12:30 AM Eastern

First of all, a huge thank you to everyone who took the time over the past month to cast a vote or 30 for Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award.  We’ll find out in the morning by just how much he lapped the field.  Here’s hoping the Frick Committee notices.

Now then, how was that for a Blue Jays-style christening of the brand-spanking-new Target Field?  As the last visiting team to play in the Twins’ new ballpark this regular season, it was the Blue Jays that did the spanking.

Six home runs in a ballpark everyone says makes things difficult on the power game; two each for Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion and singletons from Travis Snider and Jose Molina.

Both of Bautista’s were special.  He’d snapped an 0-for-20 with a ground-ball single in the 6th inning, and the next time – with the bases loaded – he got ahead in the count 3-0 against reliever Pat Neshek.  Given the green light, Bautista took his typical ferocious swing, and missed.  Neshek came back with another tasty strike with the 3-1 and Bautista’s swing got that much ferociouser, and he absolutely tattooed the ball, a majestic shot into the upper deck in left field – a grand slam, his 53rd home run of the season and an absolute no-doubter.

His next time up, Bautista did what some people have considered impossible – he hit one out to right field.  It was a line shot, and the first time he’s ever done that in his entire career.

The next batter was Dewayne Wise, who got drilled in the middle of the back with the first pitch, so I’m expecting to see a Twin or two pretty uncomfortable in the batters’ box tomorrow.  Not until after the 6th inning, though – don’t want Ricky Romero getting thrown out before he has a chance to get a win.

Speaking of the chance to get a win, Shawn Hill didn’t get one of those tonight.  It’s too bad, but I understand why.  Hill had a no-hitter through four innings – Blue Jays’ starters have taken a no-hitter into the fifth a ridiculous FOURTEEN times this season – but his pitch count was up, and he ran into trouble in the 5th, allowing a double ripped down the left-field line and a couple of singles, bringing the tying run to the plate in Orlando Hudson.  With 93 pitches thrown, and coming off a second Tommy John surgery, I completely understand the decision to yank Hill and thank him for a job well done.  I don’t understand the decision to go to Brian Tallet there, but that’s a whole other argument.

Tallet did get out of it – barely, as Hudson blasted a line drive over Vernon Wells’ head but Wells went back to the lip of the warning track and made a nice running catch, and it wasn’t until the 7th when things got silly.  In the 6th, with the score 5-2 Jays, Casey Janssen came on with two on and two out to strike out J.J. Hardy, then pitched a perfect 7th inning and was justly rewarded with the win.

Taylor Buchholz made just his second appearance of the month for the Jays, and just as he did against the Red Sox on September 19th, he pitched a perfect inning.  Don’t sleep on this guy in the off-season, he could well wind up a major player in the back of the Jays’ bullpen next year.

The Blue Jays need to hit 12 home runs in their final three games of the season to set a major-league single-season record.  Improbable?  Highly.  Impossible?  No.  They have, after all, hit 10 home runs in their last three games.

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

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

1:15 AM Eastern

Please vote for Tom Cheek.  Today is the last day to cast a vote for Tom to be placed on the final ballot for the Ford C. Frick Award For Broadcasting Excellence.  Tom Cheek’s rightful place is in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York with all the greats of the game.  Go to www.facebook.com/baseballhall then click on the “poll” tab and vote for Tom Cheek – his once-enormous lead in the voting is now slipping.  Thank you.

Tom Cheek would have loved tonight at the ballpark.  He and Cito Gaston were great friends and golfing buddies, and Tom was one of Cito’s biggest fans.  He’d have been thrilled to see Cito back managing the Blue Jays and he’d have been honoured to take part in that ceremony tonight, if he were still around.

It was a terrific show, with all those ex-Jay greats, the tremendous video tribute and even a solitary tear shed by the man himself.  Cito Gaston was at the helm when baseball was at its absolute peak in Toronto, and was the manager of a team that won four division titles in five years and of course,  two World Series championships.  He has always shown that he truly loves the Blue Jays and the city of Toronto, and for all those things he deserved a great send-off, and he got one.

The hilarity of seeing Travis Snider come out of the dugout after the ceremony was over to warm up while rocking the fake Cito  ‘stache was enough to wipe out the sentimentality of the moment, though I’ll admit I didn’t get sentimental – I just had a great time seeing all those great old faces and remembering how fantastic baseball used to be here.  The glory days were certainly gloritudinous – 11 straight winning seasons, five playoff appearances in nine years, being eliminated on the last day in 1987 and 1990, it really was amazing around here.

Then the game started and the Jays were up to their old tricks – home runs and great starting pitching.  Snider led off the bottom of the first with the Jays’ club-record 245th big fly of the season, and his fourth in 11 games, and John Buck and Aaron Hill would later go deep as well to support Brett Cecil, who took a shutout into the 6th before hitting the wall.  Cecil got bailed out by Jason Frasor and the defense, and wound up notching his 15th win of the season, which secures sole possession of the team lead in that category for the year.

Vernon Wells did some nifty baserunning to set up another run; moving to second on a wild pitch that barely got away from Francisco Cervelli, then stealing third – slipping under the tag of a late-breaking Alex Rodriguez.

It was the second time in three games that the Jays ran out to a 7-0 lead early against the Yankees.  There was less drama in their holding on for the win this time, but Jesse Carlson still got some hearts racing in the 9th before Cito came out (to one more standing O) to yank him and bring in Kevin Gregg to secure the victory.

With the win the Jays are guaranteed to finish above .500 this year – and it’s their fourth winning season in the last five.  They also took the season series against the Yankees 10-8, and wound up splitting their 36 games against the Yankees and Rays combined, playing the two winningest teams in the league dead even.

They’re off to Minnesota now – their first-ever visit to Target Field! – to wrap up what’s been an awfully fun season.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk (just four more to go!) for your listening pleasure:

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

12:00 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.  Click on the “poll” tab and place your vote for Tom.  His lead is slipping, please keep the pressure on!

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

There are only TWO voting days left, please make the most of them!

Now then……..if Kyle Drabek had had a little help from his friend behind the plate in John Buck, his final start of the season might have turned out quite differently.  Drabek throws hard, and features a nasty curveball in the dirt that gets swings and misses, but those swings and misses are tremendously inconsequential if the catcher isn’t going to get down and dirty and block the ball.

By “get down and dirty” I mean anticipate a breaking ball in the dirt, drop down to both knees and smother the ball as it bounces off the ground so that it remains right there in front of you as the catcher.  Think back to Pat Borders, the best I have ever seen at consistently getting down and blocking balls in the dirt.  He had to deal with incredibly nasty stuff from guys like Juan Guzman and David Cone, and he was fully committed to getting down and taking balls off the chest protector to prevent runner advancement.

Fast forward to 2010, where we have seen Jose Molina stab at balls in the dirt with his backhand or bounce up as balls hit the dirt and try to corral them, and where tonight we saw John Buck either come up or fail to get down on a Drabek pitch in the dirt three times over the first three innings, costing the Blue Jays two runs.

In the first, Buck didn’t block a great slider in the dirt on which Nick Swisher swung and missed for strike three, and Derek Jeter scampered down to second base.  Jeter then moved to third on a single and scored on a sacrifice fly by Alex Rodriguez.

In the second, Buck again failed to get down on a slider – this time Curtis Granderson swung and missed for strike three.  Buck did manage to keep the ball close enough to him to root it out of the dirt and throw to first, but his wild throw allowed Granderson to go to second.  Granderson didn’t score, though, as Buck got a big piece of strike three in the dirt to the next hitter, Brett Gardner, and threw Gardner out at first.

In the third – forgiveable.  Drabek threw a 96 mile-an-hour fastball in the dirt.  A catcher can’t anticipate that, and is pretty much dead meat if that ball doesn’t make it to the plate.  Buck didn’t display good form in getting down on that ball, but that was because he was way late – because it was a 96 mile-an-hour fastball in the dirt.  Nothing you can really do about that except get lucky, and Buck didn’t.  Jeter, who had led off the inning with a walk, went to second on that wild pitch.  Swisher then bunted him to third and he scored on a Mark Teixeira sac fly.

In the fifth, after a leadoff triple by Gardner, Drabek got Jeter to hit a ground ball to third and Edwin Encarnacion came home with the throw.  It was a good throw and the ball was there in time, but Buck left Gardner a big enough piece of the plate that he was able to slide in before the tag.  If that’s Gregg Zaun, Gardner doesn’t score.  Any good block of the plate gets you an out there.

So instead of a 1-1 tie through six innings and Drabek coming out of the game with a fantastic start against the defending World Series Champions back on which to look over the winter, he comes out of the game having allowed three earned runs in six innings and winds up 0-3 in three major-league starts.

It has been a season-long problem, catchers being unwilling to block balls in the dirt on a regular basis, and it must be addressed for next season, especially if Drabek is going to make the team.  He, Ricky Romero and Brandon Morrow are not easy to catch.

I say unwilling rather than unable, by the way, because I have been listening to Alan Ashby all season.  The man caught 17 years in the major leagues, and caught exceedingly difficult pitchers like Mike Scott and J.R. Richard, and insists that it takes no talent at all to block a breaking ball in the dirt, just commitment.  Either you’re committed to getting down and blocking that ball or you’re not.

Travis Snider continued to show well as the season grinds to the end.  He had two of the Blue Jays’ three hits tonight, a laser-beam home run to right and a line single over a leaping Teixeira, both off Cy Young candidate CC Sabathia.  Snider is on a 10-game hitting streak over which he’s produced to the tune of .350/.381/.625 with three of his 12 homers this season, on his way to a very strong finish. 

J.P. Arencibia got another start today, and you have to feel just terrible for him.  Here’s a rookie trying to get his feet wet in the big leagues, and he’s made just four starts in the month of September, only one of which was behind the plate.  In those four games, he has gone 0-for-12 with six strikeouts.  The pitchers he has started against?  Felix Hernandez, David Price, Jon Lester and tonight, CC Sabathia.  I mean, seriously.

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!”:

11:55 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.  There are only four voting days left, please keep the pressure on!

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

There are only three voting days left, please make the most of them!

Now then……I don’t think Tom Cheek was very much into schadenfreude, but I know a ton of sports fans are, and I know lots of Blue Jay fans derived great amounts of pleasure from the fact that A.J. Burnett got lit up like a Christmas tree last night.

The Jays pounded their former teammate throughout his brutality-shortened 2 1/3 inning stint, from Travis Snider’s lead-off ground-rule double in the bottom of the first through John Buck’s solo shot in the second to Vernon Wells’ three-run bomb in the 3rd and the three straight hits that followed before A.J. hit the showers.

Burnett is now 2-9, 6.98 since the end of July, with a WHIP of 1.62 and an opponents’ OPS of .879.  To compare, Evan Longoria’s .879 OPS currently places him 10th in the American League or, to put it another way, every hitter who has faced A.J. Burnett over the past two months has hit like he’s one of the 10 best hitters in the entire league.

A seven-run lead after four, with Marc Rzepczynski dealing like he’s never dealt before, seemed like it would be more than enough for the Jays, and it was – but just barely.  After striking out a career-high-tying nine over the first four innings (including a club-record-tying six in a row over the second, third and fourth) without a walk and allowing just two hits, Zep hit the wall in the fifth, issuing three walks and a two-run homer, and barely survived the frame thanks in large part to a beautifully-timed double play hit into by the ultra-clutch Derek Jeter.

Rzepczynski looked like he was home and cooled but instead couldn’t answer the bell for the 6th.  Brian Tallet came in to strike out the side that inning, and was then sent back out for the 7th.

I’m not going to say “inexplicably sent back out for the 7th” because we’ve seen this happen a few times over the last little while, but Tallet continues to be used in situations for which he’s not the best fit, and far more often than not, the results are ugly.

A commenter on the live blog joked that Cito was trying to get another one of his veterans to 20 home runs, and while that was pretty mean, it was also kind of funny, and that’s exactly what happened.

After getting a quick out to start the 7th, Tallet was late covering first on a Jeter grounder to Lyle Overbay – as he almost always is – and he tripped over Jeter after Jeter beat him to the bag.  A solid single by Nick Swisher followed, and then Mark Teixeira hit a bomb into the batters’ eye in right-centre – the 20th home run Tallet has allowed this season, in just 76 2/3 innings of work.

Tallet has been a good pitcher for this team in the past, and this year he’s doing a phenomenal job against left-handed hitters, limiting them to just .178/.230/.347, which is kind of awesome.  But using the same analogy we did for A.J. Burnett, every right-hander who has faced Tallet this season has hit a little better than Joey Votto.  The Etobicoke native, and likely NL MVP, is third in the majors with a 1.033 OPS; right-handed batters are currently posting an OPS of 1.036 against Tallet.

While he has pitched like a textbook LOOGY this year, he’s the long guy.  Even so, he shouldn’t ever be pitching in the 7th inning or later unless the game is a blowout either way, or unless you’re deep into extra innings and out of pitchers.

But after the Teixeira homer, Josh Roenicke and Jesse Carlson came on to bail out the Jays, Scott Downs worked a shutout 8th and Kevin Gregg threw an incredibly uneventful 1-2-3 9th inning against the top of the Yankees’ order.

The Jays have won five straight and clinched at least a .500 season; the Yankees have lost 14 of 21 and have yet to clinch a playoff spot.

Tonight, Kyle Drabek makes his third and final start of the season, looking again for his first big-league win.  He takes on 20-game winner CC Sabathia – the first time the big man has faced the Blue Jays this season.  Remember to tune in at 6:00 PM Eastern for Blue Jays Pre-Game – we’ll hear from a couple of the Blue Jays’ R. Howard Webster Award winners as minor-league MVPs.  Probably Jacob Marisnick and Eric Thames tonight.

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!”:

11:10 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.  There are only four voting days left, please keep the pressure on!

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

Tom’s widow, Shirley, his daughter Lisa and one of the grandchildren were at yesterday’s game and I managed to sneak into their suite while Russ Langer was doing his thing in the 6th inning.  Mrs. Cheek is a wonderful lady and she told me how happy and grateful she was to all of you who have been voting for Tom all month long.  We’re all so hopeful that this is the year we finally get him in, so please keep at it.  It’s just another four days!

Now then…………..the Blue Jays avenged the Orioles’ sweep back in Baltimore last week with a sweep of their own, and they did it with a stolen base, with a sacrifice fly made possible by a throwing error and with a couple of very well-timed singles.  Not exactly typical Blue Jays baseball.  But then, there was the seven innings out of the starting pitcher who didn’t allow an earned run, which is a little more familiar.

But the story wasn’t John McDonald’s three RBIs or Vernon Wells’ big two-out single in the first or even what the heck Rick Vandenhurk was thinking making a pick-off throw to second with John Buck as the baserunner.  It was the 0-for-2 day of Jose Bautista.

I don’t need to tell you what kind of season Bautista is having.  What you might not know, though, is how much he’s terrorized the Orioles.  Going into yesterday’s game, Bautista was hitting .308/.395/.846 in 17 games against the Baltimores this season, with six doubles, a triple, NINE home runs, 19 runs scored and 19 RBIs.  That’s pretty serious.

Bautista was hit by a Vandenhurk pitch in his second trip to the plate in the third inning, a seemingly innocent enough inside pitch that got away.  Shaun Marcum threw a pitch a little too far inside on Luke Scott the next inning and the ball barely grazed his uniform pants, but warnings were issued.

Vandenhurk was a spot starter, having come out of the bullpen to replace Brian Matusz, so he only went four innings.  But with Bautista on deck to start the fifth, O’s manager Buck Showalter decided to bring in his hard-throwing short reliever, and one-time closer, Alfredo Simon to pitch in a two-run ballgame.

For the exact opposite reason, this is a move as baffling as bringing in Brian Tallet to pitch a tie game in the ninth inning.  Baffling, that is, until you figured out Simon’s mission.

After retiring Aaron Hill on a foul pop (after coming up and in on Hill on the second pitch), Simon missed with his first pitch to Bautista, then took two shots.  The first one missed, the second one got him in the ribcage.  Simon and Showalter were immediately ejected.  When I talked to Jays hitting coach Dwayne Murphy after the game (you can hear it in the Audio on Demand section of this very website) he dismissed it as “some Showalter thing” (I’m paraphrasing) but didn’t sound too happy about it.

Bautista did nothing but head on down to first base and the Blue Jays didn’t retaliate, either.  Should they have?  Well, through five innings it was only 3-1, so you can’t do anything in the 6th.  Then, after Johnny Mac provided the extra cushion in the bottom of the 6th, there was never the two-out, nobody-on opportunity to drill a guy, and it had to be the right guy, anyway.

I said on The JaysTalk that I would have liked to have seen Marcum come back out for the 8th, after he was done anyway, to nail Nick Markakis and get thrown out, but as good as that would have made him, Bautista and the rest of the Jays and their fans feel, that very likely would have resulted in Markakis charging the mound, benches clearing, Marcum getting suspended and maybe somebody getting hurt.

So they didn’t answer back.  But hearing Marcum’s postgame comments, you know this one is going to be filed away.  It’s going to have to be filed for a while, though – the Jays and Orioles don’t meet again until June 3, 2011.  Here’s hoping the game starts with Brian Roberts taking one in the ribcage.

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

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And here’s the transcript of yesterday’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

9:30 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.  There are only five voting days left, please keep the pressure on!

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

Now then…………that was fun.  Ricky Romero gutted it out into the 6th after a brutal second inning and the Jays’ bullpen kept the Orioles in check almost completely after Ty Wigginton’s go-ahead home run off Casey Janssen in the 7th.

Edwin Encarnacion gave us another indication of his ridiculous power with his game-tying homer in the bottom of that frame and it stayed tied until Lyle Overbay sent the crowd home happy with his 20th of the season, leading off the 11th against lefty Mark Hendrickson.

The win put the Jays in position to get a sweep this afternoon – it would be their 5th sweep of the Orioles this season – before the Yankees come to town for the final home series of the year.

I spent the 6th inning yesterday talking to a bunch of young kids – Deck McGuire and most of the Jays’ R. Howard Webster Award winners (MVPs at all their minor-league levels) and throughout the course of the week, we’ll be playing those interviews on Blue Jays Pre-Game, so make sure to check those out.

Here’s yesterday’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.

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

12:35 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

Now then…………..Another great night at the ballpark as Brett Cecil’s Houdini Act went on full display while the Jays eked out just enough offense to win, thanks mostly to two more bombs by Jose Bautista and Vernon Wells’ 30th homer.  Wells is the fourth Blue Jay ever to have at least three seasons of at least 30 home runs; he joined Carlos Delgado, Joe Carter and Fred McGriff.  Will Bautista eventually join them?  Could be.  Of course, he could also be gone after next year.

Also – massive props to Cito Gaston for going out and yanking Kevin Gregg after the Jays’ closer fell behind Matt Wieters 2-0 with the tying run at second base.  That’s a move that no manager makes lightly, and one that takes particularly massive stones – of which there has never been any doubt that Cito possesses.

By the way, I hope you didn’t just gloss over the Vote For Tom thing.  We only have a week left, please make sure you cast a vote every day!

It was quite a raucous evening of The JaysTalk – fueled mostly by some listeners’ irrational love for the Tampa Bay Rays.  Here it is, 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.

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

12:40 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

Now then………..It’s funny, my wife and kids were thinking about coming to today’s game.  The kids are off school and it was a day game, a couple of my daughters’ friends were going to join them, but their plans fell through.  What’s funny is that they would have been bored stiff by what happened at the ballpark this afternoon – at a game of which I loved every second.

My wife is a wonderful woman, but I found out early on that she wasn’t big on the baseball.  She told me that she went to a Blue Jay game and was bored out of her tree – there was no excitement because the Jays didn’t get any hits.  That was Dave Stewart’s no-no for the A’s at the Dome back in 1990.  Sigh.  Me?  I’ve still never seen a no-hitter live and in person, though Brandon Morrow, Dustin McGowan and Nolan Ryan have all gotten me close.

Today’s game would have been pretty boring for someone who loves a slugfest – after the first inning, that is, because with two out in the bottom of the first, Jose Bautista took Felix Hernandez deep.  A towering shot to left field it was, high and mighty and just out into the Blue Jays’ bullpen for Bautista’s magical 50th home run of the season.

Never before has a Blue Jay hit the half-century mark in big flies and in fact, only 25 other people in the history of major-league baseball have done it, the last ones being Prince Fielder and Alex Rodriguez in 2007.

It was fitting, too.  Almost a capper to a magical season that that milestone homer was hit off the man who has a strong argument for deserving the American League’s Cy Young Award this season, though with his 12-12 record, there’s almost no way Felix Hernandez  actually takes home the hardware.

Quick aside – how crazy is it that today’s effort actually took King Felix DOWN a notch in the eyes of some Cy Young voters?  A complete-game two-hitter, one run allowed, WHIP of 0.75, league-leading ERA improves to 2.31 – but it’s a loss.  He’s only 12-12, how can he be the best pitcher in the league?  It’s sad, is what it is.

Anyway, with Bautista having gone deep, made Blue Jays history and taken his curtain call, it was up to Shawn Hill to protect that slim lead – and he did.  I interviewed Shawn Wednesday night (give it a listen if you missed it, it’s in the audio on demand section of this very website) and we joked about how his teammates had yet to score a run with him on the mound in his Blue Jays career.  As he walked towards the clubhouse when we were done, I smiled and said to him, “You might get one.  Make it stand up!” and he laughed.  Who knew?

Hill was terrific, albeit against a very poor offensive squad that was without one of its biggest threats in Russell Branyan.  Over five shutout innings, he tied his career high with seven strikeouts (four of which came over the first five hitters he faced), and didn’t allow a hit that left the infield to anyone but Ichiro Suzuki.  Hill also made a life-saving knockdown of a Chone Figgins line drive in the third inning, a play that wound up being an infield single.

Having thrown 85 pitches, Hill’s work was done, and the Jays received a shutout inning of relief each from Brad Mills, Jason Frasor, Scott Downs and Kevin Gregg to seal the deal.  Hill got his first win as an American Leaguer; Gregg extended his career high with save number 35.

So we have Bautista’s 50th, Mississauga native Hill’s first win and, of course, Ichiro.  His two hits gave him an even 200 for the year, and he has now had at least that many hits in each of his 10 major-league seasons.  He’s the first player ever to notch ten consecutive 200-hit seasons.  He now shares the record for most career 200-hit seasons with the all-time hit king, Pete Rose – but Rose played 24 years.

Quite the day at the ol’ ballyard, indeed.  And sadly, only six home games to go.

It being a weekday day game, there was no time for The JaysTalk, so we bring you only the transcript of this afternoon’s “Miked Up LIVE!”:

1:00 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

Now then……………we gathered (not many of us – there was a pre-season Leaf game, after all – but we gathered) to see Kyle Drabek make his home debut and to see Jose Bautista hit his 50th homer of the season, but some other Jose stole the show.

Jose Lopez hit a hanging change-up from Drabek into the seats, then took Brian Tallet and Shawn Camp deep as well in his first career three-homer game to single-handedly life the Mariners out of sole possession of the A.L. homer run cellar and knot the series at a win apiece.  He got to a round number for the season, but his was 10.  Lopez’ blasts were enough to overcome a Jays squad that really didn’t bring much at all to the table offensively, and now the Jays have to deal with Felix Hernandez, who has probably been the best pitcher in the American League this season.

It’s not going to be easy, by any means, and the Jays have the additional burden of having Shawn Hill on the mound-  they have yet to figure out how to score a run when he’s in a game.

I got to interview Shawn Hill for the first time today – we played it on the pre-game show and it’s in the audio on demand section of the website if you want to give it a listen – and I was very impressed.  He’s a thoughtful, well-spoken guy with an incredible pain threshold who had a world of talent in his right arm and now has a bunch of scalpel tracks and suture marks in it.  At 29, he’s got almost eight months on Shaun Marcum, which makes him the elder statesman of the rotation, and he’s still under control for another two seasons beyond this one.  If he can stay healthy, he’s a serious, serious sleeper to be a very cheap impact guy in the rotation.  His Mississauganess aside, I’m really looking forward to seeing if he can stick around.

Oh – and a happy sukkot to all who are celebrating.  Shake a lulav for me!

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!”:

10:45 AM Eastern

Before we get to the post, your daily reminder to PLEASE go vote Tom Cheek for the Ford C. Frick Award!  You have to be a member of facebook, unfortunately, but there’s a link on the front page of this very website, and here’s another one – www.facebook.com/baseballhall.  The vote totals weren’t as strong this weekend as they had been previously, so please get back in there and get voting!

Also, please join the facebook group “Send Tom Cheek to Cooperstown” for a daily reminder from me right to your facebook wall.  The response has been overwhelming to this point, but we need to keep pushing hard so that the Frick voters understand just how much Tom meant, and continues to mean, to all of us, and just how much he deserves this long-overdue honour.

Now then……………It’s a joyous occasion when the Seattle Mariners come to town.  The sexy pick by many to win the A.L. West this season has wound up the worst team in the junior circuit despite strong pitching and terrific defense because – plain and simple – they can’t hit.

In their first appearance at Rogers Centre this season, they showed us that their status as the anchor team in the majors in runs scored, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, doubles, triples and home runs is exceedingly well-earned.  Marc Rzepczynski took advantage and had his best outing since his season debut, picking up his second win of the season.

Ichiro Suzuki was the bright light, with four hits – but he only hit one of them even remotely hard.  They were all ground balls, two of which got through the infield.  I’m amazed that at his age, he still has those phenomenal wheels.  He’s now just three hits shy of 200 for a 10th straight season, an amazing accomplishment, and his speed turns a lot of those singles into doubles, so he gets a bit of a break for being such a Punch-and-Judy guy when most believe that he’s capable of a lot more in the slugging department.

The M’s actually opened the scoring in the game, but did so with a losing strategy.  Suzuki led off with a single, and before Chone Figgins could bunt him over, John Buck whiffed on a Rzepczynski offering, allowing Ichiro to go to second.  At that point, with huge speed on second, nobody out and a guy who is hitting .368 in September at the plate (and .292/.356/.339 since the all-star break) – Figgins STILL bunted him over. Jose Lopez followed with an RBI single that would have scored Suzuki from second and with the wasted out, the Mariners didn’t score another run until a two-out rally in the 5th, by which time they were already down four.

I get that scoring first is a good idea, but it wasn’t Felix Hernandez on the mound for Seattle, it was Luke French – and when you only have TWO guys in the line-up hitting above .250, you really shouldn’t sacrifice with either one of them, I’m thinking.

The Blue Jays got the lead back right away with a two-run bomb by Vernon Wells.  Travis Snider added a two-run shot of his own – making it NINE players with double-digit homers for the Blue Jays this season – and Edwin Encarnacion threw his bat into the ring as well, with his 15th; a high fly into the left-field corner that just barely made it out over a leaping Ryan Langerhans.

It was a good thing Snider went deep, too, because his error of aggression on a Matt Tuiasosopo pop-up in the 9th almost cost the Jays the game.  It was a routine pop to shallow centre, and Yunel Escobar had settled under it, but Snider was charging in from left, called off the shortstop and then had the ball drop in front of him for a double.

Speaking to Brian Butterfield after the game, he said Snider’s mistake is part of the process.  Outfielders are told to call infielders off if they have a better shot at a shallow fly, but Butter (who I’m told is also a candidate for the Mariners’ managerial opening this winter) says that if the infielder is in control and camped under it, he should be allowed to make the play – that’s something that Snider learned the hard way last night.

After the blunder, though, John McDonald made a sensational diving stab to his right to rob Josh Wilson of what should have been a double, so things even out.  Kevin Gregg then gave up back-to-back singles to Suzuki and Figgins before striking out Jose Lopez to finally secure the save, his 34th.

Tonight, it’s Kyle Drabek against a seriously punchless offense, which should be a whole lot of fun.  I re-introduced myself to Drabek in the Jays’ clubhouse before yesterday’s game, having only met him briefly before in Spring Training.  We talked for a bit, and I closed by telling him that I’d likely be a pain in his butt for the next six or seven years.  His answer was “I hope so.”  I’ll be reminding him of that in 2015.

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!”: