and a poor nightcap, going 1-for-3, but probably played my best defensive games of the season. An error-free pair of games, which I can’t remember doing in a long, long time, and pressed into action in the outfield for a couple of innings in the second game, I managed to pick up a pair of outfield assists, throwing out a guy tagging from first on a line drive that took me towards the line in right (no idea what the guy was thinking), and throwing out a different guy at the plate trying to score on a single to left. Fun day, but sadly I don’t get to play again for three weeks because of, you know, work and stuff.

Comments are encouraged – even with the off-day, I’ll check in once or twice!

1:12 AM Eastern

Roy Halladay vs. John Lackey and you get a 7-5 game?  That was as Joaquin Andujar as it gets, but that’s why they call it baseball.

The Blue Jays were helped out by the four Angel errors, no question (though they may have scored six of their runs regardless), but they also did some good work, with their two hits with RISP resulting in four RBIs.  Alex Rios followed his two-hit night Friday with a three-hit effort,  stealing three bases for good measure, and one of the hits was a two-run single with the bases loaded.  Vernon Wells moved into sole possession of the club lead with his 9th homer.  Terrible, I know.  The Jays are the only team in the American League without a double-digit home run man, but there are two teams in the senior circuit in that company, at least.  Hey, the Nationals don’t even have a guy with NINE homers – how pathetic is that, right?  Right?

We’re so used to seeing marvelosity from Roy Halladay that we wonder what’s wrong with him when he doesn’t dominate, but he was at his best again today.  I hesitate to say he even made one mistake, since the pitch that Vladimir Guerrero hit for a two-run homer was at about mid-calf, if not lower.  If you throw out the start after Halladay got hit in the temple by a line drive (and came back to pitch on his REGULAR FREAKIN’ DAY – the man is an animal), Doc has allowed two runs on 16 hits over his last 23 innings, walking three and striking out 20.  Solid.

Yes, it was a nervous 9th for B.J. Ryan, and had Mike Napoli not hit into a double play, the game may well have been in serious jeopardy, but don’t forget that it was a “get-work-in-a-non-save-situation” outing (which shouldn’t matter, but does), and he hadn’t pitched in nearly a week.  If he gets another shot tomorrow, it should be a lot cleaner.

About the line-up, it was good to see Marco Scutaro moved out of the lead-off spot.  I don’t really understand why Cito is so enamoured with Scutaro.  Maybe it’s because he’s so not-enamoured with David Eckstein and because John McDonald made such a poor first impression on Cito, making that 12th-inning error in Gaston’s re-debut.

Since Cito took over, Scutaro has hit .296/.356/.333.  Not bad, but Eckstein’s been better.  Of course, if you take away that one big game against the Reds (as I’m a fan of doing), he’s hitting .250/.308/.292, which is not good at all. Say what you will about me ignoring x number of plate appearances (6/54, or 11%) – he’s been terrible outside of one game, that’s unassailable, and shouldn’t be hitting at the top of the line-up.

Here’s tonight’s The LateNight JaysTalk – the final edition of 2008, since there are no more night games out west for the ballclub.  The last three callers, I believe, certainly lived up to the late-nightness:

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Sunday night, make sure you tune in to The Blue Jays This Week, more than likely coming up immediately after the game on this very website and most Fan Radio Network stations.  If the game ends early, we start at 7:05 Eastern, and we may cut down The JaysTalk to make sure we get to it.

Featured on this week’s program will be young second baseman Scott Campbell of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Jays’ AA affiliate.  I did the interview tonight, and he was terrific to which to talk.  We talked about him and we talked about his big-shot teammates Brett Cecil , Travis Snider, J.P Arencibia and Brian Jeroloman.  You’ll also hear Ken Griffey, Jr. answer ten questions.

Comments are encouraged, as always, but I’m not sure how many I’ll be able to get to before the Litsch-Garland match-up because the grass is green, the sky will be blue, and my old-man softball team is going to play two tomorrow.  So it’s gonna be wake up, go play, then high-tail it to work.

12:47 AM Eastern

Sorry, that’s the best I could come up with.  The Blue Jays didn’t really do anything worth mentioning in their series opener in Anaheim.  In a season of dog’s breakfasts, they served up a huge helping of Alpo, sprinkled on some kibbles, a few bits, and then dropped a bunch of whatever the heck comes in those giant green paper bags that used to be one of our sponsors back in the Hardware City Rock Cats days (even though that was only contra to feed the analyst’s seeing-eye dog).

Tonight, the Jays didn’t hit, they didn’t pitch and they didn’t play defense.  It was a perfectly combined evening of awflability.

The Torii (former Rock Cat) Hunter homer in the second that just got out the other way -gonna happen.  You can’t get upset with A.J. Burnett about that.  Even the error by Joe Inglett, worrying about trying to turn a double play without bothering to make sure of the first out, these things happen, and Howie Kendrick (a phenomenal hitter, by the way) laced one just inside the line the other way to score that gift run, but Burnett came back and got out of the second and third, none out.

By the time the next runs scored, it was pretty apparent that the Jays weren’t going to do anything offensively.  It’s sad that even I would think that, but they looked limp the whole night, and five innings in they’d hit, what, four balls hard?

Things fell apart in the bottom of the 6th, when Rios broke in on Vladimir Guerrero’s fly ball, then glided back and had it go off the tip of his glove.  It was scored a double, but please – that ball has got to be caught, especially by someone who is supposed to be a superior defensive outfielder.  Hunter followed with a grounder to Marco Scutaro’s left, and the Jays’ shortstop (soon to be one of two?) first booted it, then kicked it into right-centre.  The floodgates were open, and the Jays just couldn’t shut them.

Burnett wound up allowing six runs (five earned) over his last two innings of work, which will doubtless cause no end of wailing about him blowing the chance to be a Type A free agent, even though no one knows what the formula to determine that is.  I wouldn’t worry, though, it seems as though he’s going to finish this year somewhere else.

This team is becoming painful to watch, and the pitching isn’t even as awe-inspiring as it was a couple of weeks back, with Shaun Marcum still out at least another couple of weeks and Dustin McGowan doing his Jekyll-And-Hyde act, depending on which side of the border he’s pitching.  At least Roy Halladay is pitching Saturday.

Take some solace in this, Jays fans – the first-place team in the National League West is the 43-44 Arizona Diamondbacks.  The only possible explanation for what is happening to the Blue Jays is that the baseball world is somehow off its axis, and the D-Backs are just another indication of that.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The LateNight JaysTalk (only one more to go!):

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Comments are encouraged, as always.  Happy Weekending!

11:10 AM Eastern

I didn’t especially want to post this one, because we had an awful game – losing 21-8.  Just terrible.

Personally, I went 3-for-5 with three singles, but was just 1-for-3 before the game got away, so it was a pretty hollow three-hit night.  The defense was shoddy as well – at least it felt that way, with a pair of bad-hop grounders getting by me and a line drive that I just couldn’t get to up the middle.  I may or may not have made an error – there was a grounder to my backhand side that got through me but chances are the guy would have beaten it out anyway thanks to the downhill infield.

I did make a really nice catch on a line drive smoked to my right – used every ounce of my 5-inch vertical leap to snare it – and I moved to centre field  for the last inning and made a couple of nice plays, which was good.  Overall, though, a load of crap.  Redemption comes shortly, though – we have a doubleheader Sunday morning!

1:45 AM Eastern

The Jays were awful again, going without a hit from the 5th inning on against the team that was the worst team in baseball when the night began (but isn’t anymore – thanks, Padres!).  Dustin McGowan wasn’t terrible, but he gave up two ropes into the gap to Miguel Cairo!  With runners on!  That’s not supposed to happen, and when it does, you’re going to lose – especially when the team has fallen back into it’s flaccid offensive ways.

Say what you will about the Jays looking “better” or “more relaxed” or “having a better idea” under Cito Gaston, but though they put up a nine-spot against the Braves Saturday and scored six last night (though only scoring in two innings), in four of their last six games they have scored two runs or fewer.  They’re 7-for-their-last-48 (.146) with runners in scoring position, and that includes those two big games.

I hate to quote Glenn Frey, Solo Artist (unless we’re talking Smugglers’ Blues, now THAT was a hell of a tune), but “so much has happened/nothing has changed.”

The season, very obviously, remains still not over.  The 1989 team was also 41-45 after 86 games.  But with every passing day it gets harder and harder to watch.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The LateNight JaysTalk:

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There was no Wednesdays with J.P. tonight – we couldn’t get a hold of him before the game.  We’ll have him for you next Wednesday after the Jays’ game against Baltimore.

Comments are encouraged, but if you’re just going to spew hate at me, take your act somewhere else, please.  No one is making you read this, and if you don’t like it, you can easily find a ton of baseball information elsewhere on the internet, especially if you have a computer.  I’ve had to ban two commenters this week, it’s getting ridiculous.

There will be no post tomorrow, though I’ll check in once or twice to answer the comments – if you really want a softball update I’ll throw one on late Thursday night.

2:25 AM Eastern

At least the Jays waited until Canada Day was over (in the East, at least) to blow this one.

This was a game that the Jays shouldn’t have lost – and as pointed out on The LateNight JaysTalk, ANOTHER game that the Jays shouldn’t have lost.  Home or away, when you have a three-run lead on the worst team in baseball in the 7th inning, you win that game.

It’s tough to take any shots at the bullpen, since the relievers have been so good this year (almost as good as the starters), and I’m almost willing to forgive them their collective 4-17 record because that has more to do with the bats than anything else, but this one was tough.

The fact that the Jays don’t have a trustworthy right-handed relief pitcher bit them tonight.  Jesse Carlson was a great story earlier in the season, but he has come back down to Earth with a thud.  In his last 9 2/3 innings pitched, he’s allowed 19 baserunners and a slugging percentage over .500.  He was brought in to get a big out in the 6th, dealing with Ichiro Suzuki with two on and two out, and got the groundball to keep the game at 6-3, but there should have been a righty in there to face Adrian Beltre with two out in the 7th.  The problem is, there really isn’t one, other than Shawn Camp.  And Camp’s the guy who gave up the game-winning hit to a hitter who is WAY worse than Beltre – and hey, if you enjoy a good semantic debate, you’ll love the LateNight JaysTalk call about Willie Bloom!

Jason Frasor I like, but he spends a lot of time in the doghouse, regardless of who’s managing, and Brandon League has been up here for over a week but hasn’t gotten into a game yet.  That said, a one-run lead handed to Scott Downs and B.J. Ryan has tended to have been enough.  It didn’t get to Ryan this time, because Snakeface gave up a run for the first time since April.  He gets forgiven for that.  Tough to forgive him for walking left-handed hitting Raul Ibanez to lead off the bottom of the 9th, though.

On the positive side of the ledger – twice the Jays loaded the bases with nobody out, and twice they scored three runs!  Adam Lind continues to look very comfortable, contributing a pair of big two-out RBI hits.  And Lyle Overbay hit a textbook double play ball that went right through the wickets of Jose Lopez at second!  Maybe that worm is turning a bit.

I’m not going to pick on Vernon Wells for getting thrown out at third on what should have been an RBI single by Gregg Zaun in the 4th.  Wells turned his back and high-tailed it back to second base as soon as the liner was hit, expecting Yuniesky Betancourt to catch it.  Maybe he’s been watching too much of John McDonald.  Still, if the ball’s caught, Wells doesn’t get doubled up.  It didn’t, and he didn’t have a prayer of getting into third safely.

Still and all, despite the six runs (usually far more than enough for this team), they lost a game started by the Seattle bullpen, with six pitchers used and the M’s very close to being run out of rocks.  They were in serious trouble if this game had gone beyond nine (not that it should have even been an issue).  Very, very disappointing, and more than likely denying the Jays a shot at getting back to .500 during this road trip.  In order to do that now, they have to run the table at least to Sunday.

The caps the Jays wore tonight were interesting.  Blue, which is nice, since they’re the Blue Jays and all, and the Jays logo that appeared to be cut out of the Canadian flag.  Kinda cool, I think, but I’m still not sure.  It’s definitely a “third jersey” type of logo at best.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The LateNight JaysTalk:

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Remember, Wednesdays with J.P. goes early when the Jays are out west.  J.P. Ricciardi will be on with us before the network pre-game, starting at 8:30 pm Eastern on the Fan590 and this very website, if you’re not in radiic range.

Comments are encouraged, as always, the 24/7 JaysTalk is a wonderful thing!

2:10 AM Eastern

Short post today, because it’s really late and because what can you really say about this game?  Roy Halladay is awesome.  Plain and simple.  Just awesome.

He dominated the Mariners today, despite an exceedingly low BABIP (.154).  Sometimes, like Jair Jurrjens on Friday night, the pitcher is that good.  Weak ground balls and pop-ups, but some great defence when it was needed from all four of the infielders that finished the game (sorry, Eck).

Halladay was only in trouble once, when two soft liners fell in in left field with one out in the 7th, putting Mariners on first and third.  He got out of it by striking out rookie Jeff Clement looking for the THIRD time of the night (he was picked ahead of Troy Tulowitzki too, by the way), and then getting Kenji Johjima on a grounder.

Great move by Cito Gaston to put John McDonald in for defense to start the 8th inning, even with the shortstop spot due up second in the 9th.  McDonald made a terrific play on a bad hop grounder by Willie Bloomquist leading off the frame.  I’m not sure how much Eckstein’s errant throw on a routine grounder by Ichiro Suzuki in the 6th had to do with the early hook, but that error was particularly brutal.  As mentioned in yesterday’s comments section, there are no complaints about Eckstein’s bat right now, though.  Since coming back from the disabled list, he’s hitting .329/.440/.411.

Brad Wilkerson made a major baserunning error in the 9th, though it didn’t wind up costing the Jays anything.  He took off on McDonald’s fake-bunt-pull-back fly ball to left field, and was at second base when the ball was caught.  Even if Wilkerson was expecting McDonald to bunt, he’s got to pick that ball up and get back to first.

The Blue Jays finished June 10-16, basically the same as their 11-17 April.  They can’t afford another bad month if they want to get back into the race, very obviously.

It seems as though Cito Gaston is getting a lot of the credit for turning the team around (they’ve won six of eight) but take a look, not much has changed.  They had their little honeymoon, with the 14, seven and nine-run games in the space of a week, but in three of their last four games, the Jays have scored a grand total of three runs, despite winning two.  They’re 1-for-their-last-23 with runners in scoring position, although they’ve won both games.  You’re not going to lose when you don’t give up any runs, and I really don’t think that Gaston’s superiority over John Gibbons inspired Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett and friends to throw back-to-back shutouts.

Eventually, these bats will come around, and when they do – this team is going to be very, very good.  One hopes it doesn’t happen too late for it to matter.

Last thing before I go, since this is really starting to get to me.  With every win they get, the Tampa Bay Rays do not convince me that they’re better than I think they are.  Therefore, every time they win a game, please stop asking if I recognize their greatness.  I don’t think they’ll be there at the end.  And being in first place on July first is swell, but it doesn’t count.  The season is 162 games long – not 60, not 70, not 82, not 100.  Until a playoff spot can be clinched in July, I’m not changing my mind on the Rays.  And I’m not wrong, either, not until they’re a factor in the race late in the season.  Remember the Florida Marlins of Joe Girardi.  Not for real.  A good team, but not good enough, and yet on September 14th, 2005, they held the wild card.  They finished six games out.

Here’s this morning’s edition of the late-night JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Comments are encouraged, as always, and Happy 141st, Canada!