5:50 PM Eastern

For a while there, it seemed as though this was a game that was never going to end.  The relief corps of the Jays and A’s had each done a whale of a job since being called upon in the 6th inning.  For the Jays, Shawn Camp, Scott Downs, B.J. Ryan, Jesse Carlson and Jason Frasor combined to throw 6 2/3 innings of one-hit shutout.  Oakland’s crew of Michael Wuertz, Russ Springer, Santiago Casilla and Dan Giese had combined to throw 6 1/3 innings of one hit shutout until Lyle Overbay took Giese way out to right-centre to end the game.

The standouts were Downs and Giese – until the game-winning homer, of course.  Downs needed just 20 pitches to get seven outs from the seventh through the end of the ninth.  He may well be the best-kept secret in all of baseball.  Giese kept the Jays off-balance with a good curveball, and retired eight straight after a leadoff walk to Jose Bautista in the 10th before his two-out walk to Bautista in the 12th preceded the Over-bomb.

It was great to see Overbay come through with the big hit, he crushed a 1-0 pitch into the 7th or 8th row of the 100 level in right-centre over the videoboard.  His timing was a little off, though, what with his bobblehead being given away tomorrow, not today.  Not one caller on a long post-game edition of The JaysTalk mentioned Lyle, though. Why would they?  It’s so much more fun to talk about how bad Alex Rios and Vernon Wells are.

Brian Tallet and Marco Scutaro stole the show today.  Tallet did much more than was expected of him, throwing 5 2/3 innings of four-hitter, allowing just one earned run while walking only one.  All that, too, despite being hit on the left pinky by a Ryan Sweeney line drive on the second pitch of the game.  Tallet threw away the ball once he picked it up, unable to feel his finger, then threw a warm-up pitch about seven feet over Rod Barajas’ head before the feeling started to come back.

As for Scutaro, he almost single-handedly won the game for the Jays in the bottom of the 9th.  He worked a lead-off walk, tagged and went to second on a deepish fly ball by Aaron Hill (just beating the throw), then stole third on the next pitch.  Seeing that really reminded me of Roberto Alomar.  It’s amazing to me that at 33 years of age, Scutaro has changed so much as a player.  He is running the show right now, and while I certainly don’t expect him to be able to keep THIS up, it’s been incredible to watch.

A win for the Jays tomorrow would give them four straight series victories for the first time in franchise history.

The JaysTalk today, as I alluded to above, was overwhelmingly negative, as it should be after an exciting win with a first-place team, I guess.  Note to Ryan Fabro – yes, my soul is breaking.

Here’s the pre-game edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s the post-game edition of The JaysTalk, also for your listening pleasure:

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:55 PM Eastern

That’s something that we’re going to have to get used to with the young starting rotation (with the exception of Roy Halladay).   Last year, the Jays were 62-12 when they scored at least five runs in a game, but the same rate of success shouldn’t be expected this season.

That said, with tonight’s loss, the Jays are now 8-1 this year when they score at least five runs, so what do I know?

I don’t know, but it’s important to know what you don’t know.  What I think, though, is that with guys like David Purcey, Ricky Romero and Scott Richmond in the rotation now (and Brett Cecil, Casey Janssen and Brad Mills in the rotation later) , there are going to be some major bumps in the road, and that’s OK.  It’s part of the process, and despite the fact that the Jays are in first place on April 17th, this year is about the process.  The results are really gravy, but to this point, the gravy is tasting pretty good.  Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm, gravy.

Purcey was not good tonight, but he could have been a lot better.  He needed 28 pitches to get through the first, allowing a run on a hit and a walk, and 20 more to get through a scoreless second, but he seemed to be starting to settle down after that.  Even though he hit Ryan Sweeney to lead off the 3rd, he wound up getting out of that inning on only eight pitches, and with a little luck, would have emerged from the 4th unscathed.

With one on and one out in that 4th inning, Purcey ran the count full to Kurt Suzuki, so Bob Geren sent his runner on the 3-2 pitch.  With the runner going, Marco Scutaro took off to cover second, and Suzuki hit a ground ball right to where Scutaro had just been.  If Geren doesn’t start his runner, or if Aaron Hill covers the steal attempt, that’s an inning-ending double play and everyone is writing a different story tonight.  Geren did, and the ball got through, and Purcey wound up walking Mark Ellis to load the bases before serving up a 2-0 cookie that Bobby Crosby hit into the left-centre gap for a three-run triple.

After Scutaro made an absolutely incredible play to short-hop a hot shot up the middle by Sweeney in the dirt cut-out at second base – while he was playing in! – Purcey wild-pitched the tying run home on a play that wound up breaking Michael Barrett.

Poor Barrett, by the  way.  After all the guy has been through with injuries – he missed most of last year with a broken face as a result of fouling a ball off and yes, he has been on the disabled list recently with an intrascrotal hematoma (cringe with me, I know you just did).  Now he busts his shoulder because he landed on a weight in the A’s on-deck circle while making a play on a wild pitch.  I feel awful for the guy.  I’m sure Raul Chavez is getting on the red-eye from Vegas even as we speak.

So two very poor starts in a row for Purcey but again, it’s part of the process and part of what this year is supposed to be about.  The problem for the Jays is that now you have Brian Tallet on about a 75-pitch count starting tomorrow with the bullpen having worked 5 1/3 innings tonight.

So it’s probably Tallet and Bill Murphy for, hopefully, seven, and maybe the Jays can put the wood to rookie Trevor Cahill. At least he’s right-handed, so we’ll get to see Travis Snider.

I really hope that Cito Gaston is just laying the groundwork here for future letting-down-easiness of guys like Jose Bautista and Kevin Millar.  I hope that soon we’ll see Snider get the odd start here and there against a lefty, and be used off the bench once the lefty starter is gone.  The Jays faced a righty for five innings tonight, a lefty for only four, yet Snider was pinned to the bench the whole time.

I spoke to Cito before the game and he told me that he wasn’t sitting Snider to protect his rookie, he was doing it to make sure Bautista is kept ready.  Bautista will start in place of Scott Rolen at third tomorrow, and Cito wants to keep him sharp.  It’s a reasonable idea, I guess, if you look past the fact that Bautista isn’t really the guy you want to make sure you’re keeping ready if the alternative is Snider, but the result has been that Snider – who may well wind up being this team’s best hitter as soon as THIS SEASON – has started only seven of the first 12 games this year, or just over half.  That is most certainly not what this season is all about.

Again, though, this is part of what Cito Gaston does, part of taking the bad with the good.

By the way, for those who enjoyed the debate last night with the caller who insisted that everything good that has happened since last June is all due to Cito, and with the commenter who thought I was nuts for not believing that managers/coaches have a tremendous influence, here’s what Cito said today about that:  “I don’t want to make it sound like it’s me, or it’s Geno (Tenace), or it’s (Dwayne) Murph(y) – it’s the guys.  They’re the ones (who are) going up there hitting.  We just keep trying to tell them, to get them to see that you need to have a plan when you walk up to that plate.”

Before I go, I have to say how surprised I was by the booing tonight.  I just don’t get it, but at least they showed up.

Here’s tonight edition of The JaysTalk, featuring Kelly Wayne Gruber.  I’m going to try to at least get all the Flashback Friday guys on to take calls, though I can’t promise complete success.  Paul Molitor is the next one scheduled.

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome and will be posted during the next game!

12:18 AM Eastern

Just when you thought they had settled into a nice, tense little pitchers’ duel, the Twins’ bullpen comes in and wrecks everything.

One thing for which people don’t seem to give the Jays enough credit is their exceptional ‘pen.  The terrific relief staff is very good at slamming the door shut, which is of paramount importance, but it also prevents horror shows like tonight’s seventh inning from happening, innings that destroy a team’s chances to come back late in a close game.

The Jays took advantage of Matt Guerrier and R.A. Dickey in that fateful 7th, turning a 2-1 game into a 9-1 laugher – Marco Scutaro hit a two-run homer and Kevin Millar had a Grand Slam, and that was that.  Millar looked like he’d really learned a lot from playing with Tim Wakefield for so many years in Boston; Dickey’s flat knuckler didn’t have a chance.

Roy Halladay was as Roy Halladay is – simply the best.  He gave up one line drive tonight, a single to centre by Michael Cuddyer to lead off the second inning.  He didn’t like it, and got ground balls from the next four hitters he faced that inning, three of which could have been turned into double plays.   Once again he stepped it up when he had to, as he did in the 2nd inning in Cleveland on the weekend.  This time it was the 5th, when the Twins put runners on first and second with nobody out and the 2-3-4 hitters up in a game the Jays only led by one.  Halladay screwed his courage to the sticking place and struck them all out.  He actually had four strikeouts in a row that inning, because it was readily apparent to everyone but the home plate and third-base umpires that Denard Span went around on the 0-2 pitch that hit him.

Cito Gaston came out to argue the call, and I have to say again how much I love his style of argument.  He basically comes out with an “I’m disappointed in you, son” look on his face.  He doesn’t get hot, he doesn’t turn the air blue, he just looks at the ump and pretty much says, “Look, you know you’re wrong there, how are you going to make this right?”  He rarely leaves satisfied.

Alex Rios is 0-for-his-last-10 over the last two games.  The Blue Jays have scored 21 runs over those two games.  He is clearly killing them.

It couldn’t possibly be a good thing that the offense is clicking so well with no contribution at all from one of the best hitters, could it?  Nah.

I’m looking forward to seeing the kids on their third trip through, as David Purcey will pitch tomorrow and Ricky Romero Sunday against the A’s.  Purcey needs to get it into the 6th inning on a regular basis if he’s going to stick around for a long time, and I think he can.  As for Romero, he hasn’t done a thing wrong yet, and it’s been plenty exciting.

This whole thing has been plenty exciting, and I certainly hope the fans respond and come out this weekend, because the atmosphere is so much better down at the Dome when there are more than 12,000 people in the place.  75,000 for the weekend series?  That’d be fantastic to see.  Heck, we might even get the roof opened for one or both of the day games – they were testing it today.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk – not nearly as bad as it was last night.

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

1:45 AM Eastern

One night after managing just two runs over 11 innings, the Jays had six runs over the first four tonight on their way to a romp over the Twins.  They have won seven of the first 10 this season, and for those of you who like to extrapolate, they’re on a 113-win pace.

When Scott Richmond fell behind early, it was certainly cause for concern in this corner.  I like Richmond a lot, though I believe that his ceiling is not that high.  I think he’s a plugger who will go out and give you a decent six innings – the perfect 5th starter.  But left-handed hitters had simply destroyed him over the course of his six-start career going into this game.  The reason he’s never really been beaten up (who knows, he may have escaped with another couple of scoreless innings if the rain hadn’t cut him short in Cleveland) is because he has either faced enough righties at the right times to escape, or because he’s managed to get his outs at the right time, which is unsustainable.

Here are some snippets of Scott Richmond, career numbers before tonight:

Left-handed batters against him:  .403/.427/.736

Right-handed batters against him:  .151/.193/.189

Opposition hitters, with runners on:  .218/.254/.418

I don’t know about you, but those last two sets of numbers are really impressive to me, while the first set is scary as hell.

Tonight against the Twins, Richmond held a line-up that was comprised of only five lefties (including the switch-hitters) and four righties – about the best balance he can hope for – to just four hits over 6 1/3 innings.  Tonight, the lefties hit  .231/.333/.308, a major step up, while the righties managed a .100/.182/.100 mark.  The change-up helped quite a bit tonight, it can work as an equalizer for a guy who has trouble with one side or the other.

Point is,  I think, that maybe everyone is writing Richmond off a little early.  Yes, he’s awfully old for a rookie, and he almost literally came out of nowhere, but this was only his 7th major-league start, and he hasn’t had a bad one yet.  Not too many pitchers can say that as they begin their careers.  And with Jesse Litsch out, he’s the 4th starter now, so there’s more pressure on his shoulders since he’s not the guy who gets skipped on off-days.  Maybe he can actually be a lot better than many of us think.  It appears as though he’s now going to get the opportunity to see, where a week ago I would have said otherwise.

As for the offense, it was a lot of fun to watch tonight.  From the fireworks early with four homers over the first four innings to Travis Snider’s two-run gravy double in the 9th.  Aaron Hill threw down with four more hits, and how many people had noticed that Marco Scutaro hadn’t had a hit since Saturday?  He was 0-for-14 before his sixth-inning single, but over that stretch had walked SEVEN times!

Alex Rios went 0-for-5, though.  He should probably be released.

The JaysTalk is posted below, but for the life of me, I don’t get it.  The majority of the calls, it seems, have gone as follows:  “Really excited about this team, love these young players, J.P. has got to go” or “No question in my mind this team is making the playoffs, I’m really enjoying this great start and I’m sure they’ll keep it up.  When are they going to fire Ricciardi?” or “Wow, Ricky Romero was amazing, Travis Snider has got to play every day, he’s fantastic, and do you think Adam Lind will be the MVP?  Oh, and who do you think will take over when they fire J.P.?”

It’s as though I work in Bizarro World.

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Reasonable, rational comments are always welcome.

1:50 AM Eastern

Like the song says, “You take the good, you take the bad………..”.  Tonight, we got both, but the bad resonates a whole lot more.

Cito Gaston, the manager, is one of the best in the business – and maybe one of the best there has ever been – at the behind-the-scenes stuff.  Instilling confidence, projecting a calm confidence, getting players to go through a brick wall for him, getting the absolute best out of the people who play for him, managing egos.  He’s not one of the best in the business at some of the in-game stuff, or at least, he does things that a lot of people disagree with as far as in-game stuff is concerned.

You can’t argue with two World Series rings, but you can argue with stuff like batting John McDonald second because “that’s where the shortstop hits” and he doesn’t like to disturb the rest of the line-up.  He did that with Alfredo Griffin back in 1992, too, when he gave Alomar a day off.

You can argue a lot with what Cito did tonight, leaving Travis Snider and Lyle Overbay on the bench late while allowing Kevin Millar and Jose Bautista to come to bat against Joe Nathan and Jesse Crain in the 9th and 10th, respectively.

Gaston believes in the “lose one now to win two or more later” strategy, and it’s a reasonable school of thought.  I just don’t think it applies here.  By allowing Bautista and Millar to hit there, Cito is showing confidence in them.  Though they’re (far) likelier to fail than the (much better) options available on the bench, Gaston believes that the confidence he shows in them will give them more confidence in themselves, and so if he needs them in that same situation later in the season, they’ll be better-served for having had this experience.

As far as that applies to Millar and Bautista, well, I don’t think it does at all.  I don’t care if those two are looking over their shoulders late in a game when a righty reliever is in.  They should be, because they shouldn’t be hitting in that situation if there are options.  The confidence thing is why you let Travis Snider hit against a lefty in the 10th inning of a tie game, and it’s why you leave Ricky Romero in the game in the 6th inning with the bases loaded and nobody out, but it’s not why you let Millar hit in the 9th (and allow him to continue to play defense in extra innings), nor is it why you let Bautista hit in the 10th.

I know it’s only nine games in, but is there any doubt that Snider is one of the Jays’ biggest offensive weapons?  How do you lose a game in 11 innings with your best bullet still in the chamber?  It’s infuriating.

That said, if you are one of those who believes that Cito’s presence, calm, experience and knowledge have helped the Jays to this great start, and to their terrific finish last year, then you can’t complain about tonight, because this is part of the package.  Everyone else is just going to have to get used to it.  Still – gaaaaaaaaah.  Awful.

Just so it’s not all on a down note, it was terrific of Gaston to let Romero work through that jam in the 6th, and he came through with flying colours.  Of course, as much as it was a chance to let the kid go through that and try to work his way out of it, it was also that Gaston had only had one starter get out of the 5th inning over the last four games, and the bullpen needed the rest.  Still, there’s where you lose one now to win a bunch later, for sure.

I also think, by the way, that using Snider against lefties would be along the same lines, but we haven’t gotten there yet.

I can’t say enough about the way Romero has pitched in his first two outings.  I didn’t think he’d be long for the bigs, at least not in his first shot, and he’s blown me away.  Fantastic again tonight, and if not for Aaron Hill bobbling what should have been a double-play ball in the 4th, he more than likely gets a win for his efforts.  I look forward to watching him (hopefully) a lot more often than I thought I would this year.

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

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The Raptors play their final game Wednesday, so we’re bumped to TALK820 in the Toronto listening area for the last time this year.  Make sure to tune in to listen to Scott Richmond try to whittle down that career .403/.427/.736 mark against left-handed hitters.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:30 AM Eastern

OK, so the fact that B.J. Ryan closed out the Jays’ latest win wasn’t the biggest story of the night, I just kind of like that title.

Still, Ryan looked about as good as he did on Tuesday night.  Not dominant, but still light-years ahead of where he was in the Saturday afternoon meltdown in Cleveland.  He gave up a flare single to Denard Span on an 0-2 slider at which Span threw his bat, and all that Justin Morneau could do with a hanging 0-2 slider was line it back up the middle.  Sure, his fastball only hit 88, and maybe only once, but he did fine.  Good enough to be the B.J. Ryan of 2006 again?  Not even close, but he may well be on his way to getting there.  At the very least, good enough not to be sent down or released, and he will get the next save opportunity.

Just for the heck of it:  When Ryan pitches, the Jays are 3-0.  When he doesn’t, they’re 3-2.

I’m concerned about Jesse Litsch, who never looked comfortable at all tonight, and left with tightness in his right forearm after giving up two shots off the right-field garbage bag to start the 4th (one of which should have been caught by Alex Rios).  It could be no big deal, it could be huge.  Not for nothing, but as I mentioned in the comments section, Shaun Marcum left his last start with tightness in the right forearm.  We shall see, but I would expect Brett Cecil to come up to take at least Litsch’s next start, since he threw for Vegas tonight. Hands up everyone who thought the Jays could get through the first two weeks of the season without a pitching injury.  Sigh.

The Jays’ pitching hasn’t been great this year, but even in a game in which the opposition got 13 hits, there were a couple of huge occasions of massive clutch pitching.  When Brian Tallet came on for the injured Litsch, he got out of a runner on 3rd, none out situation by going strikeout-weak lineout-strikeout.  That kept the Twins’ lead at a very make-up-able two runs.  Ol’ Snakeface stepped up as well, cleaning up his own mess.  Downs came on in the 8th to hold that two-run lead the Jays had just taken on Travis Snider’s second bomb of the night, but gave up a leadoff double to Brendan Harris and wild-pitched him to third with nobody out.  Downs followed that up with three straight Ks to set up the 9th for The Beej.

A couple of things need to be pointed out that could have changed the game.  How on Earth does Denard Span not score from second on a Justin Morneau double off the wall on which Alex Rios turned his back to the infield?  Unbelieveable, and he cost the greatest active Canadian batsman an RBI there.  Almost as unbelieveable was Lyle Overbay’s decision to throw home on the ensuing groundball by Jason Kubel that he fielded about 95 feet from home plate.

With the infield in, it’s one thing and I’ll grant that Overbay has a throwing arm that might rival Rios’ for best on the team, but that was simply a terrible decision.  Span has wheels, he committed, he’s going to score.  Take the out and save the next run that wound up coming in on a sac fly.  Overbay is one of the defensive standouts on one of the best defensive teams in baseball (see The Fielding Bible – best defense in MLB 2007 & 2008 combined?  Your Toronto Blue Jays and it’s not remotely close.), so you can’t kill him for a rare mess-up, I’m just not used to him making mental errors afield.

That mental error by Overbay just cancelled out a previous brilliant play on the bases, though.  Overbay singled to right with one out in the 4th, and Adam Lind scored from second while the ball was cut off and Overbay was being thrown out in a quick rundown.  If Overbay doesn’t get himself hung up there, the throw might go through and there was a chance that Lind would have been thrown out.  I really thought that was a great play by Overbay to sacrifice himself, even make himself look like an idiot to some, to make sure that run got home safely.

Then he hit a two-run homer, so Lyle was +2 on the night.

Two words about Travis Snider:  Holy crap.  It will be very interesting to see if Cito Gaston gets him in against the lefty Tuesday night, I’d say it’s still less than a 50-50 proposition.

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

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Tomorrow, since there’s no Raptors game, make sure to tune into the station or right here on the website for The Pre-Game JaysTalk at 7:00 PM Eastern before we hit the network for the pre-game at 7:30.

Before I go, I have to say how much fun it was to check out the comments section of the Drunks’ website during the post-game.  I didn’t realize how many people hate me, but I have to tell you (though I know it will feed the beast for those same people) – if you listen to the post-game above again, you’ll find I was right with everything.  ;-)

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:50 AM Eastern

Sorry, faithful true believers, I’m having massive computer issues at home which have only just now been rectified, so I couldn’t post anything last night.  The Sunday routine for me is generally do TBJTW after the game, then go home and post that evening after everyone goes to bed – I might have to switch that up.

Anyway, just a quick note here to say that watching David Purcey is going to be a lot of fun this year, and probably pretty frustrating, too.  It’s amazing that a pitcher can have an outing in which he throws 113 pitches in lasting just 4 2/3 innings and walks six, and still has an inning in which all his pitches are thrown for strikes!  Some might say that they’ll take six walks if they come with 10 strikeouts, but I’m definitely not one of them (please note, folks, there is no “a” in definitely).  Here’s hoping he finds some real consistency with his control (in a good way), because Purcey could be a really good one if he does.  But then, that’s what this year is all about – having the kids figure things out and seeing if they can develop into legit big-leaguers from whom one knows what to expect every time out.

Adam Lind’s 0-for-4 will likely cost him A.L. Player of the Week honours, since I think most voters will lean towards the guy they know better in Miguel Cabrera anyway, but major kudos to Lind for the way he’s started this season, especially against left-handed pitchers.

And since everyone is so down on Vernon Wells, let’s not forget two things:  1 – he’s hitting .321, which is about 150 points higher than usual this time of year, and B – his four extra-base hits over seven games has him on pace for a career high 94.  Not too bad for a guy who’s “struggling”.

It was a  short edition of TheJaysTalk yesterday, but here it is:

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Remember, tonight is the penultimate game of the Raptors’ season, so we won’t be on The Fan590, at least not to start, we’ll likely join in progress at the conclusion of the basketball game.  So tune us in on TALK820 at 7:30 PM Eastern for the pre-game and first hour and a half or so of the game, then you can move over to The Fan for the end of the game and The JaysTalk!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

4:50 PM Eastern

It’s a shame that the lasting memory from this game isn’t the wonderful performance by Roy Halladay, showing Cliff Lee who is, in actuality, The Man (the robot?  the cyborg?) as far as American League pitchers are concerned.  Nor is it Marco Scutaro’s big 1-for-1 day with three walks and a sac fly, or even Jason Frasor coming in on his white horse to strike out Victor Martinez with his amazing new change-up.

Nope.  It’s B.J. Ryan.  Ryan and how awful he was and how all the questions that he seemingly took a big step towards answering on Tuesday night are now all valid again.  Ryan’s velocity was fine today.  Relatively, at least, he was throwing a consistent 88.  But he couldn’t throw a strike and when he did, he got raked.

B.J. faced six hitters, coming in for the bottom of the ninth with a four-run lead, and only retired one. Luckily for him, that one came on a ground ball after a leadoff walk, so he got two outs out of it.  But after the double play ball that was scorched off the bat of Kelly Shoppach, Ryan gave up a line single to centre by Ben Francisco, then walked back-to-back hitters to load the bases for Mark DeRosa.  Now, DeRosa had looked awful over the course of his last eight at-bats, striking out four times, so maybe he was due.  But he belted a line drive that one-hopped the wall in left to clear the bases, aided in part by Jose Bautista playing the carom like the proverbial bag of toys.

Mercifully, Cito Gaston came out to yank Ryan there, and brought in Jason Frasor and his brand-spanking-new change-up to save the day.

So what happens now with Ryan?  He’s not hurt, so they can’t put him on the disabled list – at least they have said he’s not hurt, maybe he is, or could conveniently become so to give them an out.  Does he get the next save opportunity?  He shouldn’t, but the excuse could always be made that “it wasn’t a save opportunity and closers don’t pitch well when it’s not a save opportunity.”  The Jays have four other guys in the bullpen who I believe are capable of closing in Frasor, Scott Downs, Jesse Carlson and Brandon League, so there are options.  Assuming that the Jays are being truthful about Ryan’s health – a big assumption, I know – the next move is Cito’s.

Thanks to everyone for hanging with me through last night’s 3 1/2 hour rain delay programme.  It’s always fun to do that show, though it was brutal timing yesterday because this little 24-48-hour bug really knocked me for a loop.  It was the only time since I have had this gig that I really felt that I wasn’t going to be able to finish a broadcast. I was thisclose to getting Norm Rumack to come in and take the post-game, but Scott Douglas brught a bucket into the studio, just in case, and I soldiered on.  You can really hear how badly I was doing in the post-game JaysTalk.  But a good 11 hours of sleep later and I felt much better today.  Even actually ate some food!

Speaking of the rain delay programme, here it is, if you have 3 1/2 hours to spare:

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And here’s the post-game JaysTalk from last night (no JaysTalk today because we had to get out for the FC game):

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Jays Talk

Remember, tune us in Sunday afternoon at 12:30 PM Eastern for the pre-game, 1:05 first pitch with David Purcey trying to build on his strong first outing against Anthony Reyes.  The Jays are looking for the sweep, having now won four of their last 20 in Cleveland!

Also tomorrow night, we’ll have The Blue Jays This Week for you at 7:00 PM Eastern, featuring Travis Snider, Ricky Romero and 10 questions with Adam Lind.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

4:35 PM Eastern

Sorry for not blogging it up last night, but with the combo day-game-after-night-game coming up and the game finishing early enough for me to make it to the end of a seder, I figured you wouldn’t mind if I high-tailed it out of here.

There wasn’t much to say about last night’s game anyway – Jesse Litsch made three big mistakes and the Jays let Zach Miner off the hook early, and we were all really looking forward to today’s game anyway.  For the first time ever, two first-round pitchers made their major-league debuts against each other, and Ricky Romero came out on top.

Both Romero and Rick Porcello pitched very well, and through five, each had given up two runs and walked one.  Romero had five strikeouts to Porcello’s four, and Porcello allowed six hits to Romero’s seven.  Very even.  But Adam Lind took Porcello deep to lead off the sixth, and that got Romero and the Jays the win, thanks to three shutout innings from the bullpen.

Romero actually deserved better – if you watch the highlights you’ll see a phenomenal play by Jose Bautista on a hot shot to his left by Brandon Inge with the bases loaded in the third to end the inning.  If Bautista doesn’t make that play, two runs score, the Jays are down 4-0, Romero is likely very close to hitting the showers and the story of the day is written far differently.  However, Bautista bailed HIMSELF out of that inning as much as he bailed out Ricky.  If that Inge grounder had gotten through and the Jays had gone on to lose, the title of this blog post would have been “How Do You Overrun A Ground Ball?” because that’s what Bautista did three batters earlier.

With two out and nobody on in the third, Curtis Granderson homered and Marcus Thames followed with a drive off the right-field wall, then off Alex Rios’ right temple, that went for a triple.  It was pretty scary as Rios held the side of his head while chasing the ball in the right-field corner, but he stayed in the game and later made a great throw to help nail Ramon Santiago at the plate and ran hard to first on a groundout.  Hopefully he’s fine, but you never know with potential head injuries.

Anyway, after the Thames triple, Magglio Ordonez hit a very routine grounder to the right of Marco Scutaro, but Bautista cut in front to make the play, went too far and reached back, managing just to get a glove on it.  He screened Scutaro, so Marco couldn’t come up with the ball either, and the inning continued, setting the stage for Bautista’s great play later.

The misplay went for a single, and added two hits and a walk to Romero’s final line.

I really liked what I saw out of Romero today, he showed a very good slider and a terrific change-up as well as a fastball that hit 91-92.  I’m looking forward to seeing him the next few times out, and seeing how he adjusts to the league once everyone gets a good look at him.

As for the bats – no complaints today.  Six runs on 12 hits despite the fact that Vernon Wells and Rios combined to go 0-for-8.  And the wallbangers?  Well, aside from Rios actually banging the wall, the Jays pounded three more homers today to raise their season total to seven.  That’s a 284-homer pace for the season with no contributions so far from Wells and Rios, who will likely combine to hit at least 50 this year (assuming Rios’ head is OK).  It was nice to see Snider pound the wall as well – the bottom of it, at least, but on the fly – with his 6th-inning RBI double off lefty Nate Robertson.  Not a good lefty, but a lefty nonetheless.  I’m interested to see which of Snider or Lind, if either one, takes a seat tomorrow afternoon with the Indians throwing a lefty.

All in all, an excellent series to open the season for the Jays.  Now it’s on to Cleveland, where the Jays are 2-14 since and including the 2004 season and where, in one four-game series last May, they lost Vernon Wells for a month and managed to score all of one run in the first 36 innings.  Scott Richmond makes his season debut against Scott Baker, and make sure to tune us in all along the Fan Radio Network at 3:30 Eastern for a 4:05 first pitch.

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

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Before I go, I just want to let you know, in case you didn’t hear last night or this afternoon, or read in the comments, that Wednesdays with J.P. is no more.  The decision was completely J.P.’s, we would have loved to have had him back, but he told me yesterday that he doesn’t want to do it anymore.  It’s too bad, it was great radio and personally, I really enjoyed it.  As I said on the post-game today, I’ll be trying to get different people in to fill the gap, but I don’t know how successful I’ll be, at least not on a regular basis.

Enjoy your seders tonight, if you celebrate!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:30 PM Eastern

A lot to deal with as far as tonight’s game goes, but a story first – one that’s going into my “coolest things that have ever happened to me” file.  I promise, I’m not trying to drag out talking about The Super G’s birthday, but we decided to take the family to Chuck E. Cheese’s for lunch, since The Billie is off school this week and next for Passover, and if we waited to have a big birthday dinner tonight, I would have been at the ballpark.

It was pretty dead at the Chuckster’s, which was awesome because there were no line-ups for any of the games and no kids running around the place, which allowed the G to roam freely, but there were a couple of other families there, and I thought I recognized one of the fathers.  I could have sworn this guy looked just like Lennox Lewis, former Canadian Olympic gold medallist and heavyweight champion of the world, but there was no way.  The more I saw him, though, the guy was a dead ringer, so eventually I walked up to him and said something along the lines of: “Sorry to bother you, but this would really bug me if I didn’t ask – you look a whole lot like Lennox Lewis.”  He smiled and nodded, and we talked for a good 15-20 minutes.  Seriously – who gets to hang out with a world heavyweight champ at Chuck E. Cheese’s?

He talked about a gym that he’s opening in Kitchener, about starting his 4 year-old son skating, about the Olympics and how much he’s looking forward to going to Vancouver 2010, and we talked about our kids as we watched them run around playing games.  His two-year old daughter is almost as big as the Super G, who turned four today.

She’s hilarious, by the way – The Gillian, I mean.  She came up to me this morning wondering why she wasn’t any bigger, now that she’s four.

I invited Lewis to a Jays game, but he declined, for tonight anyway.  I was hoping he might come down and we could throw him on the post-game show.  He has my card, though, and said “see you later” as he left – so you never know.

Now, onto the baseball – and man, what a game we got.  Early on, a tremendous pitchers’ duel between David Purcey and Edwin Jackson, and then a slugfest at the end, with eight runs scored over the final three innings.

Purcey was tremendous, except for the seventh inning, and even in that seventh he hung in there beautifully when things were falling apart around, and because of, him – which puts his value up a notch or three in Cito Gaston’s book.  Purcey went into that 7th inning having allowed just one run on three hits, on a Brandon Inge double followed by a sac bunt and a sac fly.  Even that double was tainted, because Travis Snider made a phenomenal play on the carom off the wall, turned and made an even better throw right to the bag at second, beating Inge, but Aaron Hill reached out to tag Inge because he hadn’t arrived yet, and Inge got his hand on the bag before Hill tagged him on the shoulder.

The Jays had no answer for Jackson, though, managing just one hit through seven, a Vernon Wells laser beam double off the wall in left that missed going out by a foot or two, and in the 7th the Tigers picked up a couple more.  One of them came when, with a run already in and runners on second and third, Purcey was given the order to intentionally walk Inge, and he couldn’t.  Purcey’s first intentional ball wasn’t close to Rod Barajas and went all the way to the backstop, but it bounced off so hard that Carlos Guillen couldn’t score from third.  Marcus Thames, the runner at second, thought Guillen would, though, and got hung up between second and third.  Purcey had taken Barajas’ throw at the plate, and saw that Thames was meatcake, but he fired the ball over Marco Scutaro’s head and into centrefield, allowing Guillen to score and moving Thames to third.

That was the “oh, crap” moment of the game. The one at which it’s easy to turn a 3-0 deficit into a 6-0 deficit and say goodnight, and the one at which Cito Gaston believes he can find out tons about a young pitcher’s make-up and mentality.  Purcey went on to strike out Inge, and then get Adam Everett on a liner to third.  A really hard line drive that required a spectacular play by Scott Rolen but hey, that’s what the defense is there for.  Purcey didn’t let the inning get away from him after his mistake, and in so doing he passed a big test.

The Jays got him off the hook with a dramatic two-out, three-run homer by Aaron Hill in the bottom of the eighth that put them on top for the first time all night, but B.J. Ryan blew the save – Inge took him deep, way deep, into the 200 level right in front of what used to be Windows restaurant in left-centre.

I was hopeful, but not optimistic, when I saw Ryan do his trademark mad dash in from the bullpen after the 8th.  I was waiting to see what the radar gun would show, and I was waiting to see whether or not he’d throw strikes.  He answered both of those questions the way I’d hoped he would, it’s just that one of those strikes went for an awfully long ride.  But here’s the thing:  It was one bad pitch.  As I mentioned a couple of times on The JaysTalk, all it was was one bad pitch. Otherwise, he looked like B.J. Ryan again.  He threw strikes, he hit 89 on the gun and hung out consistently at 87-88, he got a couple of ground ball outs, made Thames look silly striking out and gave up a check-swing looper for a single.  Aside from blowing the save by giving up that home run – and that’s a LOT to put aside – he looked fine.  Last year, we saw Ryan get a whole lot of saves during which he didn’t look nearly as good as he did tonight.

It’s weird.  Ryan blew the save, but I’m not nearly as worried about him now as I was when I saw him coming in from the bullpen.  Time will tell, though.

In the bottom of the 9th, there was Adam Lind working a nine-pitch walk with one out to start the rally.  Walks are important – you’ll recall it was Alex Rios’ two-out walk with the bases empty in the first last night that opened the door to a four-run inning.  Rolen, who had homered in the 8th for the Jays’ first run, singled to right-centre to drive pinch-runner Jose Bautista to third, and after an intentional walk to Lyle Overbay, Rod Barajas hit a 2-2 pitch to more-than-deep-enough centre to drive in the winning run. A walkoff win to send 16,790 (about 5,000 more than I expected) home happy.  I don’t think the Jays got their first walk-off win until just before the all-star break last season.

Two cool things that bear mentioning before I finish this long-winded post:

A – If the Detroit Tigers have Lyle Overbay at first base, they win this game.  Miguel Cabrera couldn’t pick the not-so-short hop that Brandon Inge sent his way on an Overbay grounder in the 8th, and the error set the stage for the rally leading up to Hill’s three-run bomb.  It’s something most Jays fans don’t even think about while they’re railing against Overbay for not hitting 30 homers a year and grounding into fewer double plays than Derek Jeter and Vladimir Guerrero, but Overbay picks that ball without blinking.  He saves the Jays plenty on defense.

I understand there’s a space-time continuum issue in that if Overbay was playing first for the Tigers, they’d have won the game because he’d have picked a throw on a grounder that he himself hit, but I hope we can all just get past that.

2 – As a result of Cabrera not coming up with that throw, and the error being charged to Inge, the last three Jays runs in the 8th inning were unearned – but just against the Tigers’ team total.  Brandon Lyon came in with the situation already in place and gave up a single to Marco Scutaro and then the Hill homer, so the two runs charged to him in the 8th inning were earned.  But only on his record, not the team’s.  This doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s pretty cool.

We had our first extendo-JaysTalk of the season tonight, and here it is for your listening pleasure:

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Tomorrow night, you can find us on AM1150 Hamilton if you’re in the Toronto listening area, so make sure you tune in there to hear Jesse Litsch make his season debut against Detroit’s Zach Miner.  It’ll likely work the same as tonight did, in that the Fan590 will join us in progress late, and we’ll be able to have a normal JaysTalk as we did tonight.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!