image

Archive for June, 2009

The Nation’s Crapital

Sunday, June 21st, 2009

1:00 AM Eastern

If you’re the Blue Jays, that is.  They laid another egg, losing again in extras, and the Nationals have now won four straight, their longest win streak of the season.  They’ve picked up 20% of their 2009 wins in the last four days against the Jays and Yankees.

Tonight, the hitting let the Jays down again – just four runs in 23 innings so far in D.C. after scoring 23 in 27 in sweeping the Phils.

Brett Cecil looked great, giving the Jays exactly what they needed with seven strong innings in his first start back, and Scott Richmond rode out on his white horse to pitch the 11th and 12th on just two days’ rest.  A valiant effort, to be sure, but if the Jays had hit they wouldn’t have needed him.  Still, major kudos go out to Richmond for helping out.

Vernon Wells went deep for the first time in 160 at-bats, and if you look closely at the replay, you’ll see that as the ball disappeared over the left-centrefield wall, Wells stopped for a second and appeared to scratch his head, trying to figure out what to do, before remembering that when that happens, you’re allowed to keep running all the way around the bases.

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

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.

Tomorrow, Ricky Romero will try to play hero, and he’ll have back-up with a fully rested bullpen save for Shawn Camp (who also did a fantastic job today) and B.J. Ryan (which is a good thing).  We’re on at 1:00 PM Eastern. It’s doubtful that Russ Adams, who was called up after the game with Joe Inglett going down, will be able to do much – he’s likely taking the red-eye overnight, though he could already be there since he didn’t play in AAA tonight.  I guess the Jays just couldn’t hold Russ down anymore, what with him hitting .319/.363/.514 in Vegas.  Weird splits, though – he raked lefties (.526/.500/.632) in just 19 at-bats, but those crazy numbers drove up the overall totals, because he wasn’t doing well at all against righties (.245/.317/.472).

Remember too to tune into The Blue Jays This Week tomorrow at 7:00 PM Eastern, it’s the Father’s Day edition, featuring Dad’s Day-related interviews with Cito Gaston, the “father” of 25 Blue Jays, and Lyle Overbay, the father of the three Overboys.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

Nationalized

Saturday, June 20th, 2009

1:00 AM Eastern

I don’t really have much to say tonight, I guess the Phillies series wore me out.  It’s just too bad that Jason Frasor had to be the one to cough it up, but it really was amazing how  poorly the Jays hit tonight.  Not unexpected, I guess, coming off a series like they just had and going into Washington to face the worst team in the league.

Brett Cecil threw an eight-inning complete game in his last start in Vegas – let’s hope he’s got that much in him tomorrow night, as well.

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

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.

Tomorrow, Saturday night’s alright for baseball!  We’re on at 6:00 PM Eastern with a pre-pre-game show in which I’ll probably play an interview I did last week with Balor Moore, and then we hook up with the network at 6:30 for a 7:05 first pitch – rookie lefty first-rounders from 2007 do battle!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

Now Pitching…….Lyle Overbay

Friday, June 19th, 2009

12:40 AM Eastern

Another inning or two, and that’s where the Jays were going in this one, but they managed to win in regulation and avoid that embarrassment.

It’s been a long day, with the game, then picking up The Billie from an after-school playdate and then playing in the old-man softball league (a pathetic 1-for-4 with an RBI single but a very good game with the glove at short in an 11-6 win), so I’m only going to touch on a few things.

The first is perhaps the coolest thing I have ever seen in a professional baseball game – Marco Scutaro stealing second on a walk.  That was incredible, as Scoot simply noticed that the Phillies’ middle infield was asleep and Joe Blanton, having just gotten the ball back from the catcher, was kicking dirt around the front of the mound.  Scutaro jogged down to first, then took off for second and beat the shortstop to the bag.  That play alone is worth a ticket to the all-star gamefor Scoot.  An incredible feat of derring-do.  Amazing.

But the key part of the game, though it didn’t cost the Jays at all, was Cito Gaston wasting his best reliever because he didn’t pull a double switch.  Having left Brandon League out to pitch a second inning after the Jays took the lead in the top of the 8th, Gaston came out to yank League and bring in Frasor after the Phils put the tying run on second with Jimmy Rollins’ two-out double off the left-field wall.

The pitcher’s spot was due to lead off the 9th, with Raul Chavez having been the last out of the 8th.

The Baseball 101, incredibly obvious, only correct move – especially since the Jays only had two pitchers left in the bullpen, having already gone through Shawn Camp, Dirk Hayhurst and Jesse Carlson before League came in – was to bring Rod Barajas in to catch as part of a double-switch, with Frasor coming in to bat in the 8th spot and Barajas, the new catcher, batting 9th and leading off the 9th.

Instead, Gaston only brought in Frasor, with the intention of having him lead off the 9th inning if he had been able to hold the lead.  He didn’t, allowing a game-tying RBI single to Shane Victorino.  So, in the top of the 9th, in a tie game, Gaston pinch-hit for Frasor with – you guessed it – Barajas.  The guy who should have been in the game anyway.

The Captain wound up going deep to give the Jays the lead, which was marvelous, but it left the Jays with B.J. Ryan and Jeremy Accardo, who had just gotten off the red-eye from Vegas, to close the game out.  Had Barajas or his teammates not given the Jays the lead, it would have been Ryan and Accardo, and then Overbay.

It was a ridiculous non-move to make, and almost cost the team the game.  If Gaston didn’t realize that the double-switch was the move, then one of former National League manager Nick Leyva or former National League coach Brian Butterfield should have been screaming in his ear.  Just terrible.

But the Jays won, with Ryan walking lead-off man Chase Utley, then striking out Ryan Howard before giving way to Accardo, who finished it up. Ryan was visibly upset at being yanked after the strikeout, which could turn into an issue.  I’m not there, and haven’t talked to any of the principals, but if Ryan feels hard done by because he’s not the option to close out close games, then he really needs to look at himself in the mirror.  He’s not the closer anymore because he shouldn’t be the closer anymore.  He looked absolutely terrible Wednesday night with a six-run lead in the 9th inning, loading the bases before leaving (also angrily), and given the ball this afternoon to protect a one-run lead in the 9th, he walked the first batter he faced.  Ryan has NO reason to feel entitled to be given the ball in high-leverage situations.

Had the Phillies tied the game in the bottom of the 9th, and they had runners at first and second with two out, Accardo would have come back out to pitch the 10th, and the 11th would have been Overbay’s.  I’d have loved to have seen that, by the way, the guy was a terrific pitcher in college.

So the Jays get swept at home by the Marlins, then hit the road and  sweep the World Series champs in a series in which they very easily could have lost two of three.  For the series, the Jays were 0-for-14 with the bases loaded.  Incredible.  Now they’re off to DC to face a Washington team that just took two of three from the Yankees in New York.

Amazingly, the Blue Jays currently sit just one game out of a playoff spot.

About Brad Mills’ major-league debut – he’s got to throw more strikes, plain and simple.  He could have gone a lot deeper, but he walked the pitcher with two out and nobody on in the 4th.  If he gets the automatic out there, Jimmy Rollins doesn’t get to come up and hit the two-run shot that gives the Phils the lead, and maybe Mills winds up going six and getting a win.  He has to throw more strikes.

No JaysTalk today, what with the weekday afternoon game, but we’ll have time to chat tomorrow night after the Brian Tallet/Jordan Zimmermann confrontation at Nationals Park in Washington.  Tune us in at 7:00 PM Eastern time.

Before you do that, though, check out SUN TV’s The Grill Room – I’ll be on at 6:30 PM Eastern, not sure who is going to make up the rest of the panel.  And before you do THAT, you can hear me on The Bullpen with Mike Hogan at 10:05 AM Eastern on The Fan590 and this very website.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

Halladayesque

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

12:25 AM Eastern

That’s what Scott Richmond was tonight, and I don’t think anyone saw it coming.  The walls are closing in, the sky is falling, three pitchers go on the disabled list (including the two best ones on the team) and Richmond was an island of calm in an ocean of chaos.

He destroyed the Phillies, handling the tough lefty bats of Howard, Utley, Ibanez and Rollins with aplomb, allowing them just one single combined and striking them out a total of six times.  That would be six of his career-high 11 whiffs, mostly accomplished with a particularly devastating curveball.

That’s two nights in a row that a Jays’ starter has reached a  career-high in strikeouts, and all Brad Mills has to do tomorrow to make it three in a row (if the weather co-operates) is to get one.

Mills is here, along with Jeremy Accardo and Brett Cecil, because Casey Janssen, Roy Halladay and Scott Downs went on the 15-day DL this afternoon.  Janssen with inflammation in his surgically-repaired right shoulder, Halladay with the groin strain he suffered last Friday at the Dome and Downs with a sprained big toe on his right foot.  Halladay could be back to start next Saturday, when the Jays host Philly in their penultimate interleague game of the season.  Cecil will start in Doc’s place this Saturday.  Accardo is up to be a piece of the bullpen puzzle, but Cito Gaston says Jason Frasor is now his closer, and no one in that bullpen deserves that designation more.

Alex Rios did it again today, forgetting how many outs there were and getting himself doubled up at first on Lyle Overbay’s one-out fly ball in the second inning.  I found that amazing, given what should have been his level of embarrassment for last night’s blunder.  As much as I’m starting to think that these are things with which we’re going to have to learn to live from Rios, since the good he does far outweighs the bad, I would have yanked him from the game right away tonight.  Two days in a row is extra-ridiculous.

That said, Rios has committed two incredibly fundamental mistakes on the basepaths in two games, and the Blue Jays have won those two games by a combined score of 15-4.

Man, did B.J. Ryan look awful tonight.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure – sorry you couldn’t listen online tonight because of the Argo game:

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.

Thursday afternoon, weather permitting, Mills makes his big-league debut against the Phillies and Joe Blanton.  Look for a terrific 12-to-6 curveball and plenty of strikes from the young lefty.  Of course, first time out, you never know what you’re going to get.

Sorry I couldn’t get to all of last night’s comments, there are about 50 left over and I’ll get to as many of those and the ones that come in from that point as I can during the day game.

Very busy day, with a practice for the Grade 4 and 5′s in the morning in advance of the playoff game that got rained out this afternoon, and the Woodbine Entertainment Group media golf tournament in between.  The horsey folk put on a fantastic tournament every year, and this was the first time I have been able to go in a few years, what with the Jays’ schedule and all.   My group (Steve Simmons, photog Mike Cassese (sp?) and I) shot even par, saving it with a birdie on the last hole.  I think about 20 of the 71 shots we had were mine, but a dozen or so of them were tap-ins for par.   I don’t think we were close to winning the thing but hey, I won a barbecue!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

You Have Got To Be Kidding Me

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009

12:25 AM Eastern

If you ever needed proof that:  A – there are baseball gods, and 2 – they hate the Blue Jays, look no further than tonight.

The Blue Jays beat the Phillies thanks to them getting a 73rd chance to make up for all the chances they had blown earlier – so the baseball gods turned warmly towards them, right?  You’d think so, but then you wouldn’t have seen Scott Downs hurting his left foot WHILE RUNNING OUT A GROUND BALL WITH A FIVE-RUN LEAD IN THE 10TH INNING!

Seriously.  This is more than a little ridiculous.  Four of the returning five starting pitchers from the 2008 team that had the best ERA in the game are on the shelf, three of them with catastrophic injuries.  The $9 million a year closer can no longer throw hard and has been reduced to low-leverage work and now the bullpen’s best pitcher goes down while running out a ground ball.  Heavy sigh.  X-rays on Downs’ foot were negative, but intrepid bluejays.com reporter Jordan Bastian says Downs will have an MRI done tomorrow, and a stint on the disabled list is not unlikely.  Jeremy Accardo, pack your bags.

Some positive notes:  Ricky Romero looked terrific on the mound again, holding down the Phillies on six hits and two walks over seven innings, striking out a career-high nine.  Vernon Wells got a couple of hits, finally, and Jesse Carlson pitched a shutout inning.

On the downside – how about the Jays going a collective 0-for-9 with the bases loaded?  OK, really o-for-7, since two of those at-bats were Romero.

Rod Barajas – who, it should be noted, is NOT one of the better hitters on this team – came to bat three times with a runner on third and less than two out (twice with the bases loaded – and yes, it was actually four times, but he was intentionally walked once) and couldn’t drive in a single runner.  He popped up on the infield all three times.  Ridiculous, especially given that The Captain has that classic uppercut swing that you’d think could get you at least a fly ball maybe one of those times.  At least Barajas redeemed himself with a booming two-run double to cap the five-run 10th and seal the win.

And finally, Alex Rios.  On a night on which Rios went 2-for-4 with a stolen base, two walks, two runs scored and an RBI, he was very nearly a massive goat – more so than even The Captain would have been had the Jays not come back to win this game.  In the bottom of the 8th inning, with the Jays down 3-2, the bases loaded and one out, Rios was on third with Marco Scutaro at the plate.

Scutaro ripped a ball into the left-centre gap, and Rios expected the ball to drop.  He took a couple of steps towards the plate, then remembered that you’re supposed to tag up on those plays, because that way you score if the ball is caught, and you can crawl home if you want if the ball drops for a hit.  But then he seemed to think better of it, and took another step or two towards the plate, then was going back to third as Raul Ibanez made a great catch, which left him unable to tag up and try to score.

There are no words.

Actually, there are a lot of words that come to mind, only some of them printable.  Among those – ridiculous, unbelieveable, stupid, unacceptable, stupefying, just….just….come on.  That’s a play that an eight-year old should be doing properly.

Third base coach Nick Leyva was waving his right arm as Rios was heading back to third the first time, which might have confused him, but regardless, he has to know what to do there.  There is simply no excuse.  You hope he’s learned the lesson by standing out there embarrassed for all to see, but then you hope he’d have learned his lessons the half-dozen or so other times he’s had another brain-lock moment on the field.

So what do you do?  Bench him?  Not the best idea, since the guy is on fire at the plate.  Since being moved to the 6th spot in the order on Friday, he’s 9-for-15 (.600/.647/.867) with two homers, six runs scored, five RBIs and four stolen bases. You just have to keep sending him out there and hope that, at some point, he gets it.

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

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.

Tomorrow, it’s Scott Richmond against Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez and the rest of the defending World Series champs.  We’re on at 7:00 PM Eastern, make sure to tune us in!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

Swept!

Sunday, June 14th, 2009

5:20 PM Eastern

Brian Tallet blew up real good and the Jays couldn’t put together any offense outside the 4th inning, and the result is that the Jays are headed off on the road having been swept at home by a team with a losing record.

That Marlins Magic (TM) continues to hold – Florida is now 17-4 against the Jays in franchise history.

Tallet certainly wasn’t good, having allowed 10 hits over 3 1/3 innings in becoming the third straight Jays starter not to make it out of the fourth inning.  Even a lot of the outs were loud, with Adam Lind making a nice, running shoestring catch on Jeremy Hermida in the 2nd, Hanley Ramirez flying out to the track in right in the 1st, and Dan Uggla lining out into a double play in the 3rd.

It’s the second time Tallet has been rocked this season; he gave up 10 runs in a four-inning stint in Kansas City back in April.  In the eight starts in between, though, Tallet gave up more than three earned runs exactly once, and  pitched into at least the seventh inning every time.    Before the KC blow-up, Tallet hadn’t given up more than three earned runs in any outing.

They’re ugly when they happen, but if you go seven great, one awful, I’ll take that.  Here’s hoping Tallet can rebound from this one the same way he did the last time.

With the Jays hitting the interleague road now, they’ll be without a DH for the next six games in Philly and DC, and that’s not a bad thing.  Kevin Millar, who has pretty much become the everyday DH, is 4 for his last 31, including today’s homer.  The pitchers will probably do worse as hitters, but they can’t do much worse, and they’ll at least be hitting ninth.  By the time the Jays get home from the trip, Dave Dellucci will likely be waiting for them in Toronto to, hopefully, give them a bit of a boost.

There was some good news today, despite the uglitude of the weekend.  Alex Rios homered – just his second home run of the season with a man on base.  Rios went 7-for-11 for the homestand after being knocked down to the sixth spot in the line-up.  It also appears that Vernon Wells may finally be coming out of it.  He hit the ball as well today as he had in weeks, and was absolutely robbed by Dan Uggla with a fantastic diving play on a rocket up the middle, then less absolutely robbed by Cody Ross on a drive to left-centre.  He followed those two at-bats by taking a walk, so let’s see what happens when he hits the road.

It is ridiculous that the Jays haven’t managed to pick up a win against what’s clearly the inferior league to this point.  They’re 0-6 against the National League with 12 games to play.  As the man from Fantasy Island used to say – Fun, Wow.

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

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 to check out The Blue Jays This Week tonight at 7:00 PM Eastern – the whole show is a conversation with Jays’ scouting director Jon Lalonde, dealing with this week’s first-year player draft.  Jon is a great guy, and always gives us plenty of time whenever we see him, and I’m especially grateful to him this time, since he was badly in need of a nap when we spoke on Friday night.

No game tomorrow, the Jays will enjoy a day off in the City of Brotherly Love, so that’ll be fun.  Tune us in at 7:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday for the battle of lefties – Ricky Romero will try for a third straight strong start against World Series MVP Cole Hamels.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

Squished

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

5:12 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays fought back from some early doldrums, but they couldn’t close the deal, and found themselves on the wrong side of another one-run game, falling back to an even 9-9 in such contests this season.  They’re also 0-5 against the National League, which is just plain crazy.

The Jays were let down early by Casey Janssen, who dug that 5-0 hole by giving up a couple of hard doubles in the first and a two-run homer in each of the third and fourth innings, but also by the fact that nobody who isn’t named Alex Rios managed to get a hit over the first five innings.

Janssen most assuredly wasn’t good today.  In fact, he hasn’t been good in most of his five starts, which has led to and will continue to lead to people calling for his return to the bullpen, where he was so dominant in 2007 before hurting his shoulder.  I have always been of the opinion that Janssen should be in the rotation, pointing to how well he did in that role in 2006 before his knee injury, and the fact that getting quality innings out of a guy as a starter is more helpful than getting quality innings out of a guy as a reliever.  But I’m starting to wonder.

It’s far too early to make a firm decision on Janssen’s ultimate role – he’s still really working his way back from the shoulder injury that cost him all of last year, and these first few outings might be him slowly rounding back into form, so you don’t want to write him off yet.  Thing is, though, if Janssen’s ceiling as a starter is to just be OK to maybe kinda good, I’d rather have him in the bullpen, where he was awesome.  I’d still run him out there for a few more starts just to make sure, though with the current lack of a reliable set-up man who is trusted by Gaston, there might be a little bit of urgency to get Janssen back there.

Shawn Camp did a nice job over three innings of relief today, just as Scott Richmond did over 3 2/3 yesterday, but you can’t keep running your long men out in the 4th inning and expect to be in a position to win.  That’s just where the Jays were today, though, because Rios and Lyle (No Power) Overbay each hit two-run homers and Wes Helms threw away a double play ball off the bat of Vernon Wells in the 7th.  That error made it a one-run game with runners at first and second, one out and the 4-5 hitters up.  But Adam Lind snapped his bat at the handle and flied out to centre and Kevin Millar grounded out to short against a tough righty.

In the 8th, they had another chance with Rios again – he led off the inning with his fourth hit of the day and stole second with nobody out.  But Overbay was bested by Leo Nunez, swinging at and missing a couple of hard fastballs after getting ahead in the count 3-1.  With Overbay unable to move Rios, he tried to do it himself, but was thrown out on a bang-bang play trying to steal third.  It was unnecessary, but hey, people want Rios to be more aggressive, right?

Down one going into the bottom of the ninth, at least Cito Gaston pinch-hit for Raul Chavez, but can anyone explain why he chose Rod Barajas to do the pinch-hitting?  With Joe Inglett and Scott Rolen also on the bench, even John McDonald, there were better options.  Especially given Barajas’ lack of wheels and the Jays’ inability to pinch-run for him.  All season long, we have seen Barajas and Millar – the two slowest of foot on the club – leaving the game for pinch-runners in close games late.  Today, Barajas was put in the game in a position wherein there was no pinch-running option available because he was the only catcher left.  So if Barajas doesn’t hit a home run, it’s going to take two or three hits to score him, and that’s a lot to ask.  The questionable things that Cito does in-game are usually non-moves, but this actual move was really, really ugly.

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

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.

Tomorrow, the Jays try again for win number one against the Senior Circuit, with Brian Tallet up against Marlins’ ace Josh Johnson.  Tune us in at 12:30 PM Eastern for a 1:07 first pitch!  No clue who I’ll have on the pre-game – I’d love to grab  Rios, but he wasn’t terribly amenable the last time I asked.

Happy 70th birthday Tom Cheek!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

Uh-Oh

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

12:20 AM Eastern

Who would have thought that on a day that Cito Gaston finally changes up the line-up, that wouldn’t be the story?  Brandon League gives up a Grand Slam in the 8th?  Not the major issue of the evening.

Roy Halladay, who had never had any groin issues before (so how did he wind up with two kids?  Zing!), felt a “tweak” in his right groin when he delivered the first pitch of the fourth inning to Jeremy Hermida.  He wasn’t sure it was anything, so he threw another pitch, felt it again, and was done.

In a word, uh-oh.

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

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.

Tune us in tomorrow at 12:30 PM Eastern, I’m going to try to get Dave Van Horne for the pre-game show.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!  All others will be deleted at my discretion.

The Lone Run State

Friday, June 12th, 2009

12:25 AM Eastern

I never thought I’d see a 1-0 game at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, but there it was tonight. Ricky Romero had the change-up working and Kevin Millwood was dealing like the league ERA champ he was in Cleveland a couple of years ago, and so it goes.

There wasn’t a single hit with a runner in scoring position tonight, with the Jays going 0-for-9 and the Rangers 0-for-7.

Still, to win a series on the road against the team that had the best record in the league when the Jays arrived is a very good thing.  It’s just too bad that they outscored Texas 15-4 over the series and only won two of three.

Romero’s outing tonight was very, very encouraging.  He seemed to have taken a hard step back when he came back off the disabled list, with a couple of very poor outings in a row.  Last time out, though, he took a two-hit shutout into the 7th against the Royals, with only two walks, and tonight he gave up just the one run on only five hits and two walks over 6 1/3, with six strikeouts.

A guy who so many had written off as a massive bust as recently as three months ago now seems as though he may really wind up being something.  I’m looking forward to watching his continuing development.

Offensively, the Jays didn’t do much tonight.  The whipping boys combined to go 1-for-8, including an 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position, but Adam Lind was a highlight again. The guy has been just tremendous since the Jays got back from that ugly 0-9 road trip, and tonight doubled with one out in the 9th against lefty C.J. Wilson to put the tying run in scoring position.  Scott Rolen struck out on a ball in the dirt and Lyle Overbay grounded out, but Lind put the Jays in a position to tie the game with a single.

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

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.

The Blue Jays are on their way home for a quick three-game set with the Marlins.  Roy Halladay attempts to become baseball’s first 11-game winner this season tomorrow night against the man who was supposed to be Florida’s ace, Ricky Nolasco.  We’re on at 7:00 PM Eastern for a 7:07 first pitch.  The Jays sent Halladay and Saturday’s starter, Casey Janssen, home early from Texas to combat jet lag (even though it’s only a one-hour time difference) and to make sure they’re fresh for their starts.  Brian Tallet, who had to go on the plane with the rest of the team, will pitch Sunday.

One last thing before I close up for the night – can we please have a moratorium on the same-old same-old “Wells and Rios suck” calls and comments?  Frankly, it’s getting boring.  Yes, neither one of them is earning his money, neither one of them deserves to be hitting in the 3-4 spots in the line-up, both of them are disappointing, both of them are costing the Jays chances to win ballgames.  Neither one of them sucks.  Both of them are good hitters having poor seasons.  It’s all true.  I don’t want to take any more callers or read any more comments from those who are just going to parrot the above.  It’s been a daily thing for about a month and a half, if not longer.

If you have a different take on Wells and/or Rios, if you have something to contribute to the conversation that hasn’t been said about a half-dozen times a day for the last six weeks, then please do call or write in, I’d be happy to discuss it.

But honestly, just to call in to say that they’re not performing is getting really old.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

Rain, Rain, Open The Phone Lines

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

3:00 AM Eastern

I can’t sleep, so I thought I’d come on here, answer some comments and post The Rain Delay Programme, for your listening pleasure:

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.

Check out the comments section, there are some links to some very good articles.  An especially good link is one to a site detailing injuries across the majors – you’ll find that several teams are dealing with several catastrophic pitching injuries.  It happens to everyone.

We should have Jake Eliopoulos on the pre-pre-game Thursday at 7:00 PM Eastern just before the Blue Jays look for the rain-shortened sweep.  Make sure to tune in here on the website or on The Fan590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!