On the pregame radio show, Tosca said that Cory Lidle threw a side today, and will start (on a pitch count of about 75) for Syracuse against Pawtucket this week. If he's OK after that, he'll rejoin the Jays for his next start. Pete Walker goes today for the SkyChiefs (about an 80-pitch limit) and is the probable starter in Toronto on Saturday.

As far as my nerves are concerend, Lidle has become the new Joey Hamilton. No one since Joey has made me angry in quite this way.

First inning: Bordick doubles, Delgado drives him in with a two-out bloop into left field. How many runs will Doc need against the lousy A's offense? I'll say three.

Excellent play by Hudson to back up what looked like an easy comebacker. When it hopped over Doc's glove, O-Dawg charged, barehanded a tough hop and fired in one motion for the second out.

Interesting approach vs. Tejada. After he fouled off two curves, I was expecting the high heat, but instead, Doc threw an even sharper curve for the K.

Man, that Phelps error was brutal. That's a big K by Halladay to end the inning.

It's doesn't fill me with hope to see that two of your most promising young hitters, Phelps and Hinske, are born to DH.

A terrible throw by Josh Phelps on the easiest possible double play extended the second inning, then after an infield single, a fluky non-bounce of a high chopper under Hudson's glove was scored an infield double, and it's 2-1 A's. Thanks to Phelps' inability to make a simple 60-foot toss, Doc had to face four extra batters, but he responded with a critical strikeout of Guillen to keep the score close.

The disappointment of the second inning turned into a nightmare in the third. 7-1, and the earliest exit for Halladay in a very long time. I'd be watching golf now, but Mike Weir's day hasn't been much better than Doc's.

Phelps' horrible throw wasn't the only defensive miscue for the Jays. They botched two outfield cutoffs, allowing runners to move into scoring position on singles. One was a lazy backhanded reach by Hinske instead of moving his feet, at first the other looked like a Kielty overthrow, but the replay indicated that Phelps was out of position. We may never know if Josh can be a big-league first baseman, because it will be a long time before he gets another chance.

What a debacle. Looking forward to this matchup all weekend and what a letdown. Poor Halladay. He deserved better. Anyways we cant give up that easy on Phelps. Thats why he lost his spot in the order. He will make errors and granted that he is a pro and those kind of errors should never happen but I have seen worse. Keep running him out there until he gets his own confidence. Remember what happened to Knoblauch. With this outing Halladay's ERA jumped 20 points. Well Friday is the rematch and if I know Halladay I doubt we will see something like this again.

Does anybody know if they will be keeping the SkyDome roof closed due to power concerns for this weeks games?

Would it make more sense, if rain isnt forecast, to keep it open and leave it open?

SkyDome shoudl make an effort to remain open a bit more often. I have never been to the game, and I live a half a country away from the Dome, but even on TV the game is just that much better when there's sunlight and shadows. I'd love to make it to a game in Toronto, and would be more than a little dissapointed if the roof was closed.

The people in charge of the roof have been much better this year about opening the roof on iffy days. They got burned with the rain-delay game, but they've been good on the whole, especially compared to last year, which saw many an indoors game on days where it was quite unecessary.

I too hope the roof is open this week, despite the power trouble . . . but power has been on reliably since Friday evening. I think we're out of the woods in the downtown core, anyway.

Coach - I went to that Skychiefs game (against the Lynx, in Ottawa), and Walker was absolutely terrible. The Lynx scored 8 runs in the 3rd inning and went on to win the game 8-3. Of note, Tim Raines Jr. for Ottawa hit a homerun and a triple off Walker, and a few more hit some pretty deep flyballs off of him. Granted, the Skychiefs had an error in the 3rd inning, but 8 runs is more than a one-error mistake. Walker looked brutal.

Huckaby was catching to start the game for the Skychiefs, but after the 8-run 3rd inning for Ottawa, Huckaby was moved to 3rd base, and Howie Clark was bumped to 2nd base. Anyway, the Skychiefs in general looked really bad, except for Linton who came on and pitched 4.2 scoreless innings after the Walker debauchle.

Of course, the Jays looked a little bushleagueish themselves last night....

Hijack 2:

I caught the Ravens/Gators double header yesterday. Dom Rich was the best player on the field yesterday. He got all kinds of hits including a HR (which has to clear a 3 tiered billboard).

McGowan pitched the first game. He had one inning early where he struggled a bit, but after that he was cruising. His control is spotty and he seems to get in a lot of deep counts. I was surprised this morning when I saw he didn’t walk a batter, although he did drill one batter in the elbow. The scoreboard showed McGowan hitting 92 on the gun, but I found that to be 2 mph slower than the guns in the stands during the second game, so he was still in the 94 range like he was last Monday.

Bush pitched the second game. All the runs he gave up (3) were in the first when he struggled. There was a 2-run single that was a weak groundball that went between 1B and 2B but everything else was ‘earned’. After the 2nd inning he was cruising through the final 4 innings.

Adams had a really nice backhanded grab in game 1 throwing the runner out at first, but then later in the 2nd game he had a relatively normal groundball that the batter beat out for a hit. His arm doesn’t seem weak (it doesn’t seem strong either) but that shouldn’t happen.

The best part of the game for me was watching Bush warm up. At first he did a bunch of stretching. Then he started warming up playing catch with the catcher, starting at about 10 feet away and then progressively getting farther away. The catcher was on the foul line and it looked like Bush ended up all the way in straightaway CF before coming back towards the catcher.

Then Bush warmed up in the pen. I was seated about 10 feet behind the catcher where a LF batter would stand. It makes you appreciate how hard it is to hit a baseball, those pitches really come quick. I believe he started with the fastball which tails back towards a RH batter. After 5 of those he went to a change up for 5, and then a curve for 5 (it may have been 4 or 6 or each, I was really counting, just noticing the repetition). I could only laugh the first time I saw the curve. I don’t know how it compares with the average curve ball but it looks good up close. After that he had a hard pitch that went down and away from a RH batter (slider?) that he threw a few times. He went through that cycle again (and maybe twice more) and then headed to the dugout.

My Willie Upshaw suspicion was confirmed. He is the 1B coach of Norwich (and I assume the hitting coach).

Thank you, Pistol, for the fine report on David Bush. You may know that he hits a lot of batters. Undoubtedly, it's the fast ball that tails in on right-handed hitters that does the trick.

I don't know if Bush can play guitar, but I have visions of Jack McDowell.

I don't know if Bush can play guitar

If Brian Bowles sticks around, and/or when Aaron Hill arrives, Keith Law will have someone to jam with. Maybe they can pick up keyboards via Rule 5, draft a bass player and trade for a drummer; call the band Chin Music.

Thanks very much to Pistol and Tim for the reports. I don't think the results were that important for Walker, who was just getting some work in against live hitters. As long as he wasn't pitching in pain, he'll probably be activated for Saturday's start.

Josh Banks pitched four scoreless innings of one-hit, one-walk ball yesterday, striking out nine. Auburn lost 1-0, but they are 45-14 and clinched their second straight division title Friday night.

Syracuse is on TV right now, on the ROGERS channel. Arnold is starting and they'll also have the game tommorow at 12, with Mike Smith starting.

Yeah was watching the game and Arnold looked really strong the first 4 innings except for that blip in the second inning. However the fifth he unravelled. I did not get to see the entire inning so I dont know how he gave up all those runs. Overall considering that he gave up 7 runs, he did look good in the innings that he did not give up runs. His pitches look like they have a lot of movement and by wat i could tell he throws hard enuff to blow fastballs by hitters. However in my opinion there is a lot more hype than substance but of course that is my opinion.