VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK!  DETAILS AND LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST!

12:45 AM Eastern

As the season’s final fortnight moves along, the injury news gets worse and worse for the Blue Jays.  It turns out Rod Barajas suffered a Grade 2 tear in his hamstring while pulling into third in Boston Saturday afternoon.  It’s the same thing that cost Vernon Wells a month in July, and interestingly enough, both of them hurt it running to third, and both of them stayed in the game and wound up scoring.

The Captain is done for at least a month, so it’ll be Gregg Zaun and Curtis Thigpen the rest of the way.

The Blue Jays continue to say that Scott Downs  is day-to-day with a re-occurence of the right ankle injury he suffered in Detroit in August – he allegedly aggravated it just prior to his faceplant in Boston Saturday night – but the odds are very much against him pitching again this season.  Jesse Carlson and Brandon League will take over his 8th inning duties.

The big news, though, concerns Shaun Marcum.  The Jays got the results of Marcum’s MRI today, and forwarded it to Dr. Tommy John himself, James Andrews, for a second opinion.  Even Marcum (he says) doesn’t know what the MRI showed, but we’ll all find out what Dr. Andrews has to say about it tomorrow.  It must be sad when just the mention of your name gives people chills.  I’m sure Andrews is a really nice guy, but nobody wants to go see him.  I’m not saying that Marcum will have to have ligament replacement surgery – I have no idea of knowing whether that’s true, though my sense is that it’s not unlikely – but if he does have to go under the knife for TJ, then we’ll see him again in Spring Training 2010, and what a shame that would be.

If Marcum is out, and at the moment it’s still a reasonably big if, then we may have seen next season’s number two pitcher throw six innings of four-hitter at the Orioles tonight, picking up his 12th win.  Many of you have said that you think Jesse Litsch is a lot more than a 4th or 5th starter, and we could be about to find out.  It’s possible that the starting rotation coming out of Spring Training 2009 will be Roy Halladay, Scott Downs, Litsch, David Purcey and Insert Name Here (my money’s on Carl Pavano – that’s a free agent pick-up I’d love to see the Jays make).  In my mind, that’s not very scary to the rest of the A.L. East.

In an effort not to get ahead of ourselves, I’ll get into this stuff a lot more tomorrow after we get the news on Marcum.  I’m really hoping it’s good news.  Even if he has to be shut down for 3-4 months, no big deal.  Heck, shut him down for six months and he’ll still be able to get back into the rotation in May, along with Dustin McGowan.

All we know right now is that either John Parrish or Scott Richmond is going to start for the Jays on Sunday.

Interestingly enough, the injured factored into the Jays’ comeback win tonight.  Zaun, pinch-hitting for Thigpen, drove in the tying and winning runs with his 6th-inning double, and Carlson took Downs’ spot beautifully, working a 1-2-3 8th through the heart of the O’s order to hand the lead to B.J. Ryan.

For some strange reason, Zaun tried to stretch his double into a triple, and was meatcake at third base, ending the inning.  I don’t know what got into him, maybe he was trying to show Cito Gaston something after Zaun was pinch-run for in the 6th inning last night, but as he neared second I could tell that he was thinking triple and all I could do was shake my head and smile.  After the game, he said he ran out of gas in a hurry, and figures now that his triples days are over – unless an outfielder falls down.

Ryan made things interesting again, though he wasn’t helped by a catcher’s interference on Zaun with runners at first and second and one out.  But he got out of it, as he has FAR more often than not this season, by retiring the two toughest hitters he had to face in the inning.  He popped up Melvin Mora, who is leading the A.L. in batting average and slugging percentage since the all-star break (I can’t believe it, either), and then got Brian Roberts to hit a slow roller to short.  Roberts was retired on a gorgeous play that featured John McDonald charging hard to grab it, then throwing a one-bouncer to first that Lyle Overbay deftly picked out of the dirt.  Ryan has converted 31 of 35 save opportunities, regardless of how nervous you’ve been watching him.

Jose Bautista had an up and down night in his second start at second base for the Jays.  He homered in the first inning – his 3rd as a Jay, 15th of the season – and he looked really good turning a 4-3 double play on Jay Payton to end the second.  Oscar Salazar had taken off from first on the hit-and-run, which drew Bautista over to take a throw, but Payton hit a grounder right to the bag.  Bautista made a nice acrobatic play to come across the bag and make the throw.  In the 5th, though, he couldn’t make the diving play on Alex Cintron’s ground single that plated the only Baltimore runs.  The ball was hit into the hole to Bautista’s left, and as he dove it either skipped under or over his glove and into right field.  Aaron Hill makes that play, and the Jays get out of the inning unscathed.  Joe Inglett and Marco Scutaro likely at least knock the ball down and keep it in the infield, so only one run scores, if they don’t make the play.  It was a tough play, but it was makeable.  The fact that Bautista didn’t make it shouldn’t be cause for alarm, though.  He is, after all, the Jays’ fourth-string second baseman.

Before I go, I just want to apologize to whoever was sitting in the 200-level beneath our broadcast position, if you were struck in the head by a flying dessert treat.  It might have been the funniest thing that has ever happened in the booth since I’ve been there.  Every once in a while, Bob Leyden (a fine floor director for the TV broadcasts – great guy) brings us a bag full of Rice Krispies Treats made by his lovely wife.  Told you he was a great guy.  Sometime in the middle of the game, I want to say the 5th or 6th inning, there were two left in the bag and between innings, Alan Ashby took one, and then flipped the bag to me so that I could throw down the last one.

The problem is, the fact that there was one square left in the bag made the thing react in flight like an Oopie (remember those?  The weighted beach balls that I think KFC used to give away?), and it sailed way past me and out into the crowd.  You may have caught us still laughing when we came back from the break.  We’re still wondering if the thing hit somebody, and better yet, if they ate it after it did!

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK – DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST

10:30 AM Eastern

After the Jays’ offense took a few days off, the bats returned with a vengeance last night, lighting up the Orioles for eight runs on 11 hits the final four at-bats of their biggest comeback win of the season.

But for the opener of Saturday’s double-dip in Boston, the Jays hadn’t really hit since they left Chicago last Thursday.  They had a five-run inning (only two earned) in the nightcap, and rallied for a pair off Jonathan Papelbon in the Doug Eddings-shortened 9th-inning comeback on Sunday but outside those two rallies, they’d only scored once in four of their last five games.

I don’t know if it was the smack in the face of the Orioles’ five-run outburst against David Purcey in the 5th, the fact that they were pretty much booed off the field after that half-inning or something else (likely something else), but the Jays set to pounding in the bottom of the 5th, and never stopped.  The first four hitters reached base, with the big blow a Scott Rolen triple that hit off the top of the wall in centrefield – it missed going out by inches.  Later in the frame, Alex Rios short-hopped the wall in left-centre for a two-run double to take Joe Inglett off the hook.  The pitch before, Inglett hadn’t seen the ball get away from O’s catcher Ramon Hernandez and failed to move up on the wild pitch, forcing Marco Scutaro to hold at first, as well.  Rios also homered leading off the 7th to put the Jays on top for the first time all night.

Travis Snider contributed, too, going 2-for-3 with a sac fly, driving in a pair including the winner in the 8th.  Both hits, as well as the sac fly, came with two strikes, and that’s something that’s not been unusual and has been very, very pleasant to see out of the 20 year-old phenom.   SAMPLE SIZE ALERT, but with two strikes, Snider is hitting .320/.357/.360 in his call-up.  He has 15 hits in the major leagues, and more than half of them have come with two strikes.  The slugging percentage is low, which likely means he’s aware enough to cut down his swing in order to sacrifice power for contact (though he still does strike out a lot) and to be more willing to go with the pitch in that situation, but seeing someone at that age with the confidence to hit with two strikes at the major-league level really, really stands out for me.

In case you haven’t noticed, Scott Rolen seems to be adjusting well to his new swing.  He doubled twice last night along with the triple, and is hitting .304/.365/.500 in the month of September while playing every day.  The home runs aren’t there, and they may well never come back, but if he can be a high-average doubles machine going forward, which he has been in the past, then the Jays will be very well-served.  Of course, he was looking pretty good in May and June as well.  I think he’s just going to wind up being someone about whose health fingers will have to be kept crossed.

And just because no one is going to give him credit – B.J. Ryan looked sensational last night in retiring the Orioles’ 3-4-5 hitters in order on nine pitches to pick up his 30th save of the season.

A lot of the talk this morning is about Paul Godfrey, J.P. Ricciardi and Cito Gaston.  Gaston said yesterday that he’s confident he’ll get his 2009 contract signed before the end of this homestand, Ricciardi said last night on The Wednesdays that he’s sure it’ll get done, but he’s in no rush, and Godfrey said that he won’t make up his mind about whether or not he wants to return until after the season.  He added that he’ll stick around until at least the Winter Meetings, because who wants to miss a trip to Vegas?  It probably has more to do with his contract not being up until the end of December, though.

Speaking of Las Vegas, that’s where the Jays’ AAA affiliate may wind up being next year.  Either there or Portland, Oregon, maybe Albuquerque.  I have a feeling they wind up back in Syracuse, though.  The Mets messed with everybody by stealing Buffalo.  The Jays thought they’d be there and Syracuse thought that the Mets would go with them, but no dice.  The Mets’ move to the Queen City means that the Jays, Nationals and Marlins are all in play for Syracuse, New Orleans and Vegas.  It would be most beneficial for the Jays if they could work something out with The ‘Cuse, because who needs a minor-league affiliate that’s a five-hour plane ride away?  Also, the Pacific Coast League is notoriously tough on pitchers, and the Jays have some pretty good ones at AAA or on their way there.

Here’s last night’s edition of Wednesday’s with J.P., for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s the post-J.P. short little edition of The JaysTalk, also for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK!!!  DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST!!!

11:30 PM Eastern

After a day off spent watching over 20 screaming seven year-old girls at The Billie’s fabulous birthday party (a bowling party yet!  I threw four strikes in five frames! The Billie got a dolphin Webkin, among other things!) it was great to head back to the ballpark for a nice, quiet evening.  Not too much going on down on the field to disturb me.

Those of you who are frequent listeners to my fine radio programme are aware that I’m a big fan of the three men to whom I lovingly refer as the degenerate gamblers.  “Inside The Lines” is one of my favourite shows on the Fan590.  All three of those guys would have told you to bet the house on the Orioles tonight.  The Jays were coming home off a road trip on which they played eight games in six days, playing a series against an also-ran for the first time in five weeks, had just (basically) been eliminated from playoff contention and were facing a rookie lefty.  Not too many reasons for the Jays NOT to come out flat, and they did.

This was one of those games that they just plain and simple weren’t going to win, even though they were never really out of it.  Chris Waters had them eating out of his left hand all night long.  This would be the same Chris Waters that, outside his first major-league start, had allowed 50 hits and 18 walks in 36 innings (a WHIP of  1.89, ERA of 7.00) covering seven starts.  But he had the Jays tied up in knots.  This facing-a-lefty thing is something the Jays are really going to have to address over the off-season.  They’re 17-23 this season against starting lefties, and they could really use a couple of lefty crushers – one to platoon with Lyle Overbay and another to DH, at the very least.

The bullpen was terrific again, with John Parrish giving up a solo shot to Luke Scott to lead off the fourth for the only blemish in six innings of ‘pen work.  We had a Brian Wolfe sighting as well, he worked the 6th and 7th, allowing a hit and a walk and striking out a pair in his first appearance since his call-up back on September 2nd.  I’d like to see him get a good shot to be part of the bullpen mix next season.  I really think that he got the shaft this year, but part of that was because the Jays wanted to see if he could be a viable candidate to start.  He’s proven amazingly proficient at getting right-handed hitters out in the big leagues.

The injury to Shaun Marcum is worrisome.  He said that he felt fine for the first two innings, then felt some numbness in his right pinky finger when throwing a couple of change-ups in the 3rd.  On The JaysTalk, I jumped to the worst-case scenario of some sort of neurological issue, and brought up guys like Jeremy Bonderman and Hank Blalock, who have had ribs removed to get rid of nerve impingements.  That might just have been my osteocartilaginous bar talking – Marcum’s case might not be similar at all.  He wants to make his last two starts this season, but I think the Jays would probably be better served shutting him down and making sure that he’s 100% going into Spring Training.  They’ll already be opening camp without A.J. Burnett and likely with both Dustin McGowan and Casey Janssen behind (if not well behind) the rest of the pitchers – why take a needless chance on Marcum, too?

I thought Jose Bautista did a fine job at second base tonight, in his first foray at the position in a Jays uniform.  He wasn’t seriously, seriously tested, but made a nice turn on a double play in the 6th, and made the right decision on a hit-and-run grounder hit to him in the 9th.  No biggie, it’s just good to see that he’s versatile enough to put over there in a pinch.

Travis Snider, who’s likely going to play every day from here on out, got the Jays’ only extra-base hit – a double into the gap in left-centre.  It was ANOTHER two-strike hit, after he’d extended the at-bat to an 8th pitch, and it was only his second hit against a lefty, though in only his 8th at-bat.  Snider had a bit of an adventure in the outfield, though.  He got turned around on a Brian Roberts fly ball over his head in the 3rd inning, though he almost recovered.  He didn’t look good diving for the ball at the end of his run, but it’s almost impossible to recover well enough at that point to make anything look good.  So far, his outfield play has been better than I thought it would be.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK – DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST

5:30 PM Eastern

Honestly, I’m not sure.  Has a team come back from 8 1/2 games down with 12 games left to make the playoffs?  I don’t think so, so we can no longer say “stranger things have happened” when talking about the Blue Jays’ playoff charge.  It’s not going to happen, but that’s OK.  It was always a long, long, longshot and the Jays weren’t able to keep their long winning streak going.

A 4-4 road trip (in six days) against two playoff teams is nothing about which to be ashamed, but it wasn’t good enough for the Jays because of the hole they dug for themselves by going 21-33 in April and June.  For the rest of the season, their record is  59-37, which translates to 100 wins over the course of an entire year, but those two months killed them.

That’s not to say, by the way, that the season was over in April, as some said, or even at the end of June.  That’s just ludicrous.  The Jays were 8 1/2 games out of the wild card on Canada Day, with 78 games to play.  That’s a LOT better than 6 1/2 back with 16 to play, as the Jays were when they started the four-gamer in Boston – and they had a shot then.

A.J. Burnett, Jesse Litsch and Roy Halladay each did an admirable job pitching on short rest to try to get the Jays back into it, but the bats just weren’t there in three of the four games.  Even with the lack of offense, the Jays still took a two-run lead into the 7th in the nightcap yesterday and were a terrible umpire’s call away from tying the game in the 9th today.  It’s awfully tough to win in Boston, even at the best of times, and the Jays came close to taking three of four at Fenway.

Almost isn’t good enough, though, and the Jays will have to take whatever satisfaction they can from being the only team in MLB to have had a winning record the last three seasons and not have made the playoffs.

It wasn’t just Doug Eddings’ awful, awful call on Lyle Overbay sliding into second in the ninth that got the Jays today, though.  It was also the back-to-back double play balls in the 7th that resulted in a grand total of one out, the missed gamble by Alex Rios on a sinking liner by David Ortiz in the 8th, and the grand total of three hits between Jose Bautista’s first-inning solo shot and Vernon Wells’ double leading off the 9th inning.

Of the 12 games remaining, nine of them come against teams that aren’t going to be in the playoffs, though the Jays have major incentive against the Yankees, leading them by just half a game for third in the East.  It’ll be interesting to see what Cito Gaston does in the six games against Baltimore – how much will we see guys like Curtis Thigpen and Scott Richmond?  Will we see Travis Snider and Adam Lind get some starts against lefties?  Will we see Brandon League get some 9th-inning action?  Will we see Kevin Mench and Brad Wilkerson anymore (there’s no reason to now)?

If the Jays can finish up 10-2, that’ll be 90 wins.  It’s a tall order, but it’s the next thing to shoot for.  We also get to see Halladay and A.J. Burnett twice more, and if they each win each of their two remaining starts, they’ll be 20-win teammates.  We get to see Vernon Wells try to hit three more home runs so the Jays can be spared the ignominy of having it be the first non-strike year since 1977 that the team hasn’t had a 20-homer man.  Small consolations, but something.

And of course, we get to keep voting for Tom Cheek through the month of September!

Make sure you tune into The Blue Jays This Week at 7:05 PM Eastern tonight on the FAN590 and right here on the website. You’ll hear from Joe Carter, and Marco Scutaro will answer 10 questions.  Next week, on the final TBJTW of the season, the Jays themselves will choose the club’s MVP, Cy Young winner, rookie of the year and most pleasant surprise of this season.  I’m thinking Jesse Carlson gets two of those awards, and I’m REALLY interested to see who the players pick as the club’s MVP.  Halladay?  Wells?  Rios?  Scutaro?

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure (man, a lot of people hate me):

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK – DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST!

1:35 AM Eastern

It was a roller-coaster day for Jays fans, with Travis Snider’s coming-out party in the opener and the old offense rearing its ugly head in the nightcap, and the upshot is that the Blue Jays really can’t afford more than one more loss the rest of the season, and it can’t be to Boston.

What the Jays have to hope for now is to begin a seven-game win streak with Roy Halladay in the finale in Boston, and for that to also begin a seven-game losing streak for the Red Sox.  Of course, the Jays and Sox will play four times in those seven games, and the other three have the Jays home to the pitiful Orioles and the Red Sox playing in Tampa Bay (well, not actually in the bay, though that would be really cool), where they’re 0-6 so far this season.

The opener was everything the Jays could have hoped for.  A.J. Burnett continued to be perfect both against the Red Sox (now 5-0 lifetime) and on three days’ rest (now 4-0 lifetime).  He was fantastic, taking a three-hit shutout into the 7th, when he struck out Scarborough’s George Kottaras (in his first big-league AB) but the ball got away from Rod Barajas, allowing the rookie to reach.  Burnett then got a double play grounder from Jacoby Ellsbury, but Joe Inglett couldn’t handle the throw.  Jesse Carlson came on to finish the inning and the unearned run scored, but that was it.

Offensively, aside from another edition of the baserunning follies in the 4th inning, the Jays were very good, especially Snider.  The 20 year-old went deep with two on in the 5th, then hit a ground-rule double to right-centre in the 6th to cash two more.  He tied the club record for rookies with five RBIs in the game (nine others have done so) and is the youngest Blue Jay ever to accomplish that feat.

Scott Rolen contributed a pair of hits and scored twice.  He’s really turned it on on this road trip.  Since starting that doubleheader in Chicago 0-for-5, he’s 7-for-19 with two doubles and a homer, hitting .368/.429/.632.  Maybe he’s not so done after all.

The nightcap was a whole ‘nother story.  Jesse Litsch had a shaky first inning, with one wild pitch scoring a pair of runs as Litsch and Gregg Zaun played Alphonse and Gaston trying to get the ball back and forth to each other, but after that Litsch settled down and the offense came to life with five runs in the second.  A Jed Lowrie error that loaded the bases with one out helped a lot, but it was followed by Travis Snider drawing a walk, then a two-run double by Joe Inglett, a Marco Scutaro sac fly and a bloop RBI single by Alex Rios.  Then it stopped.

After the second inning, the Blue Jays had three baserunners, on two ground-ball singles and an error, and all were erased by double-play grounders.  They hit THREE balls out of the infield over the last seven innings.  This offensive strategy didn’t really leave the pitching staff much room for error – and where have we heard that before?

The bullpen management was curious, to say the least.  Litsch was allowed to come out to start the 6th, which was fine, but the leash should have been as short as humanly possible, given that his pitch count was up and he was going on short rest for the first time in his career.  Instead, he was allowed to give up a double off the wall, then a four-pitch walk, then a soft line single which loaded the bases with nobody out.  All that before even a visit to the mound.  Jed Lowrie then took him to deep right for a sac fly, and that was it.

In came Jesse Carlson, who had thrown 12 pitches in the opener after not having pitched since Tuesday.  He was brought in to face the lefty Alex Cora, but got pinch-hitter Mike Lowell to line out softly to second and was yanked with Kevin Cash (!) coming up.  I didn’t get that at all.

I also didn’t get Brandon League only being allowed to face three hitters – he got Crisp on a second-pitch grounder to second to end the 6th, and was taken out for Downs with a runner on second and one out in the 7th, David Ortiz coming to the plate.  Now, I understand wanting to go with a lefty against Ortiz, especially when he’s the tying run, but I don’t get asking Downs to get five important outs when he’s been so shaky lately and Cito has said that he thinks his ankle might be bothering him and he might be tiring a bit.  And it had to be Downs until Ryan came out in the 9th, because Carlson and League were done.

So Downs came on and was shaky again, walking Ortiz, giving up the grounder to score one, and then after getting out of the 7th, allowing three hits in the 8th including the swinging bunt by Ellsbury on which Downs tripped and fell flat on his face on his way to try to get the ball.  That allowed the go-ahead run to score with two out, and sealed the Jays’ fate.

In his last six appearances, Downs has allowed five runs on nine hits and six walks, striking out only two, in  just six innings.  That’s a 7.50 ERA and 2.50 WHIP.  He’s also allowed ALL SIX of his inherited runners to score over that span.

For the first five months of the season, Downs was unquestionably the best thing going in the best bullpen in baseball.  Now he’s the worst they’ve got.  Something is wrong, and until he gets things straightened out he shouldn’t be used in high-leverage situations anymore, especially with the Jays in the position they’re in, unable to afford another loss.

The fact that he re-injured the right ankle he hurt in Detroit exactly a month ago may make it all academic, anyway.

Before I finish, I just have to mention the spit-eating grin that Bartolo Colon had on his face in the 5th inning, when an Alex Rios comebacker bounced directly into Colon’s glove while he had his back turned.  When Colon realized he had the ball, he was facing shortstop Alex Cora, and paused to give him a smile that said “dig the hell out of me” before turning to throw Rios out.  It was hilarious, and it was cool to see that Colon could appreciate the sheer absurdity of the play he made despite the fact that he was down three runs in the middle of the big game.

Since it was a doubleheader, we double your JaysTalkic pleasure!

Here’s the first:

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And here’s the second:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK – DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST!

12:10 AM Eastern

The Blue Jays had no answer for the knuckleballic stylings of Tim Wakefield in the opener of the SERIES TO DETERMINE THEIR FATE (not quite worthy of a tm) at Fenway Park, which made for a short night for them and a long night for their fans.

The Jays managed just three hits off Wakefield all night (and nothing off Manny Delcarmen in the 9th) – a two-out double by Kevin Mench in the second, a leadoff double by Scott Rolen in the third, and a two-out single by Lyle Overbay in the fourth.  None of them advanced their position once they reached base (except for Mench, who moved up 90 feet on a knuckleball that got past Kevin Cash).  The last 16 Jays were retired in order.

It was an odd-looking line-up, featuring Brad Wilkerson batting second, Mench in at DH and hitting sixth, and no sign of Joe Inglett, Adam Lind and Travis Snider.  A calculated gamble by Cito Gaston that unfortunately failed.  Neither Inglett nor Snider have ever seen a major-league knuckleball, Lind was 1-for-6 lifetime against Wakefield, and all of Wilkerson,  Mench, Marco Scutaro and John McDonald had had some small sample size success against the knuckleballer in the past.  It didn’t work, but you can’t say Cito didn’t try, and it might pay off for the three lefties who sat by not having their swings messed up for the double dip tomorrow.

There was also some tall guy in Rolen’s uniform playing third base.  Not sure who that was.

David Purcey really showed me something tonight.  He held the Sox to just one earned run into the 7th inning, pitching in tough conditions in a hostile environment in an important game.  Good for him.  The more I see of him, the more I think that he’ll be a nice piece of the Jays’ rotation in 2009.  He handled the Red Sox very well, save for Jed Lowrie, who had a sac fly and two doubles.  Outside Lowrie’s damage, Purcey allowed only a Dustin Pedroia double off the wall, a ground single that got through whoever was at third and an infield single up until he faced David Ortiz with two on and two out in the 7th.  Ortiz smacked a two-run double into the right-field corner that put the game away.

Say what you will about Purcey being left in to pitch to Ortiz at that point, with the pitch count up over 110, but that’s what Cito does – he lets his starters work out of most late-inning jams.  Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t, but that’s his way of getting the most out of his pitching staff.  If you believe that Cito’s the main reason the Jays have turned things around this season, then you can’t be upset with Purcey being allowed to pitch to Ortiz, because that’s part of the package.

The task ahead of the Jays now is obvious:  Sweep the rest of the series.  If they drop one more game to the Red Sox, they’re all but done.  Best-case scenario with a split is that the Jays then go sweep Baltimore while the Sox get swept in St. Pete (they haven’t won a game at the Trop yet this year), and the Jays then sweep the Sox at the Dome next weekend to sit half a game back with a week to go.  Could happen, but it’s not likely.

Even if they don’t, and they probably won’t, win their last six games against the Red Sox, this has still been a heck of a run, very enjoyable to watch, and it’s been nice to see some people get finally excited about baseball around these parts again.

Buckle up, it’s going to be a long day tomorrow – two games, two pitchers going on short rest, and an offense that has managed to score in only one of its past 18 innings of work.  Time to get to hitting again!

Here’s today’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK – DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

12:30 AM Eastern

Calm down now.  I don’t mean by the title of this post that I believe the Blue Jays are going to make it to the post-season, though I won’t stop anyone from thinking that way.  What I mean is that, for the Blue Jays, the playoffs begin NOW.  Problem is, it’s not simply a best-of-7.

The streak has been great, 11 wins in their last 12, 37-20 since July 7th (105-win pace over an entire season) and all of this current streak coming against teams ahead of them in the standings, but the real work begins now.  If the Jays don’t take at least three out of four in Boston, starting tomorrow night, then they’re all but done.  If they do, there’s a pulse, and if they sweep (which would mean 15 wins in 16 games) then that pulse becomes pretty strong.  But enjoy this, because without question, the Blue Jays are now playing MEANINGFUL GAMES IN SEPTEMBER.

As for this last one against the White Sox, it was almost a carbon-copy of seemingly every other Shaun Marcum start in the first half, except that this time the Jays scored early enough to get him a win.  Marcum seems to be the king of six shutout innings only to have the score be 0-0 going into the 7th, and tonight it stayed that way into the 8th, when the Jays exploded off of Gavin Floyd and two relievers.  In the 8th inning, Jays hitters actually went 7-for-8, with Adam Lind’s strikeout against Matt Thornton the only time a Blue Jay  got out against his will.  Joe Inglett willingly gave himself up – a good time for a sac bunt!- and Scott Rolen was eliminated on the basepaths.

Marcum seems to have keyed into the same magic that Jesse Litsch picked up in his return from a short demotion.  When Litsch got back, he went two starts without giving up a run, and Marcum hasn’t been scored upon (while he’s been on the mound, at least) in his two starts since his return.  He turned things over to the usually-reliable Scott Downs, who has been anything but the last three times out.

I was curious as to why Downs would be called upon in the 8th inning of a 6-0 game, especially with the four-spot in Boston coming up, but then I thought it should just be a quick two-out tune-up, not so bad.  Instead, it may have given Cito Gaston a reason NOT to use Downs as his automatic 8th inning guy in the big series in Boston.  After Brian Anderson took him to the base of the right-field wall for a fly out, Jermaine Dye ripped a double to right-centre, then Jim Thome destroyed a ball to dead centre for a two-run homer – the only round-tripper Downs has given up to a left-handed hitter all season.

Granted, Thome is a great hitter, but he struggles making contact against lefties, hitting .227 with 46 strikeouts in 132 at-bats.  He does however, tend to make the ball go far when he does hit it, slugging .500 against the southpaws.

That’s three shaky outings in a row for Downs, though this was the first one in which he’s been scored upon.  I mentioned it on the show and in the comments section, but how weird is it that at a time when the Jays are playing their best baseball of the season, Downs and B.J. Ryan are the weakest links?

Ryan wasn’t bad today – he hit A.J. Pierzynski, which is commendable, to lead off the 9th, but then struck out the side around a routine grounder to third that Rolen booted.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:25 AM Eastern

The Blue Jays certainly made this one closer than anyone should have reasonably expected – all they needed was for Mark Buehrle to get out of the game to start firing on all cylinders, with two in the 8th and three in the 9th, leaving the tying run at third in their valiant attempt to stretch the win streak to 11.

They lost, for the first time in the month of September, but no one could have realistically imagined they’d run the table.  If they can win the finale with Shaun Marcum going against Gavin Floyd, they’ll be 6 1/2 games behind the wild-card Red Sox going into their four-game series at Fenway.

You could tell right from the beginning that it wasn’t the Jays’ night.  I don’t say that as a knee-jerk, reactionary, “they’re gonna lose!” perspective, but they got three hits in the first inning, and only one runner as far as second base.  They had Buehrle right where they wanted him, and if things had broken a little differently, they could have give Roy Halladay a three-run cushion or more to work with.  Instead, Marco Scutaro’s looping single was followed by a scorcher down the first-base line that Nick Swisher made a very nice play on and turned into a double play. Alex Rios followed with a hard line single, and Vernon Wells looped one into right, but for some incredible reason, decided that it’d be a good idea to try for second, and Jermaine Dye threw him out by plenty.

Coming off that disappointing half-inning, Halladay allowed three straight Sox to reach, very unusual for him, on a pair of hard-hit singles and a walk, with his own throwing error on a pick-off play thrown in, and A.J. Pierzynski bounced a two-out single right through Halladay to cash a second run.  There aren’t many improvements that Halladay could make to his game, but he could stand to take a few lessons from Shaun Marcum or Jesse Litsch on getting in a good fielding position.  Both Halladay and A.J. Burnett have cost themselves more than a few outs over the years simply by not finishing up in a good position to field comebackers.

Halladay shut the Sox down from there until they rallied for three more in the 6th, but the Jays never got a sniff off Buehrle.  They sure made it interesting in the 9th, though.  After Rios homered in the 8th to get it to 5-2, the Sox tacked on another run in their half off Brian Tallet, and Bobby Jenks came in to close out the 6-2 lead.

He gave up a one-out pinch-single to Joe Inglett, then walked Scott Rolen.  The much-maligned Lyle Overbay, in a perfect spot to hit into a game-ending double play, instead smacked a pinch-single of his own, and Scutaro followed with an RBI double.  That put runners at second and third with one out, the tying run at second.  Jose Bautista, who looked terribly out of place early in the game at first base, hit a high chopper to short to score the 6-5 run, but Jenks then made Rios look terrible in striking him out to end the game.  Rios couldn’t hold up on a slider in the dirt after taking a pitch up and in, and Jenks got him with the “hard in, soft away” that has worked for over a hundred years.  As I write this, I just watched Jason Bay look just as bad striking out on the same pitch by Jason Hammel in the 14th inning at Fenway.

It’ll be interesting to listen to what Cito Gaston has to say on the pre-game show tomorrow about his plans for the rotation in Boston.  He hinted tonight that it would depend on the result of tonight’s game, but what happens tomorrow may matter more.  If the Jays win to close the gap to 6 1/2, and then win Friday night, I’m pretty sure we’ll see Burnett and Jesse Litsch both come back on short rest to pitch the doubleheader on Saturday.

I find it funny that so many people get so upset whenever I criticize a move made by Cito, but if I see it, I’m going to say it.  I don’t get taking Adam Lind out for defense in the 8th down by three when he was due to lead off the 9th, and I don’t get setting up the line-up at that point so that Gregg Zaun would lead off the 9th and Travis Snider would hit 9th.  I also don’t get hitting The Captain 5th against left-handed pitching, though I understand that one more because he’s a right-handed hitter with a bit of pop.  But Barajas has hit a pathetic .204/.239/.352 against lefties this year.

It was a Wednesdays with J.P. night, and it’s down a little lower on the page for your listening pleasure.  Among the highlights – Ricciardi agreed with Regular Rumack Guest Garth Iorg that Cito is the best in the business at figuring out how pitchers are tipping their pitches, and that a big reason the club has turned things around under Gaston is that his hiring caused a massive collective exhalation by the players, who figured that they had played as poorly as they could, and had nothing to lose the rest of the way.

The big news from the Wednesdays was that Ricciardi said that Casey Janssen would DEFINITELY be ready to start next season.

Here’s the show:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just click on this link:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

1:15 AM Eastern

That right there was a pretty solid way for the Jays to kick off a stretch of seven games in five days – a doubleheader sweep of the first-place White Sox for a 10-game win streak, with Roy Halladay on the hill tomorrow with the chance to tie the franchise record.  By the way, Halladay is pitching against Mark Buehrle, so expect the Wednesdays with J.P. to start at about 9:45 PM Eastern.

This streak has been something else.  The Jays’ starters have given up just 17 earned runs over the 10 games, EIGHT if you take out a crappy performance each from John Parrish and David Purcey.  They’ve outscored the opposition 59-28 over the streak – winning, basically, by an average score of 6-3.  And all of it against teams ahead of them in the standings.

This is not your average September mirage, they’re not facing teams that have packed it in and are showing off the kids.  This is part of this team getting to where it should be in the standings.  It’s more than likely too late, because neither the Rays nor the Red Sox have fallen off to any extent since early July, but the Jays have been winning more than two out of every three games since July 7th, and if they finish out the season at that rate, that’s 90 wins.

As for the two games today – A.J. Burnett delivering seven innings of one-hitter was very, very strong.  The only hit was a rocket by Orlando Cabrera that went right through Scott Rolen.  Rolen will say he should have made the play, but he’s about the only third baseman in the game who could do so with any regularity.  If Burnett hadn’t given up the hit, he probably comes back out for the 8th, but since he did, there’s more of an opportunity to use him on three days’ rest in Saturday’s double-dip in Boston if they want to.

John McDonald’s two errors were disconcerting, but more frightening was the fact that he was hitting second for the second time in less than a week.  I know that Cito Gaston’s philosophy is to just plug guys into the batting order spot of the regular whose place they’re taking so as not to upset the rest of the apple cart, but please.  It makes no sense whatsoever to hit John McDonald second – in any scenario.  And for those of you who complain that I didn’t criticize John Gibbons for these kinds of moves, go back and read what I had to say about David Eckstein leading off.

McDonald, by the way, likely saved the opener for the Jays by starting a double play on a smash into the hole by Jim Thome in the 8th.

Scott Downs was shaky for a second straight outing – saved by Johnny Mac’s DP, and B.J. Ryan was shaky for a third straight outing – walking the first two hitters in the bottom of the 9th before settling down and finishing things up pretty easily.  Ryan has given up four runs through this win streak, that’s half the total allowed by the entire bullpen.

Lyle Overbay, by the way, 2-for-4 with a pair of doubles and two RBIs.  That’s five straight seasons for Lyle with at least 30 doubles.

Marco Scutaro led off the nightcap with a home run.  That’s the first time that the Jays have had a lead-off homer under Cito v2.0.  The last one came May 20th when Brad Wilkerson took John Lackey deep for the Jays’ only run in a 3-1 loss.

Jesse Litsch wound up with a very good outing, but he could have easily fallen apart in the first.  He walked the leadoff man on four pitches – VERY hard to do considering that’s Cabrera – then gave up a single and a walk around a grounder to third.  Paul Konerko came up with the bases loaded and one out looking to do major damage, but hit into the 5-4-3 inning-ender.  Litsch coughed up back-to-back hard-hit doubles in the 3rd, leading to both Sox’ runs, but wound up retiring the last 11 hitters he faced in going seven.  Like Burnett, he threw 112 pitches.

Alex Rios, the reigning A.L. player of the week, contributed three hits to the attack, but his baserunning left a LOT to be desired.  In the first,  having doubled, he got lost on the basepath on a grounder into the 5-6 hole by Vernon Wells.  Rios appeared to have a good read on the situation, but then as Cabrera dove, Rios took one more hard step towards third.  When Cabrera came up with the ball, Rios was meatcake.

In the fifth, he singled to right, but anticipated a throw home to try to nail Scutaro, who started at second, and took off for second himself.  The throw was cut, and Rios wound up in a rundown.  He stayed in the rundown quite a while – long enough for Scutaro to take off for the plate, I thought – and when Paul Konerko wrenched his knee and wound up writhing in pain on the ground, Rios had a clear path back to first, but he Jack Custed and was tagged out well short of the bag.

In the 7th, Rios was on first having singled, and Vernon Wells popped up to shallow right.  It appeared as though the ball was going to fall in, but Alexei Ramirez made a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch, and Rios was almost doubled up going back to first. That one wasn’t really his fault, though, he was in no man’s land, but combined with the other two it made for a tough night.

It’s definitely concerning, and might have had something to do with the long day.  Rios’ focus isn’t always what it should be, but those problems hadn’t been cropping up too much lately.  I’ll give him a pass, for now, and see what happens the rest of the week.

Lastly, I mentioned on The JaysTalk (which is directly below, for your listening pleasure) that I don’t want comments during the game if you’re just going to post stupid stuff like “John McDonald can’t play defense”, “why did they give Joe Inglett a glove” and “Shawn Camp?  Game over.”  If you want to be an idiot, please do it on someone else’s blog.  Such comments will no longer be posted.  Now, here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just cut and paste the following link into your browser:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

VOTE FOR TOM CHEEK EVERY DAY THIS MONTH – DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POST

11:35 PM Eastern

How Sweep It Is!  It’s really a shame that these games don’t count anymore, otherwise it would have been a lot of fun to come to the ballpark and see the Blue Jays throw down a 6-0 homestand against two first-place teams.

Oh, well.

The Jays’ starting staff was extraordinary in this week of glorified exhibition games, as half the time they didn’t allow a single run (Purcey’s 8 innings today, Marcum’s 7 yesterday and Litsch’s 9 on Thursday).  Friday night, Roy Halladay allowed just a single earned run.

The bats got to work – kind of.  In the first three games, the Minnesota sweep, the Jays averaged seven runs on 17 hits per game.  They weren’t nearly that prolific against the Rays, but they did pound out five extra-base hits on Friday and three homers yesterday before scoring only one run today, though it was enough.

And today, they did it the old-fashioned way – by manufacturing it.  Not with bunts or stolen bases, mind you, but with smart manufacturing.  The Jays aren’t a small-ball team, but they’re a team that can smartufacture a run when it has to.

Today, it was a double, a groundball to the right side by a hitter who was actually trying to get a hit, and a sacrifice fly by another hitter who was actually trying to get a hit.  It was basically Plan B for Lyle Overbay (groundout) and The Captain (sac fly), as opposed to Plan A being “get out, but move the runner.”

How great was it for the Jays to give Matt Garza a taste of his own medicine?  Sweet payback for the 1-0 loss last week, when he wound up on the happy side.  Garza pitched brilliantly again, but this time David Purcey outdid him, as opposed to the vice-versa last week in St. Petersburg.

I said this on The JaysTalk today, and you may call me an apologist for doing so (I’m not), but how amazing is it that the Blue Jays were able to score just two runs this season against Garza in FIVE games, and yet they beat him twice?  That, fellow crime fighters, is the mark of a really good team.  Really.  I mean, think about that for a second.  Garza made five starts against the Jays and allowed TWO runs on 25 hits in 38 innings.  Not two earned runs, two runs period.  That’s an ERA of  0.47.  A WHIP of 0.89.  And he got beat twice!  It’s almost unbelievable.

Credit has to be given to David Purcey as well, who didn’t allow a run for the second time in his last five starts, and in one other, gave up just one – a home run to Carlos Pena – which was enough to lose to Garza.  Purcey got ahead and kept the Rays off-balance once he did, something that’s been missing in most of his work this year.  Jordan Bastian of mlb.com checked it out, and reports that 70% of the pitches Purcey threw in these two starts against T-Bay (16 innings, 1 run, 11 hits, 3 walks, 18 Ks) were strikes, compared to just 57% of his pitches in all his other starts.  Purcey has shown glimpses of dominance, and he’s also shown quite a bit of backbone.  Today, it was most apparent in the 8th inning.

Purcey was just about done, and nursing the 1-0 lead had a man on first and two out when B.J. Upton hit a high bouncer just over his head and out of the reach of Marco Scutaro up the middle for a single, sending the tying run to third.   Carlos Pena was next, the man who had taken Purcey deep for his only blemish last time out, but who was 0-for-3 tdoay.  Purcey walked him on five pitches, and up came Rocco Baldelli.

You may remember Baldelli for his two-run pinch-hit homer off B.J. Ryan in the 9th inning yesterday, or you may remember him as the man Carl Crawford referred to as “The Real Deal Holyfield” back a few years ago when Orlando Hudson interviewed him on The Blue Jays This Week (an all-time classic).  Regardless, for Purcey, Baldelli was the difference between a win and a loss (or at best, a no-decision).  Purcey popped him up to short left on a 1-1 pitch and went into the dugout to get his handshakes.

Two moves confused me today, managerially.  The first was the decision to use Jesse Carlson to close the game out.  B.J. Ryan was unavailable because he had pitched two days in a row (not because he blew the save yesterday), but Brandon League had only thrown nine pitches yesterday after not working Friday night, so I assumed it would be him.  Especially with Willy Aybar, who rakes lefties and was 2-for-2 with a walk off Purcey, leading off.  But Carlson it was,  and he retired the side in order.  Using Carlson kept Dioner Navarro, Eric Hinske and Cliff Floyd on the bench, so that was likely the reason for the decision, but I trust League against that group too, the way he’s been throwing.  By the way, Evan Longoria didn’t pinch-hit against Carlson becaus, although he’s been activated off the disabled list, he’s not ready to hit yet.

The second curious call was one that’s now been made two games in a row in the same situation.  Close game late, out comes Adam Lind in favour of the far better defensive player in Brad Wilkerson, but Marco Scutaro stays in at short and John McDonald stays on the bench.  I don’t get this one at all.  I know Cito Gaston loves Scutaro, but this is ridiculous.  We’re seemingly back to where we were in April, when the Blue Jays had an incredible weapon but John Gibbons refused to use it.  It’s just silly.  If McDonald is no more than a glorified pinch-runner then there’s really no place for him here.  Late in a close game, with the Jays ahead, McDonald must be playing shortstop.  In fact, if the alternative is Scutaro, McDonald should really be starting.  With Rolen back healthy and contributing, the wrong guy is the odd man out.

The Blue Jays are in 3rd place now, by the way, half a game ahead of the Yankees and heading out on a brutal road trip that will see them play eight games in seven days, four each at the White Sox and Red Sox.  Are they in the race?  No.  Are they out of it?  Not while they still have two series with Boston in the offing.  The task is extraordinarily difficult, though.  The Jays currently trail Boston by eight games with 20 to play.  If they go 5-2 in their seven games against the Sox, they’d still have five games to make up and only 12 outings in which to do it.  Therefore, they have to go 6-1 or 7-0 against Boston to stay in it.  Of course, the Red Sox may not be the team the Jays are chasing for too much longer.  While the Blue Jays are in Chicago, the Red Sox will be entertaining Tampa Bay for three nights.

Here’s this afternoon’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Remember, today and every day in the month of September, please vote for Tom Cheek and ONLY for Tom Cheek to be on the ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award to gain entry into the broadcasters’ wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.  It’ll make more of an impact on the voters if Tom alone gets the overwhelming majority of the votes.  Just cut and paste the following link into your browser:

http://web.baseballhalloffame.org/awards/frick_2008/vote.jsp

It’s a bit of a pain to fill out all the info, but it only takes two minutes at the most, and Tom Cheek was certainly worth your time.  Thank you.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!