11:30 PM Eastern

The return of Brett Cecil was reasonably reasonable.  He wasn’t great, but wasn’t bad, either.  He threw a few 93 mile-per-hour fastballs in the first inning, but after that was pretty much down in the 87-89 range for the rest of his 6 1/3 inning stint.  Instead of allowing himself to be frustrated by that as he was in the early part of the season, though, he continued to throw strikes and kept the team in the game until the defense reared its ugly head in the top of the 6th.

Cecil had allowed two runs on four hits and three walks (one intentional) through five, and in the bottom of the 5th the Jays finally broke through against Pirates’ starter Jeff Karstens, with solo homers from J.P. Arencibia and Yunel Escobar, so they went to the 6th in a tie game.

Lyle Overbay led off that fateful 6th by hitting a seemingly-harmless pop-up to shallow left on a 3-2 pitch.  Jose Bautista drifted back from third, silently, while Corey Patterson came charging in from left field, calling for the ball.  Bautista didn’t back off as Patterson came charging in, then at the last second they both pulled back and the ball dropped between them.  Escobar picked it up and fired wildly to second, allowing Overbay to go to third, where both Cecil and Arencibia were covering, leaving home plate unattended.  Overbay thought about trying to outrace Arencibia to the plate, but decided against it – had Jose Molina been catching, I’ll bet he takes off.

After the ugly botch-job, Ronny Cedeno doubled over the head of Eric Thames, then Brandon Wood took Cecil deep for more than the Pirates would need in winning a road interleague series for the first time in 17 tries – first time since 2003 against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

This is the third time in less than two weeks that Patterson has been involved in an ugly and wholly unnecessary near-collision, and the second time it’s been with Bautista.  Both times it appeared as though Bautista either didn’t hear Patterson calling for the ball or simply ignored him (my money is on the former) since both times the ball was Patterson’s to take, but this is embarrassing already.  You would expect that at a minimum, big-league players should be able to figure out these sorts of situations, and we’ve seen through repetition that it hasn’t happened yet.  The solution?  Well, it might just be Travis Snider, who got medical clearance and was back in the line-up for Las Vegas tonight.  But Snider likely won’t be back in the big leagues until the all-star break, which is a week and a half away. 

In the bottom of the 9th, Aaron Hill tripled off the top of the wall in left-centre.  How long has it been since Hill has hit a triple?  Well, his last one was against the Yankees, off Chien-Ming Wang, in a game in which Dustin McGowan was the winning pitcher and Gregg Zaun caught.  It’s been a while since July 19, 2007.

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

So the Blue Jays finish off the month of June at 12-15, starting the second half of the season with a loss to fall to 40-42.  Last year, they were 9-17 in June and haven’t won more than a dozen games in June since ’07.  They start July with the Philadelphia Phillies, who have baseball’s best record at 51-31, and with a lovely Canada Day celebration- Ricky Romero will take the mound against Phils’ righty Kyle Kendrick.  It’s Romero’s second career Canada Day start - in 2009 he threw eight innings of four-hit shutout at the Tampa Bay Rays in a 5-0 win.  The Blue Jays are sprucing up the graphics and planning some cool stuff for the JaysVision scoreboard, and they’ve even put together a swell video tribute to Roy Halladay, which will likely be shown as part of the pre-game festivities on Friday afternoon, so come early!

We’ll be on the air at 12:30 PM Eastern for a first pitch that’s scheduled for 1:07, but will probably be pushed back a few minutes by all the Canada Day goings-on.  We may hear from Halladay on the pre-game show, but I seriously doubt that I’m going to be allowed to get any 1-on-1 time with him.  I’ll try my best, though!

Please follow me on The Twitter – I can be found @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome – here, not at some e-mail address no one checks anymore!

11:40 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays reached the midway point of their season with a one-run win over the Pittsburgh Pirates that was chock-full of good portents.

Brandon Morrow had his third straight terrific start, shutting down the Buccos almost completely, allowing one run on four hits, striking out 10 and walking three.  He seems to have turned the corner, just as he did after his first ten starts last night, and that’s tremendous for the Jays.  Also tremendous is that Rajai Davis stroked a pair of hard line doubles, the first of which snapped an 0-for-12 (and 5-for-64) streak and came in an at-bat in which he actually took a two-strike pitch that was down and away.

Eric Thames belted his first major-league home run in the 6th inning to open the scoring.  It was a line drive that bounced out off the top of the videoboard in the left-centre field wall – an opposite-field home run against a left-handed pitcher, which is tremendous for a left-handed hitter.  It’s hard to say this about a guy who smiles as much as he does, but Thames has been a monster since coming back to the big leagues last week.  In four games, he’s 6-for-18 and five of his six hits have been for extra bases, with three doubles and a triple to go with tonight’s big fly.  That would be an isolated of slugging percentage of .445, which I’d say is kind of good.

Frank Francisco pitched another relatively drama-free 9th inning to pick up his ninth save of the season – he allowed naught but a two-out walk to Lyle Overbay in getting the job done.  That’s seven straight appearances for Francisco without giving up an earned run, over which period he’s allowed eight baserunners while striking out nine in 6 2/3 innings.

Jason Frasor pitched a hitless 8th in making his 446th appearance as a Blue Jay, which ties him for second with Tom Henke on the club’s all-time list.  Duane Ward is the only pitcher who has been in more games as a Blue Jay than Frasor, and he’s only six appearances away.  Frasor is likely to break the record around the all-star break – he’s pitched in 35 of the first 81 games this season.  It’s a pretty amazing achievement for a guy who has been a very reliable late-inning reliever, but never a dominant closer.  Pitchers like that tend to make their way from team to team, job to job, town to town, up and down the dial, but Frasor has lasted and has succeeded here.  Even though the Jays didn’t think he’d accept their offer of arbitration this winter, I believe they’re sincere in saying they’re glad to have him back.  Two first-rounders would have been nice too, though.

And pity poor Paul Maholm - his teammates let him down again.  The lefty, chosen five picks ahead of Aaron Hill in the 2003 draft, fell to 4-9 on the season with the loss, despite his ERA improving to 3.17.  The Pirates have scored a grand total of seven runs in his nine losses.

Here’s tonight’s edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure – it features interviews with first base/outfield coach Torey Lovullo as well as Brett Cecil, and a phone call from Brandon Morrow’s grandfather:

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Since it’s the halfway point, it’s easy to check and see what kind of paces players are on for the season, so assuming they play as often – and only as often - in the second half as they did in the first (a dangerous assumption, to be sure, but this is just for fun), here are some of the things for which certain Blue Jays are on pace:

Ricky Romero – 14-14, 192 Ks

Carlos Villanueva – 10-2

Brandon Morrow – 8-8, 182 Ks

Frank Francisco – 18 saves

Jose Bautista – 48 HR, 104 RBI, 122 runs, 136 walks (36 intentional), 94 Ks, 340 total bases

Adam Lind – 32 HR, 98 RBI

J.P. Arencibia – 22 HR,  70 RBI

Edwin Encarnacion – 34 2b, 10 HR

Rajai Davis – 36 SB – 16 CS

Aaron Hill – 6 HR, 60 RBI, 20 SB – 0 CS

The team as a whole, of course, is on pace to go 80-82.  We’re only looking at counting stats because everyone is on pace to have exactly the same rate stats as they have now.

The series wraps up on Thursday night with Brett Cecil making his return from Las Vegas to try to pitch the Blue Jays to a series victory and back to a .500 record.  He’ll face Jeff Karstens, who has an astonishingly low 2.66 ERA and 1.098 WHIP so far this season.  Karstens has eaten right-handed hitters alive, allowing just a .195/.228/.333 mark.  His OPS against lefties is almost 300 points higher, but the Blue Jays only have three lefties they can throw out there, so look for Corey Patterson to get a start in the finale.  We’re on the air at 7:00 PM Eastern for a 7:07 first pitch.

Please follow me on The Twitter – I can be found @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:52 PM Eastern

Baseball can be a cruel game.  A hitter’s job is to hit hard line drives, especially in big situations, and when that happens, success abounds the majority of the time and happiness reigns among the exultant spectators.

In the bottom of the 7th, with the bases loaded, one out and the Blue Jays down by a run, Adam Lind did his job.  He waited out Jose Veras, didn’t go fishing and got himself into a great hitters’ count, then took a mighty rip at a 2-0 pitch and hit the crap out of it.  Lind’s hard line drive, though, was hit directly into the glove of Lyle Overbay, and turned easily into an inning-ending double play.

If Lind gets under the ball an inch, maybe less, it’s a Grand Slam.  If he hits it six inches to the right, it’s a three-run double.  Six inches to the left, maybe a two-run single, at the very least, it’s a single that ties the game.  He did everything right, the baserunners did everything right, and still everything went wrong for the Blue Jays.

That’s, as they say, why they call it baseball.

The Jays managed naught but one infield single the rest of the way as the Pirates snapped their road interleague losing streak at 13 games.

Thing is, though, the Blue Jays shouldn’t have needed those inches, because the game ought to have been well in hand by that point.  It wasn’t because for a brief period of time in the top of the fourth, the Blue Jays morphed into the Keystone Kops.

The inning started with a first-pitch line single up the middle by Overbay, and Matt Diaz followed with a flare to shallow right.  Eric Thames, who was playing right for the first time in the bigs with Jose Bautista having taken over third base for the foreseeable future, came charging hard, but realizing that it would take a spectacular play to make the catch, pulled up and prepared to take it on a bounce.  But Thames had overcommitted, and the ball bounced over his head.

Luckily, Corey Patterson was there backing him up.  Well, it would have been lucky had Patterson been backing him up properly, but Patterson got too close to Thames, and the ball bounced past him, as well.  Overbay and Diaz circled the bases as Patterson chased it to the wall, and Diaz had himself an RBI triple when it was all said and done.  Frustrated by the botched play behind him, Reyes broke concentration when the next hitter, Garrett Jones, hit a grounder to Lind.  Reyes didn’t cover first, allowing Jones safe passage and Diaz to score.  It was the second time in the game that Reyes failed to cover first (which is an important requirement of his job, it should be noted), though Lind bailed him out the first time, just barely.

Then there were a couple of little loopers that fell in for singles before Neil Walker’s line single to centre that sent Reyes to the showers down 6-1.

That’s an inning that shouldn’t have happened.  Space-time continuum considerations aside (and I know you can’t really do that), it should have been a second and third, one out situation for the eight-hole hitter instead of a runner on first, none out, two runs already in situation.  The Blue Jays’ death tonight came by a couple of self-inflicted wounds.

To their credit, though, they came back to the point where they were just an inch or so away from winning, thanks to the longball – Bautista hit a two-run shot, Edwin Encarnacion went deep twice and Corey Patterson even threw his bat into the ring with his first homer in 3 1/2 weeks.  But they were denied that final, angry inch.

By the way, this was the 5th time in 16 starts this season that Jo-Jo Reyes has failed to go at least four innings, though three of the other starts were in April.  He’s gone at least seven innings five times, as well, and taken it into the 7th another four times. 

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

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Some interesting news coming down the pipe before the game, as the Blue Jays recalled Brett Cecil from Las Vegas after more than two months of exile, sending Zach Stewart back down to AA New Hampshire.  Stewart goes down to AA so Jesse Litsch can move from AA to AAA as his rehab continues.  Cecil will start the finale of this Pirates series on Thursday night, with Carlos Villanueva getting pushed back a couple of days to Saturday, when he’ll match up with Roy Halladay.  The Jays want Villanueva to get just two starts before the all-star break as opposed to three, because he’s already pitched more innings than he did all of last year.  They’ll likely be careful with him in the second half, too.

In other newsy nuggets, Travis Snider will be coming back to Las Vegas as a centrefielder.  Snider is expected to return to game action from his concussion sometime around the end of this week, and he’ll be playing centre for the 51s because the Jays want to get an extended look at him there.  John Farrell says Snider has the speed and the baseball sense to play centre, and that he’s a take-charge guy in the outfield.  I think this is fantastic news, as it could very well leave us with the Thames/Snider/Loewen crew from left to right at which I think the Jays should take a good, long look over the last couple of months of this season.  What could it hurt?  And you have to find out about Loewen soon, too – otherwise he comes to Spring Training next season as that out-of-options guy who has to make the team or else, or somebody grabs him in the Rule 5 draft this winter.

Also, Jose Bautista spoke before the game about the move to third base, and for the first time, it came across that he really didn’t think it was a good idea.  Bautista is happy to do whatever the team feels is best, but he reiterated to the gathered assemblage that he think he helps the team more in right field, and this time he added that the Jays could put the same nine bats in the line-up with him staying in right (assuming he meant Edwin at third and Juan Rivera DHing).  He’ll do it, and he’ll play hard, no question about that, but this was the first time that I got a strong sense from Bautista that he really wasn’t in love with the idea.

The series continues tomorrow with the Pirates looking for their second win in the last 15 interleague road games.  Brandon Morrow, who has looked like his second-half-of-2010 self the last two starts, takes the ball against the Pittsburgh version of Ricky Romero.  Lefty Paul Maholm is 4-8 with an ERA of 3.21.  In his eight losses, the Pirates have scored a TOTAL of six runs.  They’ve been shut out three times.  We’re on the air at 7:00 PM Eastern for a 7:07 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

Please give me a follow on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.  Also follow @jaysthisweek for the latest on the The Blue Jays This Week podcast – Ben Ennis and I recorded the latest edition this morning.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome, but please leave them here on the blog – don’t e-mail baseballtoday@fan590.com, no one checks that address.  Thanks!

10:32 PM Eastern

The Blue Jays wrapped up their 10-game road trip with a quick stop in Detroit to make up a game that had been rained out last month.

Zach Stewart was good enough to keep the Jays in the game, running through the figurative raindrops in the second and third but settling down nicely to take it to the seventh having allowed just two runs despite giving up nine hits.  Stewart’s night was saved by Aaron Hill in the second – he made a phenomenal leaping grab of a Magglio Ordonez line drive, taking away a likely RBI single and turning it into a double play instead.  The Tigers followed with two more hits, so it could have gotten pretty ugly.

In the third, Hill started a far more textbook double play with a leadoff walk aboard, and after that Stewart gave up three straight hits, resulting in another Tigers run – but only one.  That’s two runs on seven Detroit hits (and a walk!) over just two innings of work.

But Stewart did settle down, shutting out the Tigers on two hits over the next three innings before handing things over to the bullpen.

The Jays tied it up in the fourth – Eric Thames led off with his third double in six at-bats, moved up on a wild pitch and scored on Jose Bautista’s groundout.  Adam Lind followed with a shot to right – his 16th homer of the season.  But the Jays only threatened another couple of times and didn’t score again.

In the 6th, they had a couple on for Lind, who was intentionally walked to load the bases for Hill, who bounced into an inning-ending 3-2-3 double play.

In the 9th, they got a gift when Hill’s leadoff routine grounder to short went right under the glove of Detroit shortstop Jhonny Peralta, and after Corey Patterson popped up, Jose Molina looped a single in front of a hard-charging Austin Jackson in centre.  Juan Rivera came up to pinch-hit for Jayson Nix, and bounced the first pitch to Ramon Santiago for a game-ending double play.

Detroit won it in the 8th when Jhonny Peralta hit a sinking liner to right with Jackson on second and one out. Jose Bautista went for the do-or-die sliding grab and lost the ball in the lights – it skipped by him and went all the way to the wall for a go-ahead triple.  I don’t mind Bautista diving, but I do mind Rajai Davis not hustling over to back him up.  This is something we’ve seen too often in the Blue Jays outfield, not that it would have made things any different, except that maybe Peralta has to stop at second and doesn’t wind up scoring later in the inning.

It wasn’t a great way for Bautista’s tenure as the Jays’ right fielder to come to a temporary conclusion, but it was a great attempt, and had he caught the ball, they might still be playing right now.  Instead, Bautista will likely be at third base when the Jays start up their homestand against the Pirates, and I’d be surprised if we didn’t see Corey Patterson and Eric Thames flanking Rajai Davis in the outfield.

That’s not great news, the way those two (Patterson and Davis) have been hitting, though I firmly believe the both of them will pull out of the horrible streaks they’ve each been in over the past few weeks.  Still, as I advocated on The JaysTalk after the game, I would love to see Travis Snider get a shot at centrefield when he comes back from Las Vegas – and he might be back as soon as next week.  Snider has the wheels and appears to have the baseball sense to play the position, and the Jays need a take-charge guy in centre who can contribute at least something offensively, as at the moment there’s no such animal on the current ballclub.  Of course, that means that Rajai Davis likely gets some reps in right field, which really doesn’t make that much sense, since he’s a quality defender in centre and he’s under contract for next year, but I think it’s more important to see if Snider can be a viable option in the middle, because that opens up a bunch of other options.

Speaking of The JaysTalk, here it is – for your listening pleasure:

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One more thing – before the game it was reported that Dustin McGowan had experienced a little bit of stiffness in his forearm during a bullpen session and had been shut down for a while.  After the game, reporters were told that McGowan was back up on the mound throwing Monday afternoon and was fine – he had been shut down a few days ago.  Remember, no matter how well he seems to be doing, a McGowan return to the major leagues as a productive pitcher should be seen as nothing short of a minor miracle.  There are bound to be plenty of bumps in the road.

With the 5-5 road trip in the rear-view mirror, the Blue Jays have six interleague games left to play, but they’ll all be at home and will involve the DH.  The Pittsburgh Pirates come to town for the first of three, resurgent and above .500 (and looking to finish there for the first time since the Blue Jays were winning World Series).  In the opener, Jo-Jo Reyes will take on Kevin Correia, and we’ll be on the air at 7:00 PM Eastern – join us, won’t you?

If you’re so inclined, please give me a follow on The Twitter – you can find me @wilnerness590.  And while you’re there, follow @jaysthisweek, as well.  Ben Ennis and I will be doing a Blue Jays This Week podcast sometime on Tuesday.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome, but if you’re going to leave one, please do so here on the blog. For some reason, I have found several comments to old blog posts that were sent to baseballtoday@fan590.com.  I’m not sure why, I’ve never suggested anyone send any comments there – that e-mail address hasn’t been active for well over a year now so if you send comments there, they’re likely to get lost.  Put them here, and we can talk!

5:34 PM Eastern

I’m not sure if Ricky Romero was actually channeling the first President from “24″ or not, but he took matters into his own hands, ensuring the Blue Jays would provide him with enough offense so as not to waste yet another brilliant pitching performance.

Romero was dealing, having allowed just two cheap hits through five shutout innings, but the Jays only took a one-run lead into the 6th, that thanks to J.P. Arencibia’s 11th home run of the season.  In that 6th, they rallied, putting runners on the corners with one out for Corey Patterson, who hit a weak nubber towards first base.  Lance Berkman fielded it cleanly, but his throw went about five feet over catcher Tony Cruz’ head, allowing a second Jays’ run to score.  Arencibia was up next, and was given an intentional walk to load the bases for Romero, who couldn’t have picked a better time to get his first major-league hit.

Romero rifled a hard ground ball past a diving Berkman and into right field for a two-run single, extending the Jays’ lead to 4-0 and giving the young lefty far more insurance than he would need.

Ricky the pitcher took it from there, going the route on a four-hit shutout to even both his (7-7) and the Blue Jays’ (39-39) won-lost records.

Of the four hits, only one was legit – a line single to right by Colby Rasmus with one out in the 7th.  Skipolito Schumaker broke off Romero’s bid for perfection with a little nothing flare to shallow right in the 4th and Berkman hit a grounder off Romero’s right shoe for an infield single in the 9th.

The other St. Louis hit was even uglier than those two – it was a fly ball hit by Andrew Brown to lead off the 5th inning.  Just a fly ball, nothing more, into deep left-centre.  It hung up there forever, giving both Juan Rivera and Patterson an opportunity to take it, and Patterson called for it, came over, then stopped and gave way to Rivera, who had no intention of catching the ball since, you know, he’d been called off by the centrefielder.  It’s the second time on this trip that we’ve seen Patterson give way to a corner outfielder who didn’t have the play – last time it resulted in an inside-the-park home run.  After the play was over, Patterson looked back into the stands, which makes me think he might have been called off the ball by a fan who was pretending to be Rivera, which is ridiculous (on Patterson’s part, you should be expecting that from visiting fans).

You have to take charge if you’re going to play centre field, and Corey Patterson certainly has not done that.  As well, he was the only Blue Jays starter not to get a hit today (thought he walked twice – once intentionally), making him six for his last 48 (.125/.170/.167).  Clearly, he’s not doing any good for anyone right now, and even though Rajai Davis is doing much worse at the dish lately (5 for his last 60 -  .083/.098/.133), at least he’s not letting harmless fly balls drop in the outfield.

Personally, I’m more in favour of giving Travis Snider a shot in centrefield with each passing day.  Snider is recovering nicely from a mild concussion in Las Vegas – he’s been cleared to resume baseball activities and should get into a game by the end of the week.

But dwell not on the negative – after scoring a grand total of three runs over the course of a four-game losing streak, the Blue Jays scored 16 in a three-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, who were in first place when the Jays got to town.  And the Jays went 5-4 on a trip through three tough National League parks!

Here’s this afternoon’s brief edition of The JaysTalk, for your listening pleasure:

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So that’s it for NL-rules games, which means the Blue Jays get their DH back as the road trip wraps up Monday night with a make-up game in Detroit.  The Jays will be trying to complete a two-game mini-sweep of a series that started on May 16th.  Zach Stewart gets the call in what might be his last big-league start for a while with Brett Cecil pitching well in Las Vegas; he faces Max Scherzer, who is trying to become the fifth 10-game winner in the bigs this season.  Weird start time, we’re on at 6:00 PM Eastern for a 6:05 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

And while you’re at it, please follow me on The Twitter @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:35 AM Eastern

The Blue Jays, who so brutally lacked offense during their first two stops on this four-city road trip, managed to put away the St. Louis Cardinals for a second straight night, this time with a five-run third inning in which they only managed one hit.

It started the way an inning should never start, with a walk to the pitcher.  Jaime Garcia gave Carlos Villanueva a free pass and I’m not sure which is more of a cardinal sin (if you’ll pardon the pun), walking the pitcher to lead off an inning or walking the pitcher with two out.  Either way, the Blue Jays made him pay.

The Villanueva walk was followed by another one to Yunel Escobar, and Aaron Hill then hit a weak grounder to second to move the runners up – it was the only out Hill would make in four trips in his likely-brief return to the two-hole.  With first base open, Tony LaRussa chose to intentionally walk Jose Bautista for the second time in the series, and for the second time, Adam Lind drove in a run immediately following, this time with a fly ball to deep centre that cashed Villanueva and tied the game.

J.P. Arencibia was next, and he hit a hard grounder that was headed for left field, but St. Louis third baseman Daniel Descalso made a sensational diving stab.  Descalso got up and threw high to first, but Lance Berkman showed some serious hops in going up to get the wild throw, then came down on the first base bag just ahead of a hustling Arencibia.  But first base umpire D.J. Reyburn didn’t see it that way, calling Arencibia safe, which allowed Yunel Escobar to score the go-ahead run and continued the inning for Juan Rivera, who smacked a 1-0 change-up into the bullpen in left field for the Blue Jays’ only hit of the inning, a three-run homer.

Villanueva took it from there, allowing only one more run in working six strong innings before handing it over to the bullpen.  Jon Rauch worked a shutout seventh but struggled in the eighth, putting two on with one out before Marc Rzepczynski bailed him out with a one-pitch double play off the bat of Berkman.  Frank Francisco made it interesting in the 9th, thanks mostly to his own throwing error on a weak grounder that should have ended the game, but he managed to get the job done.

What he was doing pitching at all is a major question.  Francisco was in because Jays’ manager John Farrell failed to properly execute a double switch in the 8th.  With the pitchers’ spot due up third in the 9th inning, Farrell had planned to bring Corey Patterson in with Rzepczynski, batting Patterson in the pitcher’s spot and Zep in Juan Rivera’s sixth spot in the order, but he pointed to the bullpen before going over to the home plate umpire to make the switch, and so was denied the change.

I don’t know if LaRussa being out arguing Matt Holliday’s ejection distracted Farrell, but it’s the second National League misstep he’s made in as many games in St. Louis.  Friday night he wasted a bench spot by pinch-hitting Rivera in the 8th inning after he’d already pinch-run for Jose Molina.  J.P. Arencibia was going to be coming into what was a tie game at that point anyway, so had he been put in to hit, Rivera could have been saved to hit for the pitcher had the game gone into extras.

The positives to note about these mistakes are that the Jays won both games, and that they’ll only be playing with National League rules once more all season unless they manage to get to the World Series, which doesn’t seem terribly likely.  The negative is that Francisco had to be put in to the game in a non-save situation and as a result is more than likely unavailable for Sunday’s series finale (and why not use Shawn Camp or Luis Perez instead, with a four-run lead in the 9th?).

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

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The entire Travis Snider interview can be found in the audio on demand section of this very website.

The series wraps up with Ricky Romero taking to the hill against Kyle McClellan, who has done a fine job since being yanked out of the bullpen in the spring to replace the injured Adam Wainwright.  It’s Romero’s first start since his “controversial” comments about the Blue Jays’ offense in the wake of his 2-0 loss in Atlanta on Tuesday.  The Jays have scored 11 runs in the first two games in St. Louis after scoring a total of 10 in the first six games of the road trip.  We’ll be on across the country at 1:30 PM Eastern for a 2:15 first pitch, and those listening on Sportsnet Radio The Fan590 and on this website get an extra bonus half-hour pre-pre-game.  Join us, won’t you?

Please follow me on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:27 AM Eastern

John Farrell said the Blue Jays needed a spark, and they most assuredly got one from young Eric Thames as they began a series in St. Louis by scoring more runs in the opener than they had over the entire course of their four-game losing streak.

In fact, in the very first inning, the Jays matched their total scoring output in the three-game sweep in Atlanta.

Thames provided the early spark, beating out a first-inning double play ball, then racing to third on Jose Bautista’s double to left-centre.  He scored on Adam Lind’s groundout to second, and Bautista followed on the first of two RBI singles for Aaron Hill.  It was only the second time this month that the Blue Jays had put up a crooked number in the first inning.

Thames would later add a couple of doubles, and score another run – this time on a Lind single in the 5th as the Jays took a 4-2 lead, but they would leave the bases loaded with Edwin Encarnacion and Rajai Davis both striking out.

In the 6th,  the Cardinals tied it on a clothesline two-run homer by Matt Holliday – the second home run Brandon Morrow allowed, and just the fourth he’d given up all season.  But that was the last time St. Louis would get a runner on base.

Morrow retired the next six, then after Juan Rivera pinch-hit for him in the 7th (and popped out), Jason Frasor worked a perfect 8th, setting the stage for the major spark of the evening, which was provided by Jose Bautista.

The major-league home run leader did what he’s been doing better than anyone else in the game since September of 2009 – he went deep, taking Cards closer Fernando Salas out of the yard to right field, just out of the reach of a leaping Jon Jay.  It’s the first opposite-field home run Bautista has ever hit outside Target Field in Minnesota.

Bautista’s big swing is coming back around.  He’s now homered in consecutive games – the first time that has happened since Target Field, when he slammed five homers in three games from May 13-15.  Bautista has one more game in right field, maybe two, before he makes the move back to third.

It should be noted that Edwin Encarnacion played a flawless third base for the Blue Jays for eight innings before being replaced by John McDonald in the 9th.  It should also be noted that only one ground ball was hit to him.

After Bautista gave the Jays the lead, Frank Francisco came out to save it and pitched a 1-2-3 drama-free bottom of the 9th.  It’s the fourth straight time that he hasn’t been scored upon, and that’s a great sign, too.  Francisco now has eight saves in 11 opportunities.

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

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The series continues on Saturday night with Carlos Villanueva, coming off his first loss in 84 appearances, taking on Cards’ lefty Jaime Garcia.  It’ll be interesting to see if Thames is back in the line-up or if we see Juan Rivera in left in order to get an extra right-handed bat in there.

We’re on at 6:30 PM Eastern with the network pre-game for a 7:15 first pitch.  Those listening here on this website or on Sportsnet Radio The Fan590 get a special treat with an extra half-hour pre-pre-game for you to enjoy!

Please follow me on The Twitter – you can find me @wilnerness590.  And while you’re at it, give @jaysthisweek a follow as well, won’t you?

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

12:57 AM Eastern

We can’t have an off-day with no news, can we?

The Blue Jays, fed up with the offensive outage that has seen just ten runs scored in the first six games of this road trip, decided to make some changes as the players enjoyed a day off in St. Louis.

First, the call went to Las Vegas for Eric Thames.  On his way back down to AAA is Mike McCoy, optioned for the 238th time this season, and a guy I had trumpeted recently as the potential solution to the short-term issue at third base.

Turns out, they found a better solution – Jose Bautista.

Bautista was supposed to be the Jays’ third baseman to open this season, but two things happened that changed the minds of John Farrell and Alex Anthopoulos late in Spring Training, sending Bautista back to right field and moving Edwin Encarnacion to third for a couple of months.

The first thing was the play of Brett Lawrie.  The 21 year-old super-prospect moved his  timetable up from “maybe September” to mid-June by simply blowing the doors off in Dunedin; if Farrell had had his way, Lawrie would have made the team out of Spring Training, but the Jays erred on the side of further development.  They broke camp feeling that Lawrie would be up in the bigs much sooner than they’d originally anticipated, though.

The second thing was the play of Juan Rivera in right field.  The Jays didn’t feel comfortable running Rivera out there defensively every day and that, combined with the fact that Bautista’s move to third would only have lasted a couple of months, made them make the change – sending Jose back to right, moving Rivera to DH and sending Edwin Encarnacion back out onto the field at third base.  After all, it wasn’t going to be for that long, right?

Then they traded for Jayson Nix and figured that they had even more short-term insurance at third in case Edwin couldn’t do the job.

Well, Edwin couldn’t do the job, making six errors in his first seven games at third, and Nix came out strong, homering in his Jays debut and making almost every play defensively.  But then he stopped hitting.  And Edwin never really started, but for a few games in which he was DHing.

Still, though, that was OK because a freight train named Brett Lawrie was coming up the track awfully quickly.  Lawrie was set to become a major-leaguer the first week of June, but then Anthony Bass happened. The Padres’ young righty drilled Lawrie in the left hand with a pitch, the hand was later found to be broken, and all the plans went up in smoke.

The Jays had hoped that Lawrie would recover enough to be in action in late June, then the all-star break, and now August.  The hand isn’t healing as quickly as they’d hoped – he’s still not able to grip a bat without pain.  Now that they see another six to eight weeks before Lawrie is ready to come up, a surplus of young outfielders tearing it up in Las Vegas and a team that’s in desperate need of an offensive spark, the move has been made to send Bautista back to the infield in hopes of getting some more offense overall.

Thames is up to play a little left, a little right and some DH, with Travis Snider hot on his heels, having had a clean MRI in the wake of last week’s concussion.  I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we’ll see Thames start out platooning in left with Rivera, while Rajai Davis and Corey Patterson share time in centre – at least this weekend in St. Louis, during which Bautista will remain in right field while working out at third during batting practice.

Once the Jays hit Detroit for their make-up game on Monday night, you’d think Thames takes over in right until Snider gets here, with Encarnacion getting the lion’s share of the DH at-bats.  When Snider is ready to come up, Patterson and Davis probably split centre, or maybe Patterson becomes the fourth outfielder he was always supposed to be.  We’ll have to see which one of Patterson and Davis gets himself straight at the plate.

And don’t be surprised to see Thames hitting second in the St. Louis series opener on Friday night.

The moves are welcome, heck, they’ve been clamored for for weeks now by the people.  Hopefully Thames is here to stay and, soon enough, Snider is back for good, too.  If Encarnacion takes to the DH spot as well as the Jays hope he will, then you conceivably could go from a team that has six dead spots in the line-up right now to a team that shortly could have only two struggling players – and that’s assuming Aaron Hill and whoever is playing centre don’t shake out of their current slumps.

When Lawrie is ready, and that might not be until September, he’ll get his fair share of work at third base.  The expectation is certainly that Lawrie will be the Jays’ everyday third baseman in 2012, with Bautista moving back to right.  Snider or Thames will play left, and the other might DH (assuming they’re both still with the organization and no, I haven’t heard anything to the contrary) or there’s always the possibility that the Jays give Snider a shot at centre.  He’s not the ideal candidate, but he handled himself just fine in the one opportunity he got to play there with the Jays in April and in the four games he’s played in centre with Las Vegas.

It’ll be great to see Thames and his fantastical facial hair back with the big club, and here’s hoping his return and the buzz about the moves to come provide that spark the Jays so desperately need right now.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

4:37 PM Eastern

I can’t do two blog posts in a row about how if you can’t say anything nice you shouldn’t say anything at all, can I?

I think, though, that I have solved the mystery of the Blue Jays’ offensive disappearance  on the current road trip on which they’ve scored a grand total of just 10  runs in six games.  I’m pretty sure that their bats either didn’t make it onto the plane from Toronto or got lost on the way – that would explain it, right?  Because the other explanation – that almost an entire team has gone into an incredible slump at the same time – is pretty hard to fathom.

Check these numbers out:

Jayson Nix is 3 for his last 35 with one walk (.086/.132/.086)

Rajai Davis is 5 for his last 51 with one walk (.098/.115/.157)

Corey Patterson is 5 for his last 43 with no walks (.116/.136/.163)

J.P. Arencibia is 7 for his last 49 with one walk (.143/.160/.265)

Yunel Escobar is 5 for his last 29 without a walk (.172/.172/.241)

Aaron Hill is 5 for his last 28 with one walk (.179/.207/.321)

At least Arencibia has an excuse, he’s got a busted thumb.  But this is ridiculous.

The good news is that none of them are actually this bad.  The bad news is pretty much sitting right there for all to see.  That’s 7/9 of the line-up hitting below .200 during a reasonably-sized stretch (the extra 1/9 is an added bonus because they’ve been so bad – no, actually it’s the pitcher), and that’s how you average 1.67 runs per game on the first six games of a road trip.

So, is it time to do something?  After all, either one of Eric Thames and Adam Loewen should be able to produce more than basically all of these guys.  I wonder if some sort of move will be made between now and Friday night’s series opener in St. Louis, but I’m not confident one will be.  It’s still June, the team is only three games under .500 in a low-expectation season, and I don’t see Alex Anthopoulos making a knee-jerk move to satisfy a very justifiably frustrated fan base.

If it’s time to ditch Nix, Edwin Encarnacion or Juan Rivera and move Corey Patterson to the bench to make room for one of Thames or Loewen, then the move will be made.  But the timetable isn’t going to be moved up just because the major-league team is struggling so badly.

Again, the problem with bringing Loewen up for a look is that as soon as he’s placed on the 40-man roster (never mind the 25-man roster) he becomes a player who is out of options and who can’t be sent back down without going through waivers.  So he can’t just come up for a look, he’s got to be ready to be here to stay when he arrives.

Is immediate help on the way?  It doesn’t seem to be.  Brett Lawrie is still a couple of weeks away from even getting into a game, and Travis Snider is being sent for an MRI to see what potential damage was done by the ball he took to the bill of his helmet last week, which seems a little weird.  Hopefully nothing is up with his neck.

Of course, the fact that help doesn’t seem to be on the way right now doesn’t mean that it isn’t.  Anthopoulos generally does his best work in a veil of total silence and moves are sprung on the unsuspecting masses seemingly out of nowhere, so it wouldn’t surprise me if something happened.

But a shake-up?  To get the team on a course to maybe win 83 games instead of maybe winning 76?  There’s no point in rushing players or cutting bait on guys to whom promises have been made or making yourself look bad to the baseball public at large by cutting guys at the end of June in order to do that.

Hopefully the Blue Jays’ bats show up in St. Louis.

There was no JaysTalk today, owing to the weekday afternoonness of the series finale in Atlanta (the Jays scored as many runs in the whole series as Tim Hudson drove in with one swing of the bat on Monday night, by the way).  Thursday is an off-day this team sorely needs, and they’re back at it on Friday night, kicking off a three-game set in St. Louis.  Brandon Morrow will face off with Jake Westbrook in the opener.

We’re on across the country at 7:30 PM Eastern for an 8:15 first pitch, but those listening right here on the website or on Sportsnet Radio The Fan590 get a special pre-pre-game show starting at 7:00.  I’m going to try to convene a baseball panel to discuss the state of the Blue Jays and see what we can come up with.

Please give me a follow on The Twitter – you can find me @wilnerness590.

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!

11:13 PM Eastern

Searching for positives in third straight wretched game for the Blue Jays’ offense, how about this one?  Marc Rzepczynski, Jason Frasor and Octavio Dotel worked in relief of starter Zach Stewart, and combined to allow just one baserunner over 4 1/3 innings of work – a single Dotel gave up to Alex Gonzalez with one out in the 8th.

That’s exceptional work from a relief staff that has been much-maligned lately.  One minor blemish away from retiring all 13 hitters they combined to face.

As for all the other stuff, I don’t really want to talk about it.  Zach Stewart did a 180-degree turn from his oh-so-impressive debut against the Orioles last week.  In his second big-league start, he had a rough time throwing strikes and when he did he was up in the zone.  He wound up allowing five runs on 10 hits over just 3 1/3 innings of work.

And don’t get me started on the offense.  The Jays have scored just one run in their last 22 innings, two in the last 31, nine over the last five games.  This time, the Jays went down almost as meekly as they did in the series opener – the last 16 Toronto hitters were retired in order by Mike Minor and relievers Eric O’Flaherty and Jonny (Vim) Venters.

But hey, the bullpen was sensational, Adam Lind had two hits and Jose Bautista squared up three balls on an 0-for-4 night.

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

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The series wraps with a Wednesday afternoon affair.  Jo-Jo Reyes, who has been the Jays’ de facto number two starter this season, returns to the scene of his baseball beginnings.  Reyes cut his teeth with the Braves, drafted by them in the second round back in 2003.  He pitched the first 7 1/2 seasons of his professional life in the Atlanta organization until being moved as part of the Yunel Escobar deal.  Reyes is a different pitcher with the Blue Jays than he had been in Atlanta – he’s now a guy who can command the strike zone and is beginning to establish himself as a legit big-league starter with a pretty decent ceiling.  The Braves will activate right Brandon Beachy off the disabled list to make the start; Beachy,  pulled out of an independent league three years ago, had a WHIP of 1.08 in eight starts when he went down with an oblique injury.

We’ll be on the air at 1:00 PM Eastern for a 1:10 first pitch – join us, won’t you?

Please follow me on The Twitter, you can find me @wilnerness590.  Give @jaysthisweek a follow too, while you’re at it!

Rational, reasonable comments are always welcome!