2:05 PM Eastern

Well, I certainly couldn’t have asked for a much better game to broadcast to open the World Baseball Classic at Rogers Centre yesterday.  It was an incredible game, tense and exciting, the likes of which had not been seen at that ballpark in about 15 1/2 years.  I just hope I lived up to it.

To those who say baseball doesn’t matter around these parts anymore, there are 42,314 reasons why you’re wrong.  People haven’t lost interest in baseball, they just want to see a game with something on the line, and that crowd yesterday was as into the game as any crowd that I saw back in the Jays’ glory days.

The atmosphere was incredible, as was the game.  Canada scored early, but let a big chance get away against Jake Peavy in the first, leaving the bases loaded.  Mike Johnson gave Team Canada three strong innings, but gave up a couple of bombs in the fourth, and Adam Dunn hot a two-run shot off Chris Begg in the 6th, and that was enough for the U.S. to hang on.

The finish was amazing, with Russ (Jeanson) Martin and Joey Votto hitting back-to-back doubles in the 9th to get the game to within one run and put the tying run at second with one out and the 4-5 hitters coming up.  You couldn’t really ask for more than that, but Justin Morneau grounded to short, and Jason Bay flied to right after fighting off a couple of 3-2 pitches from J.J. Putz.

The only good thing about Canada losing was that I honestly don’t know if I’d have been able to get back in there and call another game tonight – it turns out I’m a screamer, I had no idea.

I don’t have a problem with the way Ernie Whitt handled the game.  The only thing that popped into my head was maybe pinch-hitting Corey Koskie for Pete Orr with a runner on third and two out in a one-run game in the 6th.  But it was only the 6th, and it would have meant either compromising the offense and defense (by moving Mark Teahen to second and putting in Shawn Bowman at third) or one or the other.  As far as not going to the big arms earlier, and having Begg be the first call out of the bullpen – Canada had to save its bullets.  If you use the best pitchers when you’re behind and lose, then they may not be available for the game you have to win on Tuesday, assuming they beat Italy tomorrow.  Of course, if they can’t beat Italy, they have no business advancing anyway.

I was thoroughly impressed by Phillipe Aumont pitching out of the bases-loaded, nobody out jam that he got himself into in the 7th by getting David Wright on a looper and striking out Kevin Youkilis and Curtis Granderson.  He’s going to be goooooooood, but unfortunately he’s done for the first round.

We’ll be on with the Canada-Italy game at 6:30 PM Eastern on Monday here on the website and across the network, with Toronto joining us in progress at 7:00 when Bob McCown finishes up Prime Time.  Vince Perkins and Scott Diamond will be charged with holding down Frank Catalanotto and the Italians.  Perkins pitched against the Phillies on Wednesday and left without having allowed a run (though he left with the bases loaded and one out), and Diamond shut out the Yankees over a two-inning start on Thursday.

Make sure you tune in to hear me and Paul Spoljaric (who I thought did a great job yesterday in his first-ever broadcast gig) hopefully bring you a win for Canada that would get them to a second straight do-or-die game against the loser of tonight’s USA-Venezuela game.

By the way, can you believe Luis Sojo using Felix Hernandez against Italy yesterday?  And warming up K-Rod with a seven-run lead in the 9th (though he did wind up going to Orber Moreno)?  Armando Galarraga will start against the U.S. tonight, which leaves maybe Victor Zambrano to start the elimination game against Canada if Venezuela loses.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

10:00 PM Eastern

It seems like I just arrived in Florida, and already I’m packing my bags in advance of tomorrow evening’s return home to Toronto for the World Baseball Classic.

It’s definitely been a weird almost-week, being thrown right into the Blue Jays fire pretty much as soon as I got off the plane and then, as quickly as I jumped in, jumping right out and onto the Team Canada beat.  I’ve spent the last three days watching the Canadian team practice and play, trying to learn faces and collect personal tidbits (as well as nearly shattering my hand by punching the batting cage, but that’s another story).

I’ve gotten to the point where I know all the hitters and probably a third of the pitchers by sight, but I’m totally lost on the rest of them.  It would be so much easier if they’d just all wear numbers during batting practice.  Oh, well.

Today was a pretty ugly day for Team Canada after a solid outing yesterday against the Blue Jays.  Thing is, though, they didn’t face any big-league starters or pitchers in Dunedin – and Ernie Whitt was none too pleased about that.  They beat the Jays’ back-ups and minor leaguers, then got stomped by the Phillies, who had starters Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez along with big-league benchers Greg Dobbs and Eric Bruntlett in a line-up that has been picked clean by the WBC.

Ibanez and Howard had the big swings, but not the hugestest (that’s not a typo, that’s just reflective of the largeness of the hugestest swing of the game – more on that later).   Problem is, those swings came against the guy who is going to be on the hill when the Classic gets underway for reals on Saturday.  Mike Johnson, Canada’s most experienced starting pitcher, will start that first game against the U.S.  Today, he came on in the third inning after ex-Jays farmhand Vince Perkins hit the wall and loaded the bases with one out on a single, walk and hit batsman.  Johnson first faced Ibanez, who took him into the left-centre gap for a three-run double, then Howard hit a laser-beam line single to right-centre to score Ibanez (whom the Jays almost got last July for Lyle Overbay and Jason Frasor).  Just like that, 4-0 Champs.

Johnson followed that up with a double play to get out of the inning, and his day was done.

Should you be worried?  Well, in all fairness, Mike Johnson is no world-beater.  He’d probably tell you that himself.  He pitched parts of five seasons in the bigs, compiling a 6.85 ERA and  1.64 WHIP.  And he had Tommy John surgery in 2005 and has lost a few miles an hour off his stuff since.  However, he’s not THAT bad.  It’s not like the guy is going to be serving it up on a silver platter for three or four innings on Saturday.

Johnson had a very good excuse for his rough outing today – he could barely keep his eyes open.  He’s playing in Korea this year after going 20-2 in Taiwan last season and his manager back there didn’t want him to leave the team until Monday, for some reason.  So Johnson got off a plane at about 8:00 last night and was pitching this afternoon.  He’ll at least be well-rested when he starts Saturday afternoon against likely American starter Jake Peavy.

The hugestest swing of the day, by the way, was taken by Blue Jays legacy John Mayberry, Jr., whose presence in the Phillies’ line-up made Ernie Whitt feel proud, but old.  Mayberry, who isn’t nearly as big as his pops, absolutely destroyed a Brooks McNiven offering, hitting it over both teams’ bullpens beyond the left-field fence.  It was the most prodigious home run I have seen so far this spring, and probably the loudest since Jim Thome almost parked one onto Highway 19 at that same ballpark a few years back.

Though Canada will be playing to win every game, they won’t get too out of sorts if they lose that Saturday game.  It’s a double-knockout tournament – once you lose twice, you’re done – and our home and native land has supplied only so many bullets for them to fire. No Ryan Dempster, Rich Harden, Erik Bedard, Jeff Francis and Shawn Hill means that Scott Richmond is the best they’ve got, and they have to hold him back (and Jesse Crain, Dave Davidson and Phillipe Aumont, maybe Perkins and Steve Green , too) for either Sunday’s potential advancement game or Tuesday’s potential elimination game, depending on what happens in the opener.

Ideally, they get a ton of runs and enough pitching to beat the States on Saturday, then throw everything they have at Venezuela on Sunday (assuming the South Americans beat Italy Saturday night), win that game, and their ticket is punched for the second round in Miami.  It’s never that easy, though, is it?

Tomorrow, the Canucks wrap up their pre-tournament sked by facing Joba Chamberlain and the Yankees.  It’ll be our first chance to see Nick Weglarz in left field – he’s been held back by the Indians because of a sore ankle that he says is fine.  If Weglarz isn’t ready for prime time, ’06 hero Adam Stern showed he’s not going down without a fight, smacking three hits in today’s loss.  Stern could play centre, with Jason Bay shifting to left, in the absence of Weglarz.  We might even see Corey Koskie at third again tomorrow.  He played there for four innings today, but didn’t have a single ball hit his way.  Offensively, he looks as though he’s hardly missed a beat, and may well force Mark Teahen to second and Peter Orr to the bench.

As for Blue Jays stuff, ummm, Shi Davidi and I went to the Lightning-Penguins game last night thanks to a friend of mine with NHL connections having hooked me up with a pair of tickets.  Turned out we were in a luxury box and who should walk in five minutes into the game but three members of your Toronto Blue Jays!  They had a blast – well, at least one of them did.

I’ll be on The Bullpen with Mike Hogan on Friday from 10:00-11:00 AM Eastern, live and in colour, so make sure you tune in!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome, but remember, I’m immersed in Team Canadocity until its elimination from or victory in the WBC, so I’m not going to be as up to speed on the Jays as usual.  Didn’t watch Brad Mills today at all, for example. Or Casey Janssen, though I’m very pleased to see he threw a shutout inning.

7:50 PM Eastern

Team Canada 2009 gathered as a unit for the first time today, but a couple of delays pushed its arrival at the Bobby Mattick until the afternoon, so I decided to go see the Blue Jays play a “B” game against the Phillies – I wanted to see David Purcey pitch, as well as Brandon League.

I love going to “B” games because you can get right into the action.  You can get as close as the backstop and there’s no better place to gauge the speed and movement of a pitch, other than crouching behind the plate.  I was really looking forward to getting an up-close view of League’s stuff, and as it turns out, it’s pretty damn nasty.

Purcey struggled in the first inning – he told me he was having a hard time finding his arm slot – but he should have come out of it without allowing a run.  He walked the leadoff man, Jason Ellison, on five pitches, then gave up a rocket double to Marcus Giles to put runners on second and third with nobody out.  But Purcey got Geoff Jenkins to pop up a 2-0 pitch to shallow left, and walked Greg Dobbs to load the bases, setting up a double play.  He got the double-play ball on  the next pitch, Lou Marson (Philly’s catcher of the future) hit a hard grounder to second, right to Russ Adams.  Adams fielded it cleanly, turned, and threw it well past shortstop Angel Sanchez at second base.

Another benefit of being so close is that I could clearly hear Adams say “Oh, #^$@#&%$@#&” as he let the ball go.  One run scored there, and another when Mike Cervenak followed with a sac fly to the track.

Purcey struck out the next four batters he faced, and was done having thrown 38 pitches over two innings.

It wasn’t your typical “B” game full of minor-leaguers.  Everyone in the Phillies’ line-up that Purcey faced had had some big-league time.  The Jays brought over Scott Rolen, who went 0-for-2 with a walk as the DH, and Adams, but they and Buck Coats were the only hitters they had who had been in the show.

I left after six with the Phillies up 2-0.  Tallet, Frasor, League and Carlson threw a shutout inning each in relief, with Frasor needing only seven pitches to get through his.

The Team Canada workout wasn’t nearly as media-friendly as the rest of Spring Training, with two very limited windows to actually talk to players.  Most of those windows were spent with Corey Koskie, who is returning after a 2 1/2 year absence having suffered a concussion in July of 2006.  He said that that part of his life is over now, and that he’s fully healthy and ready to go.  He’ll DH tomorrow in the exhibition game against the Jays, and if he swings the bat well, he could knock Mark Teahen over to second base in the Canadian line-up, sending Peter Orr to the bench.  Most Toronto writers will have a terrific story on Koskie and his comeback from the concussion.  He was passionate and eloquent when discussing his 2 1/2 years in the wilderness and his battles against doctors who thought he was suffering from some psychosomatic illness because they couldn’t find anything physically wrong with his brain.  Unfortunately, he was as long-winded (in a good way, like me) as he was passionate and eloquent, with one of his answers going almost three minutes and another one just over five, which doesn’t work well for the radio.  I encourage you to read the writers’ stuff, especially Shi Davidi of CP, who was the only one to get any one-on-on time with Koskie.

Ernie Whitt revealed his plans for the batting order, telling us that shortstop Chris Barnwell (AAA-Houston) will lead off because Whitt liked his on-base percentage (I can’t tell you how nice it was to hear those words).  He has posted OBPs of .364, .331 and .375 the last three years at AAA.  Following Barnwell will be catcher Russ Martin, Joey Votto (at DH), first baseman Justin Morneau, Jason Bay (in centrefield as Canada looks offense first) and DH Matt Stairs.  Whitt didn’t say what order the final three will be, but the remaining starters will likely be Teahen at third, Peter Orr at second and Indians’ prospect Nick Weglarz in left.  Weglarz has an injured ankle, though, so he won’t play tomorrow against the Jays.  Votto will play left as Koskie DHs.

Whitt also said that he was leaning towards a particular starter for Saturday’s opener against the U.S., then said that he wasn’t leaning towards anyone.  Scott Richmond is the best they’ve got, and he’ll be saved for an elimination game or potential clincher.

Tomorrow it’s Mike Maroth against Richmond at Dunedin Stadium.  Make sure to tune us in at 1:00 Eastern on mlb.com – Ashby will be here, so the whole gang will be together for the first time!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

12:15 AM Eastern

OK, so I’ve been down in Florida since Friday night and haven’t posted anything on the blog yet.  Sorry about that, but it’s been quite the whirlwind.  There’s nothing like having four months off and then being thrown into the fire immediately.

I got to the park on Saturday morning figuring I’d have my regular pre- and post-game responsibilities with the broadcast and maybe get to do a little extra colour since Alan Ashby was away for his daughter’s wedding, so I did all the pre-game prep, waited around the clubhouse for an hour to try to get Vernon Wells for the pre-game show (he said he “might” be able to do it, but couldn’t – or didn’t) before landing Aaron Hill, and then went up to the booth to get ready for the game.  We were discussing how the pre-game would go, and I asked Jerry what he wanted from me in the broadcast.  He said, “Oh.  You’re going to do the 3rd, 4th and 7th.”

Now, I’m not someone who is stunned into silence all that often, but that did it rather nicely, thank you.  I had been doing some play-by-play on our webcasts in the past, but never on the over-the-air games.  It was a fantastic gesture on Jerry’s part to allow me some play-by-play time, and I’m very grateful.  The feedback here on the ol’ blogaroo has been mostly positive, about which I’m very happy.  I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you’ll enjoy our coverage of the World Baseball Classic next week.

As far as the games themselves, Roy Halladay and Jesse Litsch looked terrific, B.J. Ryan and Ken Takahashi looked awful, and Travis Snider, Jason Lane and Hill stuck out for me with the bats.  Snider showed again, like he did in September, that he’s comfortable hitting with two strikes, and that he hits the ball HARD.  Lane threw down a couple of singles on Saturday after homering in consecutive games, and kept hitting this afternoon in Port Charlotte with a deep fly out and a hard line single.  He also made a really nice grab up against the wall on what I thought was going to be a three-run homer by Pat Burrell, but wound up being just a sacrifice fly.  With Hill, it was just seeing him on the field looking like his old self again.  The ground single in the first on Saturday was the swing I remember from a guy who hit .291 in each of his last two healthy seasons.

Now that I think about it, Brian Jeroloman really stung the ball today as well.  He lined out twice, hard – once to right and once to a leaping Evan Longoria, who turned it into a double play, before singling in his third at-bat.

The stories of Ryan and Takahashi were similar, but the upshots are completely different.  Ryan is going to be fine, and we may never see Takahashi again.  B.J. just couldn’t find the plate on Saturday, facing six hitters and allowing two doubles and three walks.  He seemed to be 3-0, 3-1 on everybody, but a guy like that knows what he has to accomplish down here and  has all spring to get it done.  Let’s just hope that he’s still working out the kinks if he gets called on to pitch against Canada on Saturday (or next Tuesday, as the case may be).  Takahashi got smacked all over the yard in his inning and two-thirds today before mercifully leaving after turning his right ankle fielding a bunt.  He looked completely overmatched, totally out of his league.

I’m really enjoying getting the chance to see some of the young guys we’ve been talking about for the last little while, as well as watching Adam Loewen re-learn being a position player.  He certainly didn’t look out of place in right field, and he looks like a hitter at the plate, but in the games I’ve seen he’s 0-for-4 with a walk and two strikeouts.  That, of course, means nothing.  I’m not going to see much of the Jays the next few days because Team Canada reports for duty Monday afternoon and I’ll be switching gears to go cover them until they’re done at the WBC.  That’ll include tomorrow’s workout, as well as games against the Jays, Phillies and Yankees before they and I head north Thursday evening.

A couple of things to mention before I go, first baseballically:

-There was mass confusion this morning when Cito surprised us in his pre-game chat by saying that he didn’t see Casey Janssen starting the year in the rotation and that he was considering using Jeremy Accardo as a starter.  The latter stunned us more than the former, and every other source that I and every other reporter spoke to said there was no chance Accardo would be starting.  Pitching coach Brad Arnsberg also said that he planned to have Janssen ready to throw 100 pitches by the end of Spring Training.  I had thought that Cito simply confused Janssen and Accardo with each other, since neither of them pitched for him last season and they often get mentioned together, but he insists that wasn’t the case.  Still, Accardo won’t be starting.  He could be stretched out, though.  Cito talked a lot about the fact that the inexperience of the rotation means that the Jays will need some relievers who can go three or four innings at a time.  If he doesn’t make the rotation, Janssen could be that guy.  So could Accardo or Brian Tallet, and the Jays may be looking at Brandon League as a two-inning guy, someone to take care of the 6th and 7th to get the ball to Scott Downs in the 8th.

-There has been a lot of talk about the Jeff Blair story regarding the Jays trying to work a sign-and-trade with the White Sox for free agent shortstop Orlando Cabrera.  If the Jays were to simply sign him, they’d forfeit their first-rounder in June and the Sox would get a sandwich pick as well, so I said on The JaysTalk today that the Jays would have to give the White Sox a package of comparable value to those two picks.  After giving it some more thought, though, it occurs to me that they probably wouldn’t, because if no one signs Cabrera (and no one is close right now), the Sox get nothing.  Cabrera would be an improvement at short over Marco Scutaro, but he’s no panacea, and at 34 isn’t a guy who’s going to be around all that long.  I wouldn’t deal one of the top relievers for him (Downs, Carlson, League, Accardo, Janssen), but that may be the asking price.  I didn’t include Ryan on that list because I doubt the Sox would want him in such a deal.

-Non-baseballically, Florida continues to never cease to amaze me.  I’m staying in a rented townhouse with fine journalist Shi Davidi of the Canadian Press, and we went exploring around the neighbourhood last night.  I wanted to find some reading material, and after failing to find a bookstore (why would anyone want to go to a bookstore?) we wound up at the magazine rack of a nearby 7-11.  I couldn’t find anything better than a “Details”, and went to buy it with a travellers’ cheque but the cashier couldn’t find a pen.  She tore up the front, rummaged through the office, nothing.  She found a toothbrush, but no pen.  Her second-in-command decided he would go look for one in his truck.  No dice.  I asked if they had any pens for sale, nope.  Finally, about ten minutes in, after much cursing and taking her lord’s name in vain, she found one.  Then she had to try to figure out how to put the cheque through.  Ahhhh, Florida.

Also, one of the 73 strip malls within a two-mile radius of our place is a big one, equipped with a Publix supermarket and a few nice little restaurants.  It also has a small cupcake shop, about a visit to which I have been fighting hard with my inner fat guy.  So far, I’m winning, but maybe not for long.  Regardless, the shop is called “Cupcake cupcakes”.  Sigh.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome, as is constructive feedback on the weekend’s play-by-play work (note:  telling me I suck is not constructive)!