Cribbage, anyone?
Adams punches two singles into LF, only 4 RBIs tonight.
Johnson must have taken that porn star comment to heart.
Hinske thrives in those late inning high leverage situations.
He broke Clement's heart with that 10 pitch walk.
It is their finest hour.

And the Yankees and Baltimore also lost. Happy Canada Day, everybody!

I'm glad I was wrong about Lilly and didn't have to watch the Gilmour Girls. Maybe he is finally starting to turn it around. He did a pretty good job containing the Jay killer Ramirez tonight. Hopefully Ted can keep it going.

So here's how crappy my day was.

My wife took our daughter swimming, so I figured I'd have at least three hours alone, so I started playing an online poker tournament. An hour later, she comes home and asks what I'm doing. Uh, playing poker, I say, and I'm winning. She gets a worried look on her face. "For money?" Yes, but don't worry, I say. It's a tournament, it's not a lot of money. An hour later, from 241 players, i'm in the final 19, and she tells me it's a beautiful day, come outside and join us. If you don't come out and join us, she says, you have a gambling problem. I get so distracted, I make a lousy call, and I'm out of the tournament.

Then she says lets watch a movie. I go and get The Holy Grail. She says "I hate Monty Python." But I convince her. I figure it'll be a bonding experience, and I'm sure our daughter will love it. At the end my wife says, sarcastically, "Hilarious." My daughter shrugs and says, "It was okay." And I come here to find out what happened in the Jays game, and I find out they blasted the Red Sox in the greatest display of offensive power this year, and I missed it.

Go Ted...

Sorry, Flex. You wanna hear about MY day? Woke up at 9 to the girlfriend's sharp little elbow in my side. My turn to hop out of a warm bed and plug in the kettle. Made her tea, got hauled back to bed for another hour of, um, making her happy. As usual, she requires a minimum of two, um, smiles on her face before I can go. This being the country's national holiday, it took three. She bought me breakfast (strawberry French toast)and newspapers, let me help walk her dog and bought me coffee, let me drive her to work. I was appropriately supportive when she moaned about having to work for three whole hours, even though she's being paid for two days' work (and using the proceeds to take me on vacation to Long Beach, on Vancouver Island, to an exclusive little wood cabin where I will doubtless be allowed to put more smiles on her face. To make up for it no longer being the country's national holiday.) Wandered out for some beers and cigars and managed to choke back one of each while she made me dinner (oysters) and then decided I needed a back rub, which she insisted would not distract from the Mariners-Rangers fiasco still under way. And now Flex, we're closing in on bedtime. And I'm sensing that it's time to put the beer and the stogies away and make her smile again, it being the country's national holiday. Happy Canada Day, brother. I feel your pain.

Wow Flex, does your wife not have a sense of humor?

That movie was comedy gold, and I'm not an easy guy to amuse.

The Jays' run differential is now +43. I'm far too lazy to attempt to figure out their Pythagorean record, but I suspect that they could have about 4 or 5 more wins. A little luck and a little Koskie and the stretch run could be delightful.

Lefty is my new hero.

From the people who brought you Penthouse Letters, "Lefty on Baseball".

Speaking of hyperbole and bravado, does Griffin have it on any authority that JP is shopping Orlando Hudson? I guess it makes sense, but Griffin doesn't seem to be inner circle. I remember last season soon after he and JP had their fued he announced to the world that the Blue Jays offence would continue to suffer with Vernon being out for at least another month. Wells returned to the lineup three days later. Loved that!

Anyhow, must get out of this bathrobe and run to the Body Shop to get some more of that massage oil for my chamber of ladies. Ciao!

I don't know what to think of the run differential. The Jays have won some blowouts and have lost a lot of close games. Is that bad luck or the team just not getting it done often enough? It's hard to say.

Is there such a thing as 'junk' runs? Runs scored when the game is already out of reach? In the Jays' second big inning tonight the opposing pitcher came out in a low leverage non-pressure situation and loaded the bases and then gave up two runs without getting anyone out and left two runners on to set up the Jays third big inning of the game.

Is there any value to these extra 6 runs when evaluating a team's "actual" talent level? That's what Pythagorean wins is said to do and on some levels I agree with it but I don't think you can take it as gospel that the +43 means much.

For instance if you're a reliever with a 5.00 era but the majority of your outings were solid with only a few bad ones you still have value. But if you're a reliever who has a 5.00 era but consitently gets himself into trouble then you're probably not trustworthy in high leverage situations.

Similarly, the Jays performed poorly on offence on a very consistent basis throughout June. Was it all bad luck? Some of it must have been but you also have to conclude that this isn't a great offensive team outside of the odd blowout if they aren't able to get consistent results.

Now this is two big run scoring games in a row for the Jays so we'll see if this is a correction of an abberation in the past month. But I don't think it's as simple as saying the Jays should be 4 games better but for bad luck.

By the way, what Russ Adams did tonight...exactly what I said he needs to be doing either yesterday or the day before. I think that's the first time I've seen him hit the ball hard down the left field line this season.

R Billie, that was a great little clinic you instigated.
It's a measure of Adams' ability that he responded like he did.

Well I'm somewhat in Russ' corner since people always seem concerned about his offence. I think he'll be fine if he gets himself to the point where he's hitting the ball where it's pitched. I'm still concerned defensively, moreso last night because his problems where actually fielding as opposed to throwing. Granted the Renteria ball was a tough play.

<i>is there such a thing as 'junk' runs? Runs scored when the game is already out of reach?</i>

yes.

and other teams, like the Sox, get them all the time.

<i>Similarly, the Jays performed poorly on offence on a very consistent basis throughout June</i>

not really true, actually.

The Jays started the month scoring only 30 runs in the 11 june games of that long road trip. During that time, they posted somewhere around a .590ops as a team.

The offensive doldrums pretty much ended there, and they scored 76 runs in the last 16 games of June, posting a team OPS right back around the mid-to-high .700s that they had posted in the first two months.

Aside from that road trip, we had a 9-7 record in June.

All in all, we just had one really bad, long road trip.

It definitely wasn't poor offense on a "consistent basis" in June.

by my quick and dirty bosxcore check, using only hits, walks, and extra base hits.....this is how the month broke down approximately between that awful road trip and the rest of the month.

First 11: .197avg, .265obp, .287slg, .552ops

Last 16: .277avg, .345obp, .429slg, .774ops

And the change was pretty consistent....7 times in the last 16 games they had more than 10 hits compared to only once in the first 11.