11:07 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays almost squeaked out another win in The Bronx using the same formula they employed in the opener, but this time the bullpen – specifically Jesse Carlson – couldn’t shut down the Yankees.

Last night, Carlson got the Yanks in order in the 8th, handing it over to Jason Frasor for the 9th, but tonight Hideki Matsui (a monster shot) and Jorge Posada (a New Yankee Stadium cheapie) took him deep back-to-back to lead off the 8th and give the Yanks the lead for good.

Randy Ruiz and Edwin Encarnacion each hit his first homer as a Blue Jay, and Scott Richmond rebounded really nicely from a rough first couple of innings to completely stifle the Yanks the rest of the way.

I was surprised to see Ruiz here – less so after talking to Russ Langer on Baseball Today this afternoon – instead of Travis Snider, who should be coming up within a week or two to take over right field on a regular basis.

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

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Tomorrow we’ll have a pre-game edition of The JaysTalk starting at noon Eastern on the FAN590 and on this very website, because chances are we won’t have the opportunity to do a post-game edition.

Also, I barely got through half the comments that had been left after last night’s game – as I write this, there are still 95 in the queue.  I’ll put the remainder (and any that come tonight and tomorrow morning) up during the day game.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:30 PM Eastern

But really, nobody cares about that part.  The Alex Rios story is front and centre, as it should be, and I said everything I needed to in the post I put up here right after the waiver claim announcement was made.

What I can’t believe is that I spent all weekend saying this move wouldn’t happen, and then put up a post about it saying that I disagreed with it and that it wasn’t something I would do, and I STILL got at least a dozen comments (most of which I have deleted) accusing me of being an apologist for the organization, a mouthpiece for J.P. and/or a “company man” for Rogers.

It’s as though anything short of “the world is ending, the Jays will never win again, J.P. needs to have been fired last week” means I’m bending over backwards to put the team in a good light.  If you want that sort of knee-jerk sensationalistic crap, I suggest you go somewhere else for your baseball fix, because you’ll never get it here.

Seriously – what is wrong with (what seems like a whole lot of) you people?

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

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Tomorrow night, the Jays will throw Scott Richmond against the big left-handed bats of Mark Teixeira, Robinson Cano, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada and either Nick Swisher or Eric Hinske.  Hey, we expected him to get bombed in Philly and he showed us, didn’t he?

Rational, reasonable comments are begged for. Honestly.  Please!

7:35 PM Eastern

Unbelievable.

Ever since the “Alex Rios claimed on waivers” story came out over the weekend, I have been answering questions and comments by saying that this is nothing new, that everyone goes through waivers at this time of year, and that guys get claimed all the time.  This was no big deal, because the notion that the Blue Jays wouldn’t recall the waiver and would simply let Alex Rios go for nothing was simply absurd.

I was wrong.  Really, really wrong.

It turns out that the Blue Jays evidently did see the White Sox’ claim as a”gift from the baseball gods”, as ESPN’s Buster Olney said in his initial report, and while they may not have been more than happy to simply let the Sox take on the contract, that was their ultimate decision after three days of heavy trade negotiation didn’t result in the Sox coming up with a package the Blue Jays found attractive.

The Blue Jays, in what J.P. Ricciardi spoke of as the new economic reality of the game, gain financial flexibility to the tune of $63.2 million over the next five years.  $9.7 million comes off the books for 2010, and added to the $6.25 million freed up in the Scott Rolen deal, that gives the Jays almost $16 million in extra money to spend next season.

If they spend it on Chone Figgins and a terrific DH, they could be in very, very good shape for next season.

Over the last couple of days, I have been pointing out that Alex Rios is Carl Crawford with fewer stolen bases.  Their career slash stats (batting average/on-base/slugging) are almost identical and both play tremendous defense.  While Rios has a better throwing arm, Crawford is good for 50+ stolen bases a season, and Rios will nab 25-30.

Alex Rios has all the talent in the world and he’s just 28 years old.  The Blue Jays felt as though that talent wouldn’t ever be realized and that they were better off getting out from underneath that contract while they could.  I can’t agree.

I can’t imagine that the Jays wouldn’t have been able to deal Rios over the winter to a team that’s looking for a centrefielder and get some real talent back, even if they had to pick up some of the contract.  The contract isn’t untenable, and I think there’s a very strong chance that the Blue Jays will really regret this move in the future.

Hopefully I’m wrong again, and they’ll re-invest the money they’ve just saved back into payroll and pick up some players who can really help them.  Maybe so many of you are right and Rios will never become the player his talent suggests he can be, but I believe that cutting bait on a guy who has already been an all-star twice, is a top-10 guy in the majors in raw talent and hasn’t yet turned 30 is a mistake.  Time, as always, will tell.

Sorry I didn’t post last night’s edition of The JaysTalk sooner, but there was a blackout in my neighbourhood yesterday thanks to that sensational storm.  Here it is, for your listening pleasure:

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Oh, and that long-awaited softball update!  I have two games to catch you up on, both wins.  In the first, an ugly 0-for-4, and in the second 2-for-2 with a walk, which came in the bottom of the last as part of our walk-off win – I scored the tying run.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

5:20 PM Eastern

First the Jays get a one-run win last Saturday in Oakland, and now a walk-off win this Saturday at home.  Obviously, they’re trying to spoil you.

It was the Jays’ first walk-off win since May 2nd against the Orioles, a 5-4 win in 11 innings in which Aaron Hill drove in Rod Barajas from second with the game-winning single.  This time, Adam Lind was the hero, driving in Marco Scutaro with a laser-beam double off the left-field wall over a leaping Nolan Reimold.  Scutaro was on base, by the way, because his attempt at a sacrifice bunt resulted in the lead runner being thrown out.

Hill played a part in this one too, though, with a soft line looping single just past the outstretched glove of the out-of-position Ty Wigginton at second base.  If Brian Roberts doesn’t hurt himself with a foul ball off his shin, this game is still going, because Roberts would have made that play and would have handled the grounder in the hole that Joe Inglett hit to lead off the inning.

The play of the game was by Hill, though.  Once Scutaro scored the game-winning run, Hill rounded third and turned back towards second to congratulate Lind on his big hit.  Hill held his arms out and Lind, instead of going for the hug, leapt into Hill’s embrace – and Aaron caught him.  And actually held him up for more than a few seconds.

Not to be overlooked was the outstanding relief appearance by Brian Tallet, who threw five innings of four-hit shutout with one walk and four strikeouts in relief of Brett Cecil, who had to leave with a minor knee injury in the 5th after running down Robert (Frank) Andino’s bunt single.  Evidently Cecil tweaked a knee strain that had been bothering him since his last trip to Vegas, and he doesn’t think that it will land him on the disabled list.  The Jays don’t need a fifth starter again until August 22nd, though, so he may get a couple of weeks off anyway.

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

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I really liked a couple of calls today – the one about clutch hitting (I didn’t even expect that when I looked up Jesse Barfield’s numbers) and of course, the one that brought me back to my Sports Extra days at CIUT back in the late ’80s and early ’90s.  Not just Blue Jays nostalgia this weekend, I guess!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:33 PM Eastern

But not to see the home team win.  The Jays did it up rather nicely for the alumni, with a nice pre-game introduction ceremony featuring the two World Series trophies plus a gaggle of players.

In attendance were Roberto Alomar, Pat Borders, Rob Butler, Joe Carter, David Cone, Danny Cox, Mark Eichhorn, Tony Fernandez, Alfredo Griffin, Kelly Gruber, Juan Guzman, Tom Henke, Pat Hentgen, Manuel Lee, Al Leiter, Candy Maldonado, Paul Molitor, Jack Morris, Rance Mulliniks, John Olerud, Ed Sprague, Dave Stewart, Dave Stieb, Todd Stottlemyre, Pat Tabler, Duane Ward, Devon White, Woody Williams and Dave Winfield.  They were joined by coaching and training staff members including Tommy Craig, Nick Leyva, Gene Tenace, Larry Hisle, John Sullivan, Galen Cisco and Cito Gaston as well as Pat Gillick and Paul Beeston.  Jerry Howarth and Shirley Cheek rounded out the group and it was fantastic to see Mrs. Cheek and to hear Tom’s call of the bottom of the 9th inning of Game 6 of the ’93 Series, which they put on the JaysVision scoreboard during batting practice.

There were no speeches, which I found surprising, but then when the teams came out again – beginning of the 5th for the ’92 squad, middle of the 5th for the ’93s – Dave Winfield and Joe Carter grabbed a microphone and delivered a big thank-you to all the fans.  It was a really nice Sweet 16/Happy 17th reunion, and I’m looking forward to seeing what else happens this weekend.

I got a chance to do a boatload of interviews during B.P., eight of them in fact, two of which we played on the pre-game, and I’m hoping to do at least another half-dozen tomorrow and even more on Sunday.  We’ll use them on the pre-game, on The Blue Jays This Week and on Baseball Today throughout the summer.  My targets tomorrow, at the very least, are Winfield, Molitor, Stottlemyre, Cone and Lee.  Hopefully I’ll be able to track all of them down and more.

As for the game, it was almost an afterthought, but Ricky Romero really shone for the first five innings.  He made two fantastic defensive plays on the mound, one on a Melvin Mora comebacker to his right and another in self-preservation on a Nolan Reimold liner that otherwise might have killed him.  He also managed to record a putout at first, on the mound and at the plate, which is kind of cool.  He got himself into trouble in the 6th,  but got the bases-loaded grounder that could have gotten him out of the inning – it just went for a two-run bad-hop single instead.

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

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As far as the “Alex Rios claimed on waivers” story that came out earlier today, I point you back to what I said at the end of July.  Approximately 95% of players in the major leagues go on waivers in August, and almost all of the good ones get claimed.  Approximately 99% of those players who get claimed get pulled back.  The Blue Jays aren’t going to let Rios go on a waiver claim in order to dump payroll.  Wells, maybe Overbay, sure.  But not Rios.  If the Jays can get what they want from the claiming team, they’ll make a trade, but they’re certainly not motivated to do so.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

11:45 PM Eastern

OK, now this is getting ridiculous.  Marc Rzepczynski holds the Yankees to three hits through six innings – retiring 11 batters in a row at one point – but still only takes a one-run lead into the 7th, and that lead is gone one batter in as Nick Swisher takes a mistake pitch out of the yard to tie it.  Robinson Cano follows with a double, in comes Josh Roenicke, and the next thing you know, it’s 6-3 Yanks on their way to a two-game mini-sweep.

The loss dropped the Jays to an abysmal 12-24 against the A.L. East this season – they’re 2-7 against each of the Yankees and Rays, 4-5 against each of the Red Sox and Orioles, who come to town on Friday for the 92-93 reunion weekend.

They’re also now 42-6 on the season when leading after six innings.  But hey, this was their first loss by more than three runs since J.A. Happ and the Phillies shut them out 10-0 on June 27th so congratulations, I guess.

Friday night marks the end of what has been a particularly ugly second third of this season.  Over the first 54 games, the Jays were 30-24.  Over the next 53, they’ve gone 21-32.  Mercifully, they move into the third third soon.  Maybe eventually they’ll open up an account at the Fifth Third Bank.

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

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Cito Gaston explained to Jerry before the game (and far more loudly to me afterwards) why he didn’t pinch-hit for Kevin Millar last night against Phil Hughes.  He mentioned Overbay’s three RBIs over his last hundred (92) at-bats, the fact that he hadn’t fared well as a pinch-hitter (0-for-3, 3 Ks) and the fact that he hadn’t hit Hughes well (1-for-10).  We agreed to disagree, though I don’t really recall my point last night being that Overbay should have hit specifically, but that Millar should have been replaced – it almost didn’t matter who by.  I’ll have to go back and listen to the tape to be sure.

Tomorrow is an off-day, the Jays and some alumni will kick it around at Rattlesnake in their charity golf tourney, and Roger Lajoie will be hosting Baseball Today (how cool was it to have Adam Lind in-studio today, by the way?).  Hopefully on Friday we’ll have one or two of those 92-93 guys on Baseball Today, and on The JaysTalk as well.  It’s going to be a veritable cornucopia of World Series Champions.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:30 AM Eastern

For the first time in his career, Roy Halladay gave up three home runs in a span of four batters – his teammates, having not supported him to that point in the game, almost came back against Mariano Rivera but fell short in their efforts.

After the game, a caller or two had the audacity to suggest that something must be wrong with Roy Halladay, since he has only recorded one win since June 7th.

Halladay to June 7th:  10-1, 2.52, 1.020 WHIP, 8.1 hits/9IP, 1.1 BB/9IP, 7.9 K/9 IP, 0.54 HR/9 IP

Halladay since June 7th:  1-4, 3.16, 1.175 WHIP, 9.3 hits/9 IP, 1.3 BB/9IP, 7.3 K/9 IP, 1.3 HR/9 IP

There you go – he’s giving up more home runs (obviously skewed by tonight’s three) but his peripherals are still phenomenal.  Sheesh.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure (I was almost struck dumb by the first caller):

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I’m still at the ballpark, since I wasn’t able to get to all the comments during the game, I stuck around an extra hour and a half to finish them up.  Make sure you tune in to Baseball Today tomorrow at noon Eastern on the Fan 590 and this very website – Adam Lind will be our live, in-studio guest, and he’ll be taking your phone calls and answering e-mail at baseballtoday@fan590.com.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome – I apologize to those who are offended by that notion.

7:25 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays actually had a winning record on the west coast this season – how about that?

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

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Before I go, I have to say that I continue to really dislike this whole arguing for the sake of arguing culture in which we seem to find ourselves here on the ol’ blogaroo and on The JaysTalk as well.  I understand that a lot of you like to argue, that a lot of you hate J.P. Ricciardi and a lot of you think that I’m just going to defend him regardless of what arguments are presented.

Here’s the thing, though – maybe if you didn’t exaggerate (or heck, I’ll just say it, make stuff up) to help “prove” your arguments, I wouldn’t be so quick to correct or disprove them.  If you want to make an argument, do it with facts.  That’s how I do it and that’s how I disarm so many people who come armed with opinions that are formed by untruths.

Don’t tell me that there’s no way to describe Ricciardi’s tenure as G.M. here as anything  but pathetic when he’s built some very good teams that haven’t been able to get the job done.  Don’t tell me that Orlando Hudson didn’t make the Jays out of spring training in 2002 because Ricciardi was upset with him for the “pimp” comment when Hudson just happened to go 0-for-16 that spring trying to make the team as a rookie.  Don’t tell me that Scott Rolen can’t run the bases, that Vernon Wells has never hit in the clutch, that Rod Barajas is having a great year with the bat.

Please – I’m trying my best to moderate enlightened, intelligent baseball discussion.  To raise the level of discourse beyond where it’s been for lo these many years.  If you feel that you have to come here and start an argument, please at least come armed with facts.  Thank you.

Reasonable, rational, well-informed comments are always welcome!

1:05 PM Eastern

I wasn’t aware the Blue Jays were allowed to do that.  They had lost eight one-run games in a row prior to this one.

Maybe it’s an indication that August won’t be as ugly as July was.

Scott Downs had to leave after giving up a Trevor Everidge double in the bottom of the 9th that put runners at second and third with one out – he’d re-injured the big toe he sprained running out of the batters’ box in Philly while chasing a Jack Cust grounder off his glove.  Downs will be re-evaluated tomorrow, and we might see Jeremy Accardo back sooner than we thought.

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

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Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome.

2:10 AM Eastern

No more Roy Halladay trade talk (at least until November) and no more of this horrible, horrible month of baseball that saw the Jays go 8-16 despite a +4 run differential.

Please check out the comments section, because I’ve still been answering stuff there despite not doing a lot of bloggage this week.  It seems a lot of people are upset that the Jays didn’t get more than Edwin Encarnacion for Scott Rolen but here’s the thing – they did.

Here’s this morning’s edition of The Late Night JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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Saturday, the A’s retire Rickey Henderson’s number before the game against the Jays (Encarnacion and Josh Roenicke will be in uniform) – we’re on at 8:30 PM Eastern.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!