4:22 PM Eastern

It wasn’t the best way to open up a long weekend series at the new Yankee Stadium.  At least Scott Rolen had the right idea, doing his best to take advantage of the jet stream at the new place by hitting everything to right.  It paid off with a total of one single and three fly outs in four trips.  At least he’s got a 20-game hit streak.

A.J. Burnett was good, but not outstanding.  The Jays managed four extra-base hits against him in his seven innings of work, but not a single one of them came with a runner on base.  Alex Rios had the Jays’ only “clutch” hit of the game – a first-pitch hard line single right back up the middle with two out in the 4th.

Vernon Wells continued his “road warrior” ways with his demotion to the 6th spot in the batting order, with a double and a no-doubt solo homer, but in taking the bad with the good, he struck out with the tying run on second in the 4th and grounded out to end the 8th – again with the tying run on second.

Brian Tallet was solid again, with the exception of the 5th inning meltdown that saw him walk three, including Mark Teixeira on four pitches with the bases loaded.  He also made a terrible underhand throw on a Johnny Damon bunt up the first-base line.  It might have been a lot worse than just the two runs against had home plate umpire John Hirschbeck not blown a call at the plate and called Teixeira out trying to score on a grounder to second.

Tallet has been a revelation in the Jays’ rotation, without question.  He’s done far more than anyone could reasonably have expected, but the walks have been an issue all season long.  Four more today and Tallet continues to lead the league in that category.

Dave Dellucci made his Jays’ debut by not really being challenged in left and going 0-for-2 at the plate with a walk and being hit by a pitch.  With Travis Snider now back in the line-up in Vegas, Looch’s time with the Jays might not be all that lengthy unless he hits the ground running harder than Russ Adams did.  Adams was designated for assignment to make room for Looch on the roster, so the Jays have 10 days to trade, waive or outright Adams back to Vegas.  It’s not the first time Russ has been DFA’d – I can’t imagine some team will pluck him off waivers on his way back down.

With the weekday day game and the quick out, no edition of The JaysTalk for your listening pleasure.  We’ll have some for you tomorrow.

The Blue Jays have reached the halfway point of the season, hitting the 81-game mark at 42-39, on pace for an 84-win season, which would be a two-game decline from last year.  You can double everyone’s numbers at this point to figure out their full-season pace.  Here are some pro-rated counting stats for your consideration:

Aaron Hill – 38 hr, 112 rbi, 96 runs

Marco Scutaro – 48 2b, 116 runs, 106 bb, 80 k

Scott Rolen – 46 2b, 46 bb, 58 k

Vernon Wells – 42 2b, 16 hr, 24 sb – 0 cs, 94 runs

Alex Rios – 38 2b, 18 hr, 76 rbi

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

4:40 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays closed out the homestand by putting on a Canada Day show for the faithful, with in-game fireworks as well as the post-game ones and another terrific performance by Ricky Romero.

Romero shut out the Rays on four hits over eight innings before handing things over to Jason Frasor, who struck out the side around a walk to end it.  Romero’s been simply brilliant to this point, and no one could have reasonably expected it given his struggles on the way up the minor-league ladder.  He has found a spectacular change-up and to this point is the honest-to-goodness number two pitcher on this Jays’ staff behind Roy Halladay.

Romero has made 11 starts, and in nine of them he’s given up three earned runs or fewer.  In seven of them, he’s given up two earned runs or fewer.

Today could have been a lot different, though.  Romero started off shaky, walking B.J. Upton on four pitches and then throwing ball one to Carl Crawford.  It could have gotten ugly in a hurry, especially given the Jays’ distinct lack of offense the past few games, but Romero picked Upton off first and so embiggened, struck out Crawford and then Evan Longoria, and didn’t face a major threat until the 7th inning.

He was smart about that 7th-inning jam, too, pitching around the red-hot Ben Zobrist to load the bases for Pat Burrell, who was 4-for-his-last-23.  The slow-footed Burrell bounced into an inning-ending double play.

After Rod Barajas homered in the bottom of the 7th to make it 3-0, Marco Scutaro made his first real error of the season, failing to close his glove on a feed from Aaron Hill on an attempted double-play relay in the 8th.  The miscue brought the tying run to the plate, but Scoot made up for it by snaring a hard liner by pinch-hitter Willy Aybar and turning that into a double play.  Carl Crawford made things interesting, taking Romero to the base of the wall in right field to end the 8th – missing a game-tying three-run homer by just a couple of feet.  Instead, though, it was a loud out, and Romero will take the mound at the new Yankee Stadium Monday afternoon carrying a scoreless innings streak of 20.

The line-up was different today, as Cito promised after last night, with Vernon Wells grabbing a seat on the bench and Adam Lind-Scott Rolen-Lyle Overbay forming the 3-4-5 with Rios still down in the 7th spot behind Kevin Millar.  Wells will likely be back in there on Friday, but I’m thinking it’ll be in the 6th spot.  He hasn’t hit that far down in the line-up since June of 2005, but when he was the 6th hitter that year, he took to it pretty well (small sample size alert!) hitting .313/.377/.542 in 13 games.  But this isn’t about what’s best for Vernon Wells – he’ll come around when he comes around – it’s about the Jays getting him out of those high-leverage at-bats.

Getting out of town shouldn’t hurt, though.  For some strange reason, Wells has been very productive on the road this year, hitting .321/.354/.485 outside Rogers Centre.  They’re off on a 10-game road trip now, and won’t be back until after the all-star break.  Maybe he gets locked in and it carries over home, who knows?

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

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The fireworks started about six minutes after we signed off, and it was pretty cool.  A few up them got up above the girders in the roof, and one actually bounced off the ceiling over right-centre.  It’s the first time that I’ve ever seen anything hit the ceiling in here.

An off-day tomorrow in NYC for the Jays to help them put a 4-5 homestand in the back of the memory banks, and then a four-day set at new Yankee Stadium – all day games – starting with Brian Tallet against A.J. Burnett.  Tune us in at 1:00 PM Eastern on Friday for a 1:07 first pitch.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!