Roy Halladay, leading the league in homers allowed, faces the Texas Rangers, leading the majors in round-trippers belted, in batter-friendly Arlington. All this and oft-launched rookie Colby Lewis, too. Best wear your batting helmet in the stands tonight.

That didn't take long. Blalock crushes a solo HR.

A-Rod did a nice piece of 2-strike hitting. Doc came way inside on Palmeiro, then got good downward movement on the curve and jammed him with a fastball. They wasted one away, then Raffy fouled off a 2-2 backdoor curve. Roy brushed him back again. After a series of great 3-2 pitches, Doc finally won a great at-bat with a nasty curve.

Major E-10 as the ever-infuriating Hudson called Delgado off then failed to catch a popup. A second life to a dangerous hitter, but Halladay picks O-Dog up and fans Gonzalez.

As a hitter, there's really nothing like a 3-1 pitch. The homer war has been declared!

I dropped Colby Lewis from my BB roto team a day before this game. I'm awfully glad I did.

And I'm pretty happy I dealt for Orlando Hudson, too. Double, RBI, 2-1 Toronto.

Homer war is right. 3 in just over an inning.

The ever-exciting Hudson redeemed himself on the first pitch. Jayson Werth turned Cat into Wally Pipp with an opposite-field three-run shot, and it's deja vu for Colby. 5-1 Jays.

There's Jayson Werth. 3-run homer to make it 5-1.

Hinske has struck out for the second time. He appears very susceptable to offspeed stuff inside. He's consistently fooled with those pitches.

Jeez Louise. Not only is Colby Lewis proving me right (last paragraph on page), he's almost making me look foolish for not threatening to kill any fantasy owner who acquired him.

If he'd kept on squeaking out of innings by the skin of his teeth, that'd be fine with me.

"During the break, we had a mariachi band down to our left.... as part of the ... big Hispanic celebration they're having here..."

Ever get the impression that sometimes, Tom is just making stuff up ?

Was the Diaz hit, payback for Phelps for for the stepping out before Roy's first pitch that the Rangers have been doing?

"During the break, we had a mariachi band down to our left.... as part of the ... big Hispanic celebration they're having here..."

Perhaps a belated Cinco de Mayo event.

Or a pre-emptive celebration of Everett's homer.

How about that last call by Rob "No Doubt" Faulds?

I agree with Candiotti. Doc shouldn't have hit Diaz, an easy out; he could have waited and plunked Everett for a whole different kind of fireworks.

Delgado again. Lewis sure is kind to homerun totals. But then so has Doc been. 6-4 Jays and Yan is coming in.

Jays are winning 3-2...well, they would be if this were a HR hitting competition.

6-4 Jays on Delgado's 2nd homer. The man loves Texas.

I say again ... Orlando is my friend ... 3-run dinger.

Make it 4-2 in the homerun derby as Hudson gets into the act. A 3-run shot to make it 9-4 Jays.

Hudson has some surprising power. I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit 20 homeruns one day.

And now Werth touches off a little controversy by showing up the umpire on a bad strike call.

And now Werth touches off a little controversy by showing up the umpire on a bad strike call.

I, for one, enjoyed the show of emotion. With Fullmer and Mondesi long gone, do the Jays have any intense players, aside from maybe Hinske? It's not reflected in any statistical analysis but I've always believed that passion and intensity go a long way toward success. Not just in baseball...in everything.

5-2 Jays in the homerun derby. Wells leads off the 4th with a solo shot to make it 10-4.

If Delgado gets anything else to hit tonight, he could go deep four times.

5 HR for the Jays in 3+ innings?!? My gosh.

Fun comparison: At this point in the Sept 14/87, 10 HR game, the Jays had hit 4 home runs.

Apparently Gonzalez has given up on the game as his cruddy throw allows Delgado to jog in after he stopped at third base. 10 men to the plate, 5 runs, and the Jays lead 15-4.

Is Halladay just not hitting his spots? This home run trend is starting to alarm me.

It's location problems. He's hanging the curveball and in particular the cut fastball is giving him a lot of problems. When he leaves it up it seems to be very hittable, for lefties in particular. Ironically, I think he's trying to throw it more to handle lefties on the inside of the plate...but I'd rather he just stick with his bread and butter sinker/curve mix with an occasional splitter.

Hudson has some surprising power. I wouldn't be surprised to see him hit 20 homeruns one day.

Surprise Surprise... If he hits 20 homers, I will be surprised, because his power is surprising.

After the game, Carlos Tosca announced that all calendars in the Blue Jays clubhouse will now read "May" every month for the rest of the year.

I've always believed that passion and intensity go a long way toward success. Not just in baseball...in everything.

Heh. I've always believed "intensity" was a nice word to use to describe people who throw a lot of tantrums. Different strokes, I guess. :)

It was fun tonight, that's for sure.

I've always believed "intensity" was a nice word to use to describe people who throw a lot of tantrums.

Intensity comes in varying doses. Certainly, a player can be too intense, just as a player can be too laid back.

Werth's show tonight had less to do with intensity and a bit more to do with swagger. It's nice to have confidence but there was no reason for him to fling the bat away before the umpire made his call. It wouldn't kill him to wait for the call and take his walk...being talented and into the moment does not excuse him from common baseball etiquette.

It ended up costing him the call on a close 3-2 pitch and Woodward got a low pitch called a strike the next at bat too. Fortunately, Barnett yelled at the ump from the bench and set him straight and the nonsense stopped right there.

Roy's strange location problems seemed to start in the spring game where he hit a Phillie. To that point he was virtually unhittable in the spring. There are flashes of the old Doc from time to time but he still leaves too many pitches belt high. His ill-advised hitting of Diaz was just asking for trouble and perhaps he learned a good lesson in giving up what could have been an important 3-run homer that inning.

Nice blowout. An eight run win tomorrow and we are on Pythagoras' good side.

Halladay, his lack of success notwithstanding, just looks different to me this year than last year (and I don't mean the let's-go-raise-a-barn Amish thing he's got going).

Is it my imagination, or is he throwing a lot more loopy, frisbee curves and a lot more 12-to-6 curves? Wasn't his breaking stuff last year much tighter with less dramatic movement? I seem to have this image of him throwing hard sliders, with a tight spin, that would bore in on the hands of lefties. This year's strategy seems more focused on deception rather than a power-based aggressive style.

Maybe the wires in my head are crossed and I'm thinking of Dave Stieb. Or maybe senility has started creeping in.

I don't think you're wrong. I've often accused Roy of being too cute. Not throwing enough sinkers and trying too many curves or cutters. He seems to throw first pitch curves for strikes very often now whereas he used to snap off curves low out of the zone mainly for his out pitch (like the awesome one he finally struck out Palmeiro with in the first).

Chuck, it's not your imagination, or else we're sharing the hallucination. Doc used to throw a few sliders that swept sideways; that seems to have been replaced this year by the cutter. The focus on deception instead of power is an adjustment to whatever was causing the "dead arm" problem, but he was more aggressive in his last couple of starts. The pitch Blalock hit out was absolutely perfect, but the kid crushed it; Candiotti and I were both blown away by Hank's ability to destroy a nasty breaking ball down and in. The big hook had a lot sharper downward break last night, and Halladay is starting to trust Myers back there -- very few shake-offs. I expect Doc to be even better against the Angels on Sunday, although he'll have to work with Wilson, as it's Washburn's turn. Shades of that 1-0 beauty last August, but something (OK, their MLB-leading .291 team average) tells me the 2003 Jays will rarely be blanked.

Werth threw the bat away long before Doug Eddings called it a strike; Jay flipped the lumber only in delight at drawing the obvious walk, which umpy proceeded to get wrong by quite a lot, compounding his own mistake by overreacting to an innocent gesture. He also missed one a foot outside that Hinske rightly took exception to, and donated a run to Toronto when he had the wrong angle to see Diaz tag Woodward's right arm at the plate. Expansion beyond 24 teams diluted the quality of MLB, not only the pitching and catching, but the already inconsistent and mediocre umpiring. I know, my utopian vision is a pipe dream -- they can't (or more precisely, won't) close the Pandora's Box of greed.

Doc has only displayed the intensity of 2002, in the 3rd game of the opening series against the Red Sox at the Sky Dome. After Jhonny Damon hit a HR of Doc in the 3 inning of that game, Doc 's intesity level rose dramatically and during his remaining time on the mound in that game he proceeded to strike out 10 of the Sox,since that time he seems to be trying to emulate Greg Maddux (without much success)and consequently those hanging curve balls are killing him

After the first two innings, Doc was awesome. He was using the lollypop curve a lot and the Rangers were taking it for strikes. I'm still not worried about him - he's faced some of the best offensive teams in the AL this year (the big disappointment was that the Royals hit 3 homeruns off him). His strikeout to walk ratio is excellent.