Speaking of the Rangers, Teixeira is getting a start in LF tonight. Why do the Rays insist on batting Crawford at the top of the order? While Baldelli may not walk, he has a better OBP. He may even benefit in the same way Soriano does, i.e.: seeing more pitches in the strike zone.

Cerutti called Cory "Liddle" -- again. By any name, he punched out Crawford, got a harmless bouncer from Anderson on 0-2, and retired Baldelli on another ground ball, mostly because he stumbled leaving the box. Good Sportsnet graphic comparing Rocco to other great rookies like Ichiro and Pujols; it puts his terrific start into perspective.

Myers hits fifth, which contradicts the manager's L-R alternating theory, but I see it as Tosca dropping Phelps down a notch; Josh has been putting pressure on himself to "protect" Delgado. Phelps was terrific in the 6-hole last night, so if it makes him comfortable...

Bottom 1: Wells ripped a 2-out single. It looked like Delgado didn't want to take the walk on 3-1 and deliberately fouled off a pitch he knew was outside. That's why Carlos was so upset when he got under the next pitch.

Top 2: Huff hit a line drive into the gap that "V-Dub" cut off nicely, holding him to a single. A perfect throw by Myers caught Huff trying to "steal" -- it was probably a missed hit-and-run sign. After Lidle walked Lee, Hudson started a nice 4-6-3 double play to end the inning.

Bottom 2: Myers walked on four low sliders. Phelps, seeing the ball well, worked a full count, then got hit by a pitch for the eighth time to lead the majors. Tough way to boost your OBP, Josh. Cerutti talked about Hinske still being bothered by his sore wrist, at least psychologically, then Eric popped to CF. O-Dog struck out on a foul tip, and Woody grounded to third, so Brazelton got out of the jam nicely.

Top 3: Wells called off Cat on a gapper; both covered a lot of ground. Lidle showed Sandberg a lot more respect than Sturtze did, and got a lazy fly ball. Easy 1-2-3 inning.

Bottom 3: Brazelton kept the top of the order off balance for two quick outs, but Wells ripped his ninth HR of the year; 1-0 Jays.

Bittersweet, eh Coach?

Top 4: ground out, popup, bounce out. 41 pitches so far, six in the inning.

Bottom 4: Myers pulls a HR to make it 2-0 Toronto.

Top 5: Huff, one of my fantasy cornerstones, drove the first pitch, a high fastball, off the top of the RF wall for a solo homer; 2-1. Martin hit a 1-out single, and Lou stayed out of the DP by starting him when Hall grounded to third. Sandberg tapped to the mound. Good ballgame. I hope the $2 seats are filled.

Bottom 5: Stewart just missed a home run with a one-out triple off the wall. Cat cashed him in with a single to left on the first pitch -- the Jays got the run back for Lidle. Delgado and Myers smacked two-out RBI doubles to make it 5-1 Jays.

Top 6: Escalona improved his .105 average with a double down the line, advanced to third on a ground out and scored on a bloop double by Anderson. Baldelli grounded to short, and Huff flied to center; it's 5-2, and Cory has thrown just 64 pitches through six. He should go eight, with Politte working the ninth.

does anyone know the attendance figure for tonight? I, like coach, really hope that those seats are filled.
Hinske just doubled to right field..........lets hope the bats have caught fire

does anyone know the attendance figure for tonight? I, like coach, really hope that those seats are filled.
Hinske just doubled to right field..........lets hope the bats have caught fire

sorry for the double post guys

Bottom 6: Brazelton's done for the night. Hinske greets the sidearm lefty reliever Venafro with a double -- the Jays have the most two-base hits in the majors, and Eric's tied for the individual lead. He scores on a Woodward sac fly to make it 6-2 Toronto.

Top 7: A single to Hall and three easy outs.

Bottom 7: The crowd, which hasn't been announced yet, booed John Rocker lustily before every pitch and cheered when he threw one in the dirt, then again when he walked Catalanotto. Next, the wild thing hit Vernon Wells. Delgado hustled down the line to avoid a double play. Myers, now .329-5-15, stayed in against the lefty and drove in another run with a well-placed single; 7-2 Jays. Phelps hit a ball all the way to the CF wall, but Delgado got confused on the bases, so nobody scored and it goes as a very long single. Hinske, with the bases loaded, worked the count full before grounding into a double play.

Schilling just completed a two-hit shutout aganst the Phils. He struck out fourteen.

Top 8: Lidle suddenly hit the wall, giving up a double to Crawford, walking Anderson, and hanging a curve that Baldelli ripped for a 2-run single. It's 7-4, with Trever Miller in to face Huff.

Miller came up and in, hitting Huff in the hand, so in a game that appeared to be on cruise control, the wheels came off. Instead of a four-out Politte save, Aquilino Lopez got the call. The rookie gave up a 2-run double to pinch-hitter Javier Valentin, then fanned Hall, and it's now a shaky 7-6 Jays lead.

Detroit and Oakland are tied at one in the top of the ninth. Oakland loaded the bases and with two out, so Trammell brings in... Steve Avery. He strikes out Hatteberg to end the Oakland threat. Now that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Pinch-running for Shannon Stewart?

What the heck? Tom Cheek made, to me, a valid point that putting Catalanotto out in LF with a one-run lead in the 9th inning is a little peculiar since he hasn't played there all year. Has Stewart become that bad defensively? He looked OK in Anaheim this weekend when I saw him.

Top 9: Stewart walked, and was replaced by pinch-runner Jayson Werth. Tosca wants the defensive replacement, as Werth stays in to play right and Cat shifts to left field.

Bottom 9: Politte gets Sandberg on a fly ball, but Tyner lines a single to left on a high fastball. Now they are saying something might be wrong with Stewart, but no specifics. Cliff falls behind Crawford 2-0 but battles back to whiff him on a nasty cutter/slider. He's throwing very hard, consistently 93-94 on the notoriously slow Sportsnet gun. It's over!

That's 4-for-4 in save conversions since Politte became the closer. Attendance was announced as 29,013, and the drop-ins got much more than their $2 worth in entertainment. Pending the outcome of the Baltimore-Chicago game, the Jays are back in third place in the East, and again within two games of .500, with a chance to win their fourth straight series tomorrow afternoon.

What's going on with Stewart this year? On the one hand, he seems healthy. He's started every game so far (I believe) and appears to be running well, except on defense where it appears that he's tentative, rather than just slower. On the other hand, he's attempted just two steals in a quarter of a season and now he's pinch-run for.

Is he healthy or are there hamstring issues, or something of the like? Did he pull something legging out the triple tonight?

And what's with Cerutti? What was he on tonight?

Exhibit A: He suggests that Baldelli is difficult to strike out due to his eye-hand coordination. Baldelli is on pace for 162 K this year.

Exhibit B: A graphic shows Lopez's K/9 rate leading AL relievers. Others on the list are Tom Gordon (ERA 4.50), Kelvim Escobar (8.80) and BJ Ryan (4.15). Cerutti mentions what fine company Lopez is keeping.

Exhibit A: He suggests that Baldelli is difficult to strike out due to his eye-hand coordination. Baldelli is on pace for 162 K this year.

Well, in Cerutti's defense, he was right. He drove in two runs (and didn't K). He doesn't walk much but his OBP is a respectable .367 (.350/.367/.503).

Exhibit B: A graphic shows Lopez's K/9 rate leading AL relievers. Others on the list are Tom Gordon (ERA 4.50), Kelvim Escobar (8.80) and BJ Ryan (4.15). Cerutti mentions what fine company Lopez is keeping.

As you know, leading the league in K/9 is a good thing.

Gordon's line (not counting runs/era) thus far is:
IP H HR BB SO OBA WHIP
19.2 14 1 12 26 .203 1.32

BJ Ryan's line is:
IP H HR BB SO OBA WHIP
13.0 12 0 4 16 .255 1.23

Sure Escobar has been bad, the others do qualify as 'fine company'

Cerutti isn't that bad of a 'colour guy'
I think he's much better than the past (with B. Williams) years.
I think you're picking nits here...

I think you're picking nits here...

I respectfully disagree.

With men on 2nd and 3rd, Lidle was looking for a strikeout. Cerutti said that Baldelli doesn't strike out much but he was plain wrong, regardless of the result. Baldelli does strike out a lot. I made no judgement of Baldelli's walk rate, OBP or SLG, simply Cerutti's erroneous observation.

With respect to Lopez, I am certainly aware the K/9 is a great leading indicator of performance. That said, Lopez's peers on the K/9 leader list are not exactly world beaters. We didn't see the sames Rivera, Foulke and Percival, etc. We saw the names of some also rans, hardly an elite group. That Gordon and Ryan haven't been terrible, thus far, hardly changes that.

Cerutti is certainly easier to listen to than Brian Williams, but you're comparing a mediocre colour man to a terrible play-by-play man.

Comparing Williams to Faulds is more a propos.

With men on 2nd and 3rd, Lidle was looking for a strikeout. Cerutti said that Baldelli doesn't strike out much but he was plain wrong, regardless of the result. Baldelli does strike out a lot. I made no judgement of Baldelli's walk rate, OBP or SLG, simply Cerutti's erroneous observation.
I see your point, I just don't think it was a huge mistatement on the part of Cerutti. While sample size is too small to be meaningful, for fun:
Rocco Baldelli
Runners in Scoring Position (44 AB):
.409/.396/.545
Runners on 2nd and 3rd (2 AB):
1.000/1.000/1.000
In Skydome (8 AB):
.375/.333/.750
V.S. Toronto (20 AB):
.350/.364/.500
Night Games (110 AB):
.400/.410/.564

Cerutti is certainly easier to listen to than Brian Williams, but you're comparing a mediocre colour man to a terrible play-by-play man.

Comparing Williams to Faulds is more a propos.

I didn't mean Cerutti in comparison to Williams. I think Cerutti is better now that he is away from Williams. Williams was so bad that he dragged any colour man down a few notches. Even though Faulds is bad (100 "excuse me swings" per game), he's better than Williams and Cerutti himself has improved. I think he's getting better with experience as well as rising to the level (such that it is) of his pbp man. I think if Cerutti was with someone like Dan Schulman, he'd be pretty decent.

I find that I've always actually held John Cerutti in far less contempt than most who have commented on his work, both here and on Usenet. I believe he is a bright guy who is more articulate than most ex-jocks. This is why he continually frustrates me by saying really dumb things.

When a stat sheet is almost certainly sitting on the table in front of him, and that sheet says Baldelli has struck out 37 times in 37 games, it's a ridiculous thing to say that Baldelli is hard to strike out. No one is disputing that Baldelli has hit very well this year. It just so happens that a ton of Baldelli's outs are strikeouts and that Lidle had every real possibility of getting Baldelli to chase a pitch out of the zone to prevent any runners from advancing.

I don't know if Cerutti just tries too hard to not say anything negative -- he opened Tuesday's broadcast suggesting that Sturtze had been pitching well this year, last night he praised Crawford for making a productive out that advanced a baserunner despite TB being down 5-1 -- or if he's really as stunned as he sounds. I'm guessing that much of the time he's just trying to be nice, but that certainly strains the credibility of anything he says.

I think if Cerutti was with someone like Dan Schulman, he'd be pretty decent.

Cerutti's bad. There's no point in trying to redeem him. And what's more, I can't believe you hate Dan Schulman so much that you'd want to inflict Cerutti on him.

Cerutti's Baldelli quip proves he's paying less attention to the game than the average BB reader (a lofty standard, but still...), and he's got all the personality of a pile of laundry. I guess he's blandly handsome in that Dan Quayle kinda way that men seem to think women find attractive (probably because they aren't threatened by it), but he's got no real redeeming qualities as a baseball analyst or TV personality.

Surely there's someone in the club's illustrious past who should be doing his job. Well, OK, his name is Buck Martinez. But surely there's somebody else.

Is itfixed now?