6:00 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays didn’t make any trades at the deadline, and I’m still sick – so no bloggage for you.  Except to say that for the second game in a row, the Jays will face a starter making his second big-league start – tomorrow it’s Jeanmar Gomez going for the Tribe.  He had a one-off start against Detroit on July 18th and went seven innings of five-hitter without allowing an earned run.

Alex Anthopoulos spent about the last 15 minutes of The JaysTalk with me, talking about Anthony Gose (I’m sure I called him Michael once – I have NO idea why I always want to do that) and a whole big whack of other things – here it is, for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s the transcript from today’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

10:40 PM Eastern

Except to say that you’re going to want to tune in to The JaysTalk after tomorrow’s game – Alex Anthopoulos will be joining us to sum up the goings-on leading up to tomorrow’s 4:00 pm Eastern trade deadline.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk – hope you can bear the sound of my illin’ pipes:

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And here’s the transcript from tonight’s edition of “Miked Up LIVE!”:

5:46 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays made their second deal of the month this afternoon, piggybacking on the Roy Oswalt to Philly deal by sending Brett Wallace to the Astros for Anthony Gose, who was part of the return package from the Phillies.

I have to admit, when I first heard that Gose was coming to Toronto, I wondered which reliever the Astros were going to take from the Jays to flip to Philly.  I was stunned when I heard it was a 1-for-1 for Wallace.

Alex Anthopoulos has said before that this is the sort of thing he was going to try to do – whether he would bring a third or fourth team into a trade discussion that he was having that might be getting stuck, or whether he could be that third or fourth team in another set of teams’ trade talks.

This time, he was the facilitator -helping the Astros get what they wanted in Wallace while getting them to pull Gose away from the Phillies.

Is it a good trade?  The answer you don’t want to hear is that we’re years away from knowing.  The Blue Jays see Gose as someone who can be a legit all-star centrefielder for years, one with tools coming out the wazoo.  His minor-league numbers aren’t great until you look at one specific number – his age.

Gose doesn’t turn 20 until next month, and there he is already playing in high-A Clearwater, in the same league as Dunedin, where Jays fans watched a 24 year-old Brian Dopirak light it up two years ago and started to drool.  That four-year age difference is incredibly significant.

Gose isn’t having an especially good year.  He’s hitting .263/.325/.385 with 103 strikeouts in 103 games, and while he has 36 stolen bases, he’s also been caught 27 times for a 57% success rate, which is awful.  But he’s 19.  Last year, a level lower (the equivalent of Lansing to you Jays watchers), Gose stole 76 bases and was caught only 20 times, which is lovely.

In an interview with Bob McCown just minutes ago which you can no doubt already find in the audio on demand section of the website, Anthopoulos said his scouts were unanimous in their praise of Gose’s potential.  Everybody loves him.  He’s a high, high-ceiling centrefielder who is already a game-changer with his speed.  The Jays tried to pry him away from the Phillies in the Roy Halladay deal and couldn’t, and they’ve tried multiple other times, so they finally pulled an end-around and took advantage of the Phils’ depleting farm system now – Philly had to dangle Gose to get Oswalt, because they didn’t have much else to offer (I’m guessing they’re still steadfast in their refusal to move Domonic Brown) and though the Astros weren’t as interested in Gose, they liked Wallace.

So what does this do for the Jays?  Well, it gives them potentially another high-impact player in their system.  They double the number of elite-level talents they have in the outfield, with Jake Marisnick being the other one.  And now, Adam Lind likely becomes the first baseman of the future, allowing the Jays to go out and get another booming bat to serve as their DH, or they can hope Edwin Encarnacion realizes his offensive potential if they take him off the field.

But what about Wallace?  He was sold as a big-time bat, one of the most sought-after hitting prospects in the game.  A guy who was all but major-league ready and was just down in Vegas so he could learn how to play first.  He was the guy the Jays wanted rather than toolsy outfielder Michael Taylor in the Halladay deal.  Wallace is currently hitting .301/.359/.509 for Vegas, which is very nice, but not incredible, given the hitting environment.

The Astros are Wallace’s fourth organization in less than one calendar year now, but this is the first time he’s been involved in a trade that didn’t have a big-time big-league stud attached.  Have the Jays soured on him?  I don’t think so, I just think they were able to get someone they’ve been dying to acquire for a long time – just like Wallace was someone they’d been dying to acquire for a long time.

Anthopoulos has said many times that his goal is to amass as much elite-level, potential perennial all-star talent as he can.  The next step up from that is to add the words “up the middle”.  An elite level, potential perennial all-star who can play centrefield, second base, shortstop or catcher is worth more than someone who can play the corner spots, and that’s what this deal is.  The Jays also get four years younger by going from Wallace to Gose, but don’t necessarily slow their development track all that much.  It’s conceivable that Gose is in the majors at 21.  Not terribly likely, but it could happen.

And in the meantime, they have an outfield of Fred Lewis, Vernon Wells and Travis Snider (I’m assuming Jose Bautista goes to third if he’s still here), with Darin Mastroianni banging on the door.

The big question that Jays fans will watch in the future is which one of the triumvirate winds up having the better career – Taylor, Wallace or Gose?  Alex Anthopoulos has put his money on the latter.

10:59 PM Eastern

Brad Mills wasn’t in Toronto long, but boy howdy did he leave something by which to remember him.  Mills got the call for a one-off spot start with the Jays’ rotation in slight disarray thanks to Friday night’s rainout in Detroit, and he’s already been sent back down to Las Vegas, but he left for Sin City with a big-league win under his belt.

Mills was phenomenal against the league-worst Orioles, allowing a single to Brian Roberts to lead off the game and then holding the Baltimores hitless until Jake Fox singled with two out in the bottom of the 7th.  And he held the O’s down while walking the tightrope, holding a 1-0 lead from the second inning on.  Mills walked three (well, two – Nick Markakis walked twice) and struck out four, and only allowed two runners past first base.  It was a brilliant outing – granted it was against Baltimore, but the O’s did more damage against Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow earlier in the series.

He won’t overpower anyone, but Mills did a great job of changing speeds and using his curveball to keep the Orioles off-balance.  He’ll be back in September, for sure, and he’s definitely thrown his hat into the ring as far as consideration for a spot in the rotation down the line.  Sure, he’s still no better than eighth in line behind the five guys they’ve got here, Marc Rzepczynski and Kyle Drabek, but he’ll be tough to forget about after this start.  And hey, maybe he works his way into a deal in the next three days a la Tim Collins and Tyler Pastornicky.

Adam Lind swung it awfully well tonight – his second great game in three – he singled twice, one of them a perfect hit-and-run shot right through the vacated shortstop hole, and tripled off the glove of a leaping, bubble-blowing Adam Jones in dead centre.  Jose Bautista continued his ridiculous July by doubling twice in four trips.

The Jays may be off tomorrow, but I’ll be on the Fan590 morning show with Jeff Lumby just after 8:00 AM Eastern to talk all things trade deadline-ic – some movement today with Jhonny Peralta and Scott Podsednik changing addresses.  Also, I’ll be live and in studio Friday morning at 8:00 for an hour of phones, so be sure to tune in then!

Speaking of phones, here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s this evening’s edition of “Miked Up LIVE!”:

1:45 AM Eastern

I get a lot of flak for not buying into the whole Jose Bautista thing.  It’s not that I believe he’s doing what he’s doing in some sort of an illegitimate fashion, not at all (who knows with anyone, really?), but it’s that I have a really, really hard time believing that what he’s doing now is something that he’s going to be able to continue doing on a regular basis for the rest of this season, never mind next year.

That’s why I think Alex Anthopoulos should look hard at trading him over the next four days, even though I know it’s not something he wants to do.

Bautista had a huge night tonight in the Jays’ 11th straight win (this season!) over the Baltimores, going 4-for-4 with a walk, homering twice to extend his major-league lead to 30, scoring three times and driving in four.  He’s having an incredible year.

Well, in truth, he’s having an extraordinarily weird year.  Check out the monthly splits:

APRIL – .213/.314/.427 4 HR

MAY – .287/.422/.766 12 HR

JUNE – .179/.324/.369 4 HR

JULY – .330/.392/.739 10 HR (with three games to go)

If you’re looking at that thinking I’m going to analyze it and come up with an explanation, you’re wrong.  I have no clue why Jose Bautista has been a poor hitter in the first and third months of this season and one of the greatest hitters who ever lived in the second and fourth.  If anything, though, these wild swings in production might lead one to imagine that no one has any freaking clue what the heck kind of hitter this guy really is, which might make one more inclined to believe that dealing him by Saturday is a good idea.

It was the topic of discussion for most of tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, and we didn’t really come to any conclusion.  No one could come up with a solid reason as to why he’s made the leap he has, and the fact that he’s only been leaping half the time is an incredible head-scratcher to add to the whole thing.

If it were up to me, I would be seeking offers on Bautista, and if I got one I liked – the operative idea being to sell high, not to just take the most decent offer I get – I would have no problem pulling the trigger on a deal.

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

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If you didn’t get a chance to listen to Blue Jays Pre-Game, listen in on the interview I did with Kate Psota, a starting pitcher for the Canadian National Women’s Baseball Team.  It should be in the audio on demand section of the website.  The Women’s World Championships begin August 12th in Venezuela.

Tomorrow on Blue Jays Pre-Game, we’ll hear from the play-by-play voice of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats to fill us in on the goings-on in AA, then Brad Mills will look for his first big-league win as the Jays try to improve to 12-0 against the Orioles this season.

Here’s the transcript from this evening’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

11:30 PM Eastern

It had been more than two weeks since the Blue Jays hit the turf at their home ballpark, and they looked a revitalized crew as they stormed out to an 8-0 lead through five innings.

Adam Lind looked like the 2009 version, lining frozen rope after frozen rope to dead centre – one nearly giving O’s starter T.Ferguson a haircut, the next going off the top of the wall and the third one clearing it.  It was great to see, as were the two line shots hung out by Aaron Hill.

Brandon Morrow looked good on his 26th birthday, taking a three-hit shutout into the 6th and showing some smarts in pitching around Matt Wieters with two on and two out in the 4th to get to Jake Fox, who struck out.  Wieters later took him deep and did the same to Casey Janssen.

With only Jannsen and Purcey really available in the bullpen, Casey was asked to get six outs with a six-run lead but couldn’t do it.  He gave up a two-run bomb to Luke Scott in the 7th (after hitting Nick Markakis with an 0-2 pitch with two out), and then allowed four straight hits with one out in the 8th to allow the O’s to close to 8-5.  David Purcey came on to pop up Miguel Tejada, and then with the Jays adding an insurance run in the bottom of the inning, there was no need to call on Kevin Gregg, so Purcey worked the ninth – perfectly – and picked up his first big-league save.

There was a great hue and cry on the live blog as Janssen struggled tonight, but looking at his season so far, he’s very quietly had a pretty terrific season.  Going into tonight’s game, he’d allowed just 51 baserunners in 46 innings of work -  that’s a WHIP of 1.152.  He had struck out 41, or eight per nine innings, and lefties were hitting just .200/.309/.286 against him.  That’s phenomenal.  Tonight was awful, no two ways about it, and we don’t see Janssen much because he’s behind Gregg, Scott Downs, Jason Frasor and Shawn Camp as far as late-inning options go, but I felt like I needed to point out just how good he’s been.  We may well be seeing a lot more of him soon.

It was ’80s night at the ballpark, which was pretty cool – except that I was blinded for a few minutes by Buck Martinez’ shirt, one that he told me actually came out of his own closet.  The music was terrific, though they did miss the boat on couple of huge songs.  Where was my “Africa”?  Where was “The Authority Song”?  The two songs with the greatest lines of any music done in the decade.  And heck, since there was so much Miami Vice-ness around, they may as well have thrown “Smuggler’s Blues” out there.  And no WHAM!?  You’ve got to be kidding me.  Still, it was a good time, though.

Having Jeff Madden of Jersey Boys on with me for the network portion of The JaysTalk was a lot of fun.  He’s an amazing talent, terrific singer and actor and an absolutely huge baseball fan, as I’m sure you can tell by listening to him.  The show is closing on August 22nd, so try to get out there and see it if you can – it’s definitely worth it.  His website is jeffmadden.ca.

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

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And here’s the transcript from tonight’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

10:43 PM Eastern

….and the sun was beating on the soldiers by the side of the road.

I’m sorry,  I can’t ever say the first thing without hearing the other, and maybe with tomorrow being ’80s night at the ballpark, it’s kind of appropriate.

Anyway, boys and bubbles aside, it was certainly a long day, and one made longer by the fact that the Blue Jays blew a lead late in the second game of a day/night doubleheader.

Among the positives we can take from today are the great starts by Brett Cecil in the opener and by Jesse Litsch in the nightcap.  Litsch, who is still less than 14 months post-Tommy John surgery, has now taken a shutout into the 6th inning in four straight starts.  He’s doing far better on a more consistent basis than certainly I thought he would this soon, and if you look back at the comments made after his first three or four starts, far better than anybody anticipated.

Lyle Overbay got a chance to play hero in the first game, with a two-out, two-run, tie-breaking opposite field homer in the 9th inning, and Kevin Gregg worked a stress-free 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth – unlike his perfect 9th last night.

The nightcap looked pretty good on the Jays into the 8th, when the curious decision was made to bring Brian Tallet out for a 3rd inning of work.  I understand the bullpen was short, with the big guns (save Shawn Camp) all having been used in the first game, but Tallet is the long reliever, the mop-up guy, someone who is supposed to be way down the list of options late in a close game.  Casey Janssen, David Purcey and Jason Frasor were all available, had been warming up at various times earlier in the day, and are better late-inning options, but there was Tallet coming out to start the 8th inning of a two-run game against the top of the line-up.

He put the first two hitters on, then after a pop-up Frasor came on and wasn’t much better – going double-IBB-double and the Tigers had the lead and the win.

Amazingly, DeWayne Wise’s home run off Detroit closer Jose Valverde was the second Valverde gave up today, and only the third he’s given up all season.  It also should be noted that the Jays’ pitching staff hadn’t given up a home run at all since the all-star break prior to the one Brett Cecil gave up in the opener today.  That’s pretty terrific.

So the Jays go 6-4 on the road trip, and if they want to wind up 12-4 through the “breather 16″ out of the break, they’ll have to sweep the homestand against the Orioles and Indians.  They do go in to tomorrow night’s game 9-0 against Baltimore this year, so that’s something.

Make sure you tune in to the brand-spanking-new Blue Jays Pre-Game show tomorrow at 6:00 pm Eastern.  I have no idea what we’re going to have on the program for you, but I guarantee you it’ll be some kind of terrific!

Speaking of which, here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s the transcript of Game 2′s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

7:36 PM Eastern

There will be a more in-depth post tonight or tomorrow morning dealing with the double-dip, but just so that’s not so crowded, here’s the first game’s edition of The JaysTalk for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s the transcript from the first game’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

1:06 PM Eastern

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

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And here’s the transcript from last night’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

11:58 AM Eastern

So last night’s game got rained out, and because the weather is supposed to be just as crappy today, they’re going to play a day/night doubleheader on Sunday.

Once that’s over, the Jays are home for six against the Orioles and Indians, and the roster may look incredibly different between the time that homestand opens and the time they leave for a three-game set in The Bronx.

I expect at least half of Scott Downs, Jason Frasor, John Buck, Lyle Overbay and Kevin Gregg to be gone by the first of August.  And since that’s an odd number of players, it’ll be really interesting to see if it winds up being exactly half!

I didn’t put up a post after Thursday’s game – there really wasn’t much to say about it except that the Jays missed a couple of slim chances early and never really got any late.  Ricky Romero matched 12-game winner Justin Verlander right up until the 8th inning, when a walk that maybe shouldn’t have been got him yanked, and Shawn Camp – in a rare display of ineffectiveness – gave up three straight hits and that was that.

I wanted to mention a little debate going on in the comments section about the Gonzalez-Escobar trade.  I realize that since the inception of “Miked Up LIVE!” the comments section has really dried up, but there are a couple of people who are asserting that the Braves won the deal because Alex Gonzalez is the best player in the trade.  This isn’t true.  Alex Gonzalez is having the best year of any of the players in the trade, absolutely, but there shouldn’t be  much question that Yunel Escobar is the best player in the deal.  Six years younger than Gonzalez, with just as good a glove (if not better) and a career OPS almost 100 points higher – there’s really no way to argue that Gonzalez is the better player.

We had a brief edition of The JaysTalk after Thursday’s game – here it is for your listening pleasure:

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And here’s last night’s edition of The Rain Delay/RainOut Programme:

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And, finally, here’s the transcript from Thursday afternoon’s edition of “Miked Up LIVE!” (there wasn’t one last night):