5:15 PM Eastern

If this was Roy Halladay’s final game in a Blue Jays uniform (and I doubt it was), he went out in about as brilliant a fashion as one can, throwing a complete-game, dominating the Red Sox with a walk-free six-hitter.  It was vintage Halladay, and it was pretty emotional from this end – unexpectedly so.

I didn’t come into today’s game thinking that it would feel any differently than any other Roy Halladay start, but it really did, and it might be because of how well Halladay pitched.  It was as though he realized that this might be his last chance to perform as a Blue Jay in Toronto, and if it’s even possible for him, he reached back for even more than he usually brings.

As he neared the dugout after the game was over, Halladay doffed his cap and gave the crowd a big wave, and he did so again after he finished up a post-game, on-field interview with Sam Cosentino.

As I said, I don’t think this was Doc’s last start as a Blue Jay.  I’d be surprised if he were traded tomorrow, or before his next home start on Friday night, but there were plenty of scouts here and the major suitors might be starting to realize that any extra starts they get from Doc between now and July 31st are really worth having.  It seems as though the Brewers, Phillies and Red Sox are in on Halladay the hardest, and they’ve all got enough to get him – it just comes down to who is willing to pony up the package of players that would get the Blue Jays to pull the trigger.

Roy’s wife Brandi was up here in the broadcast booth yesterday and today, and I made sure to tell her how sweet it would be – should the Halladays leave Toronto either this year or next -  if Roy came back at the end of the line, after that contract he’ll sign post-2010, to finish up his great career as a Blue Jay.  She thought that was a great idea.

Here’s today’s edition of The JaysTalk – a good, long one – for your listening pleasure:

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And just for the heck of it, here’s yesterday’s edition of The JaysTalk – also for your listening pleasure:

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As for the offense today, how about The Captain going 2-for-2 with a couple of loopers to shallow left to snap out of an 0-for-20 slump, driving in all three runs.  And dig Lyle Overbay, with a double and a walk and two runs scored – he’s 6-for-11 since the break.  But who’s kidding who, today was all about Roy Halladay.  Hopefully, Friday will be, too.

Tomorrow is an off-day, so you’ll hear Roger Lajoie on Baseball Today, but I’ll be back with that show on Tuesday and then we’ll all be back here that night for a battle of lefties – Brett Cecil takes on Cliff Lee and we go to air at 7:00 PM Eastern.  Hopefully, I won’t be doing any bloggage between now and then, because if I do, I’m pretty sure it would be to break down a Roy Halladay trade.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:15 AM Eastern

I know I said that I wouldn’t be doing any weekend blogging during the summer because of Baseball Today, but I’m breaking the rule because we’re just coming off the all-star break.

And we have come off the break pretty much the same way we went in, watching the Blue Jays being unable to score and losing close games.  Tonight’s loss was their 9th in 11 games and 13th in the last 16 – at least it was by more than two runs, first time that has happened since June.

Clay Buchholz looked terrific and Daniel Bard looked even better – and what do you know, they’re two of the names prominently mentioned in all those Halladay-to-the-Red-Sox rumours.  Lyle Overbay and Adam Lind were the only ones who had an answer, while Ricky Romero struggled with his control.  The rookie lefty suffered his fourth loss (half of which have been to Boston), issuing five walks over his 4 1/3 innings of work.  Two of those walks were ahead of David Ortiz’ two-run double off the left-field wall – one of those two walks was in a terrific 12-pitch battle with Dustin Pedroia.

Shawn Camp continued his transmogrification into some sort of super-long-man, retiring all eight hitters he faced.

Vernon Wells sat out with the stomach flu – so try to find a way to blame this loss on him – and the Jays hope he’ll be back in there tomorrow.  Dave Dellucci played left and made a couple of outstanding catches, but then took a ball off the foot in the 7th inning and had to leave the game.  Without Wells, the Jays had to put John McDonald in the outfield so as not to lose their DH.  It was the first time Johnny Mac has ever played the outfield in professional baseball, and the Sox didn’t hit a single ball his way in two innings.

Looch may have a broken foot, which leads one to wonder whatever would the Blue Jays do if they lost him.  Hopefully they’ll call up Travis Snider, or failing that, Randy Ruiz, and stick whoever comes up in the line-up every day.  Neither of them were yanked from their game with Las Vegas tonight (Snider homered!), but they wouldn’t have been able to do much in a day game after a red-eye anyway.

Unfortunately, due to a technical issue, we aren’t able to put tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk up here for your listening pleasure.  It was a pretty short one because of the Argo game – we only had time for two calls, though they were spectacular.The series continues with a Saturday afternooner featuring Marc Rzepczynski against Brad Penny.  Brian Tallet was supposed to start, but Cito Gaston moved him back to the bullpen for a week, saying he needed another lefty down there.  Tallet becomes the 5th starter, and the Jays don’t need one of those until next Saturday.  If Zep and Cecil continue to pitch well, Tallet may stay in the ‘pen once Shaun Marcum comes back in three weeks or so.

Make sure to tune us in at 12:30 PM Eastern for a 1:07  first pitch!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:50 PM Eastern

It’s funny how an unexpectedly terrific start can shift expectations in a hurry, and it’s funny how a couple of really ugly patches can shift them way farther back the other way.

I don’t know how many times I’ve asked on the air and in this space – “What kind of season did you expect the Jays to have?”  If I’d said in March that they’d be two games under .500 at the break, most people would have thought that was about right or that that was a little better than expected (I can’t tell you how many people told me before the season that the Jays were a 90+ loss team that would be lucky to stay out of last place). But it’s the way they’ve done it that’s made it so hard to take.

A 27-14 start.  A 9-game losing streak.  This current run on which they’ve lost 13 of their last 17.  If you take out the great start, the Jays are 17-32 (a 56-106 pace).  If you take out the two ugly patches, they’re 40-24  (a 101-61 pace).  It’s kind of crazy.

The Jays got off to that great start on the backs of their starting pitchers – led by Roy Halladay, Ricky Romero, Scott Richmond and Brian Tallet, and the great starts to the season by Marco Scutaro, Aaron Hill and Adam Lind, who absolutely killed it the first month.

The top two have come crashing back to Earth.  Since the end of May, Scutaro has hit .265/.349/.367 and Hill is at .233/.281/.440.  Lind has been the saving grace, hitting .331/.394/.634 over the same period, while Scott Rolen has come on like gangbusters as well.

We knew that Scutaro and Hill wouldn’t be able to keep it up, but we thought that when they got cold, Vernon Wells and Alex Rios would heat up.  It hasn’t happened.  Since the end of May, Wells has struggled along at .259/.299/.415 – and that’s despite a great road trip just concluded for him – he hit .372/.400/.581 on the 10-gamer in which the Jays went 2-8.    Rios, since the end of May, has hit .239/.288/.376.

With the DH spot shared by various incarnations of Millinglucctistadams (go ahead, try to pronounce it), the Jays have basically been relying on Lind and Rolen for their ENTIRE offense since the end of May, and it has cost them.  Since then, they’re 15-22 – a .405 winning percentage, or a pace to go 66-96 over a full season.

The bottom line is, of course, that people have to start hitting.

Just for the sake of completeness – Rolen, since the end of May, has hit .341/.374/.496 and Lyle Overbay has hit .220/.383/.400 – that’s all the regulars.

The offensive numbers, with the exceptions of Lind and Rolen, and, to a lesser extent, Overbay, are pretty disgusting.

The pitching has been far better than expected, especially given the fact that there are five starters on the disabled list and there have been pretty much all season.  Marc Rzepczynski looked very good again today, Ricky Romero has been a godsend, Brian Tallet has been outstanding save for three starts, and Brett Cecil has been the only rookie (with more than two starts) who has really looked like a rookie out there.  If only this team could hit.

I’m stunned, by the way, that I haven’t heard from any of the “Cito and his coaches have fixed the hitters” folks, who were so vocal over the first six weeks of the season.

Before the season, and at other times, I mentioned that the major failing of this particular front office has been its unwillingness to make the “sell” trade at the July 31st deadline.  Those types of trades have netted, say, Tampa Bay, players like Scott Kazmir and Dioner Navarro.  This year, though, wasn’t supposed to be the year that the Jays would find themselves stuck in-between at the deadline.  They were going to be out of it, and would be willing to be sellers.  I thought, though, that we’d be talking about guys like Rolen, Overbay, Scutaro, Barajas and B.J. Ryan.  Heck, maybe even Matt Clement.

Instead, Ryan is gone, the rumour mill is centred around Roy Halladay, and people around these parts can’t wait to get rid of Wells and Rios.

Weird what expectations can do.

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

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The all-star break is upon us, and I’m going to take a blogging break for the next four days.  This will be the last post until Friday night unless the Jays make a major move.

I will, however, be on the radio on Monday and Tuesday, hosting Baseball Today at noon Eastern on the Fan590 and on this very website (they’re giving me Wednesday and Thursday for battery-recharging).  Monday’s show will feature Shi Davidi, who is in St. Louis for the all-star game and will have been at the news conference announcing the starting pitchers (Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum, I’m pretty sure), and we’ll also speak to minor-league guru Lisa Winston of milb.com about this afternoon (and evening)’s Futures Game, as well as some other minor-leaguey stuff.  Tuesday we’ll have open phones to talk about all-star games and their place in the current era.

I may pop on here once or twice during the week to answer comments, but they might have to wait until Friday.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

1:00 AM Eastern

Brett Cecil seemed to have a little extra spring in his step tonight – Lyle Overbay even mentioned after the game that the few Oriole baserunners mentioned that he was throwing harder than they expected – and maybe that’s to be expected pitching in front of his hometown crowd.  Cecil continued to look terrific in starts not taking place at Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park, and the Blue Jays picked up a shutout.

Dig the bullpen, too – with Scott Downs back off the DL and closing, they set up nicely in the 7th, 8th and 9th, with Shawn Camp struggling, then passing it over to a perfect Jesse Carlson and Jason Frasor.  As things progress we’ll likely see more Brandon League in the role played by Camp tonight.

And what do you know?  Dave Dellucci drove in the game-winning run (albeit with a ground out, Alex Rios hit two doubles and Lyle Overbay reached base three times.  I’m still not confident that I’ll actually ever get to meet Looch.  After all, they called him up at the beginning of what’s been a 2-6 road trip so far, he doesn’t have a hit yet, and Travis Snider is back healthy and playing in Vegas.  I expect Snider to be in and Dellucci to be out after the all-star break.  Looch hasn’t exactly hit the ground running.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure.  Tons of first-timers tonight!

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Remember to tune in for a rare Saturday night game, we’re on the air with the pre-game at 6:30 PM Eastern.  Ricky Romero will take on fellow lefty Rich Hill (Kevin Millar alert!), who will be th eonly starting pitcher in this entire series who isn’t a rookie.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:00 AM Eastern

Just got back from old-man softball (not slo-pitch!) so I thought I’d drop a little entry in here and give you this afternoon’s edition of The JaysTalk.

Yes, the Jays got swept in Tampa Bay, no, it doesn’t mean they can’t play with the Rays.  They lost all three games by one run each (OK, one was by two runs, but it was a walk-off homer, so the Rays only needed the one) and really, when you’re hitting Kevin Millar clean-up, you can’t reasonably expect to win.

Marco Scutaro got his first day off of the season, and Scott Rolen watched this one as well, and in true Cito”a day off is a day off” style, neither of them was asked to pinch-hit for Millar with the bases loaded in the 7th, one out and the Jays down by a run.  Millar popped up, Vernon Wells flied out to deep centre, and the Jays never had another baserunner.

Just remember, and I know you don’t want to hear this:  Things are never as good as they seem when they’re going well (27-14, leading the league in almost all pitching and hitting categories), and they’re never as bad as they seem when things are going badly (this horrible 1-6 road trip, part of a horrible 2-10 stretch).

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

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Tomorrow, the Jays open up a three-game set in Baltimore that takes them to the all-star break.  We’re on at 7:00 PM Eastern with Brett Cecil, the Maryland native, taking on fellow rookie Jason Berken.  Berken is right-handed, so Kevin Millar won’t be hitting clean-up.

But make sure you tune in even earlier, because Baseball Today is back at Noon Eastern.  We’ll have Joe Sheehan from Baseball Prospectus on to talk about some advanced metrics – hopefully that’ll become a regular segment – and I’m also trying to get Spencer Fordin of mlb.com to talk about the Orioles and what might be the best young outfield in baseball, as well as former Jay Dave Collins for a “Where Are They Now”.

Softball update – I went 3-for-4 tonight with three singles, a couple of RBIs and three runs scored and made two egregious baserunning errors that fortunately didn’t wind up costing us anything.

My first hit was a ground ball up the middle with the bases loaded, and not only did I assume two runs would score (we had speed at second), but I also saw the runner who had been on first round second and take three hard steps towards third – which was occupied – so I took off for second.  I was, of course, meatcake, standing about two-thirds of the way to second with a runner on that base and on third as well, and since no one else took off, I high-tailed it back to first and slid in safely because the first baseman didn’t realize he actually had to tag me.  I eventually scored.  The second big mistake was when I was on first and the hitter behind me belted one down the left-field line.  I thought I heard the home plate umpire yell “foul”, so I stopped just before I got to second, but it turns out it was the catcher yelling “home”.  So sorry, Matt, I turned your double into a single.  But we both moved up on a wild pitch and both wound up scoring anyway, so no harm done.

It was definitely a rough night on the bases, but I did lead off the bottom of the last inning in a tie game with a single to right, and my pinch-runner (I’m not fast, to say the least) wound up scoring the winning run.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:00 AM Eastern

Well, that certainly wasn’t the way Scott Downs wanted to celebrate his return to the active roster.

Downs came on in a tie game in the bottom of the 9th with a runner on second and two out, walked Carlos Pena and gave up a game-winning single to right-centre by Ben Zobrist – the second straight game that Tampa Bay has walked off and the third time in the last five games that the Blue Jays have lost in such fashion.

It was a marathon – over four hours of baseball in a game that didn’t even go into extra innings – mostly because of the struggles of the starting pitchers.  For the third time in his breakthrough season, Brian Tallet was just plain awful, giving up eight runs on 11 hits in his three-plus innings of work – he only walked two, but one of them was B.J. Upton to lead off the ballgame.  And in a brilliant feat of derring-do, Upton stole home on a Tallet throw-over to first to check on Carl Crawford with two out.

Scott Kazmir was almost as ineffective as Tallet, but he lasted longer, taking it into the 7th and allowing seven runs on nine hits, including big home runs to Adam Lind and Vernon Wells.

Credit the Jays for coming back after the Rays went up 5-2 in the third, and again Zobrist’s three-run homer in the 4th put the Rays on top 8-5.  They put together a three-run 7th inning to tie the score, but couldn’t push across the go-ahead run when they had two on and one out in the 8th with the 3-4 hitters coming up.

With Tallet having to leave in the 4th and Shawn Camp, Brandon League and Jeremy Accardo all unavailable, Cito Gaston had to stretch the bullpen, but it was his freshest arm that failed him.  Granted, Downs hadn’t pitched for 2 1/2 weeks, so maybe he was too fresh.

The Jays are now 1-5 on this road trip, with Roy Halladay set to take the ball in the finale against young phenom-who-throws-too-many-pitches David Price.  We’re on the air with it at noon Eastern.

I was extremely surprised this afternoon when I learned that the Jays had released B.J. Ryan, swallowing nearly $15 million to just get the guy to leave.  We had been discussed Ryan’s issues for a while here on the ol’ blogaroo, and the last thing I said was that I thought they’d hold onto him through the end of July, then try to get someone to Randy Myers him on recallable waivers in early August.

I’m assuming they considered that course of action, but figured that:  A – they couldn’t afford to go a man short in the bullpen for the rest of the month, since there was no situation with which they trusted Ryan on the mound, and 2 – they knew that no one would possibly bite.

So Ryan leaves, with the Blue Jays not really swallowing $15 million, but closer to double that, since he only had two effective seasons for the $47 million, five-year contract he was given back in November of 2005.  Granted, one of those seasons was as dominant as any that any Jays reliever has ever had, and the other one was very solid, but it’s still a horrendous return on their investment.

There will be no tag days for Ryan, no tears shed.  The Jays’ clubhouse will be a friendlier place now, media-wise – though his teammates most certainly loved the guy – and the Blue Jays are much better served without him at this point.

I’m sure the J.P. haters will use this move as more ammunition, but the thing about big gambles is that they don’t always work.  Ricciardi has won a lot more of those gambles than he has lost, the problem is  that the big ones stick out – like Ryan, Frank Thomas and Luke Prokopec.

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

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With the noon Eastern start, there’s no Baseball Today tomorrow, but that show will be back on Friday with some fine baseball guestage.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:00 PM Eastern

That’s all that really was the difference between the Blue Jays winning and losing tonight – those few inches by which Adam Lind’s double in the 3rd inning skipped over the centre-field wall at the Trop, forcing Aaron Hill to stop at third with what would have been the first run of the game.

The few inches by which Brandon League walked Ben Zobrist ahead of the booming, walk-off homer by Pat Burrell.

But inches are what they are, and the Jays have now lost eight out of their last ten games, and are once again just a game over the .500 mark.

When you have out-hit your opposition 10-2 and you’re going into extra innings, it doesn’t augur well.

At least Marc Rzepczynski acquitted himself beautifully in his major-league debut.  He was brilliant over his first three and last two innings, allowing the Tampas just one hit, walking only one and striking out seven, but he hit a speed bump in the 4th, walking Jason Bartlett and Gabe Gross back-to-back with two on and two out, costing him his first and only (so far) major-league run allowed.

The kid looked terrific in the overall, which was awfully nice to see given the emergency airlift starts we’d seen this season from Brad Mills and Brian Burres – those were four starts of unadulterated yuck.  This one was terrific, but still didn’t result in a win.

Brandon League appeared as though he was going to beat back that second-inning-of-work bugaboo, but he made one bad pitch after walking Zobrist, and Pat the Bat made him pay.  And how about Shawn Camp?  He’s become the long reliever par excellence all of a sudden.  I was scratching my head when he came out for a third inning of work – in the bottom of the ninth in a tie game with a lefty and a switch-hitter due up, no less – but there he was throwing three hitless innings.

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

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Tomorrow, tune in to Roger Lajoie on Baseball Today at noon Eastern- I’ve got somewhere I’ve gotta be -I’m sure he’ll probably talk about the big Roy Halladay story of today.  I’ve already told you I don’t believe a Halladay trade is imminent, but the spin is certainly different this time.  Halladay held a news conference before the game – you can check out all the quotes in Jordan Bastian’s story on bluejays.com (and while you’re there, vote for Adam Lind!) and he didn’t seem all that strong in his desire to either stay or go.

I’ll say this – the chances that Roy Halladay will be traded are now higher than they have ever been during his tenure with the Jays.  But it’ll still take an overwhelming offer to get the Blue Jays to pull the trigger.  And this may be heresy, but trading Halladay might not be that bad.  If Halladay comes back on a five-year deal, that means he’s here through age 38.  Without the artifical enhancements of the recent past, pitchers haven’t been lasting that long at a high level so much recently.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

2:30 PM Eastern

Hope you enjoyed Baseball Today this afternoon – we had John McDonald live and in colour, and also heard from tonight’s starter Marc Rzepczynski and Roy Halladay.

Remember to vote for Adam Lind in the Final Vote for next week’s All-Star game, and while you’re at it, vote for Pablo Sandoval, too.  Evidently there’s a big group in San Francisco that wants to make a pact with Jays’ fans (his e-mail said they were making a “packed”, but so be it) that they’ll vote for Lind if you vote for Sandoval.  Voting is open until Thursday, and here’s the link:

BODY,.aolmailheader {font-size:10pt; color:black; font-family:Arial;} a.aolmailheader:link {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; font-weight:normal;} a.aolmailheader:visited {color:magenta; text-decoration:underline; font-weight:normal;} a.aolmailheader:active {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; font-weight:normal;} a.aolmailheader:hover {color:blue; text-decoration:underline; font-weight:normal;} http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2009/fv/ballot.html

And here, for your listening pleasure, is yesterday’s edition of The JaysTalk:

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

7:00 PM Eastern

Good news – Roy Halladay and Aaron Hill have been elected to the American League All-Star team and will be off to St. Louis next week; Adam Lind has a shot to go as well, on the ballot for the Final Vote.

Bad news -  Marco Scutaro and Scott Rolen weren’t rewarded for their spectacular first halves but then, with the Jays in fourth place and barely hanging onto the good side of .500, you can’t really make the case for four of five of them getting invites.

Good news – The Jays rallied from a 4-0 deficit to take an 8-4 lead on the Yankees in the 4th inning, with some big two-out hits from Raul Chavez, Scutaro and Hill.

Bad news – The Jays managed only one hit after that five-run 4th and let a big lead slip away.  Also, it appears as though B.J. Ryan has reached the point where he can’t get anyone out.

Good news – Ricky Romero gets the start tomorrow afternoon as the Jays look to avoid the sweep, and he takes  a 20-inning scoreless streak into his first-ever start in New York.

Bad news – Andy Pettitte takes the mound for the Yankees in opposition tomorrow, and his 18 wins against the Jays are the most he’s had against any opponent save the Baltimore Orioles.

Good news – Scott Rolen got another hit!  The Caveman is now on a 22-game hit streak, the longest of his career.

Bad news – B.J. Ryan seemingly can’t get anyone out anymore (it’s really making an impression, ok?).

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

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Bad news – It’s The JaysTalk!  There is no bad news with regards to The JaysTalk!

Good news – Starting tomorrow, Monday the 6th, the Fan590 will be carrying a daily, one-hour program dedicated solely to the discussion of the greatest game there is – Baseball Today will be on Monday through Friday at noon Eastern and (for the time being, at least), be hosted by yours truly.  It’s still kind of open as to what kind of show it will be.  I’m going to want audience interaction. I’m going to want discussion of not only the goings-on in Blue Jay land, but across the landscape of MLB.  I’m going to want to have the audience learn about newer metrics to measure and predict performance.  I’m going to see if I can get a Blue Jay or two to pop by in studio (when they’re at home, of course) to chat and take phone calls.  All kinds of things.  Tomorrow’s premiere edition will be a phone-in show, because I’m going to want to hear from you, the listeners, about what you want from a daily hour-long baseball show.

Bad news – Adding more work to my ever-growing plate means taking some work off of it as well.  I’ll be contributing less to the ol’ blogaroo while I’m hosting Baseball Today.  Whether that means posting less, answering fewer comments or not answering comments at all for a while, I’m not sure.  We’ll have to see how things go.

Softball update – Playing catch-up here, I have two games on which to update those who are interested, both wins.  In the first game, I went 3-for-5 with a three-run triple and a pair of singles (I think I scored three runs).  In the second game, a measly 1-for-4 with an infield single.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

7:00 PM Eastern

First off, the Blue Jays have placed Scott Richmond on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder soreness.  What a shocker, another hurt pitcher.  Brett Cecil will be pushed up to make tomorrow’s start, and Brad Mills will be recalled to start Tuesday in Tampa.  Now, about today’s game:

Man, those Yankees know how to use heir new stadium, don’t they?  Everybody hits almost everything to right field, and once in a while (three times today) the ball goes out.  It’s amazing when you look at the homer numbers and the left-handed “power” that the Yanks have – it’s no wonder they traded for Eric Hinske, the guy could be a 40-homer man there.

You can’t tell me Johnny Damon’s game-tying homer in the 7th inning today is a home run anywhere else.

Speaking of the 7th inning, and I hate to bring this up since the idea of signing “God Bless America” in the 7th inning stretch, especially on the 4th of July, is a lovely thing, but seriously.  Does it have to be the extended dance mix of the song, a Yankee Stadium tradition?  I would love to go back over the last nine years and see how many runs the Yanks have scored at home in the 7th inning after freezing the opposing pitcher for an extra five minutes while Dr. Ronan Tynan dragged out every last syllable of GBA.

And maybe it’s me, but I just find it to be the overwhelming Yankee arrogance that carries over into Tynan’s rendition,  since he’s the only one on the planet who actually sings the whole thing.  It’s as though the thinking is “this is New York City, we’re going to be the only ones who do it right.”  It would be like the Blue Jays stopping home games in the 7th inning stretch to sing O Canada and making sure to include the mysterious second verse about great prairies spreading and mighty rivers flowing.

I don’t like it, and neither did Roy Halladay, who came out of that extended break to allow a single to Derek Jeter and then that Damon homer.

For some reason, it felt as though the extra innings would only be a formality, and as it turned out, they were.

Here’s today’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure – warning, it includes a caller arguing with me about something I never said:

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Further to that point above, there have been a few commenters lately who have gotten very upset with me over things that I haven’t said or written.  I understand that there are those out there who read what they want to read or hear what they want to hear, and I know that there’s really nothing that can be done about that, but here’s the thing – if you’re going to get upset with me over something I didn’t say, I’ll point out that I didn’t say it.  If that’s not enough for you, then that’s too bad, because those who continue to pick fights with me over something I didn’t say or write won’t get their comments posted.

For the life of me, I don’t understand why so many people seem to love coming here to pick fights, but it seems to be the way of the blogosphere.  I’m really not interested in getting involved with that, though.  We’re here for good, solid baseball discussion, and people who come here to be idiots just plain aren’t welcome.

It’s sad, but it seems as though I have to write the above every couple of months.  I guess just asking for reasonable, rational comments isn’t enough.