Seven out of ten.

That's what the Jays have to achieve, at minimum, over their long-anticipated ten-game stretch against the bottom-feeders of the American League, starting with Tampa Bay coming to town. Yes, the Jays are battling significant injuries. But so are the D-Rays, who have been so woeful on the road that Lou Piniella ordered his charges to show up one hour early tonight for a "fundamentals review session." The D-Rays can hit, but they can't pitch or field, and Toronto must take full advantage if they want to remain relevant in the AL East. It can be done, even sans Doc.

This week's Scout features a brash young power hitter, an old friend with his job on the line and some pretty good ideas from a long-suffering fan base.

On to the Advance Scout!

Gonna need some help on this one ... so let's throw it open to everyone.

On a team where Toby Harrah is almost certainly the shortstop, Dick Nen is the first baseman, his son Rob (oh, if he only went by Bob to be a double palindrome!) is the closer, 1980s lefty Dave Otto is quite likely to be a regular part of the rotation. You can see we need some help.

But wait, you ask, what IS a palindrome?

Today features the mighty Vernon Wells:

You can't sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You've got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That's why baseball is the greatest game of them all.
------ Earl Weaver

Talk. My comments are below...

The All-Star Games in AAA and AA took place last night, with JFG starting for the IL. Another Jays farmhand took the mound in the AA game and his performance was indicative of his fall from grace so far. Oh, and nobody else won a game, and that includes some awful 9th-inning D from the PBJ's.

The trading deadline looms.

Shortly before the All-Star Break, numerous Rosterites assembled electronically for a week-long online Roundtable on the state of the Blue Jays franchise, short-term and long-term. The mood was upbeat and positive, right up until Kevin Mench's line drive fractured Roy Halladay's tibia. Things got a little more sombre after that.

Accordingly, we've broken down this extensive Roundtable into two sections -- pre-HLH-injury and post-HLH-injury. Read what the Roster had to say about the Jays, and add your own two cents' worth at the end.

4 teams had the night off. Dunedin got the win while Pulaski lost. Most importantly though, Guillermo Quiroz made his return as the D'Jays DH and was hit by two pitches. Did you wince when you read that? I sure did.

Hey Look! An Actual Book Review!

We've had quite a lovefest for author/historian and baseball journalist Alan Schwarz here on Batter's Box Interactive Magazine recently, publishing no less than six distinct threads related to his recent appearance at Toronto's Learning Annex.

These included, among others, three different iterations of the initial announcement, one collecting questions for what would become the first Batter's Box "group interview" chat (read the transcript) and a review of the actual Annex presentation, covered by our own Thomas and NFH, pen and camera in hand, respectively.

That seems like quite enough, wouldn't you think? Oh no, certainly not. In fact, quite recently another member of the Roster, who shall go nameless here, dropped me an e-mail, the essence of which read "Yo, nimrod." (I am paraphrasing here.) "All this, and don't you think it'd be smooth if we included an actual review of Schwarz's book?"

Oh yeah! So here we go ...

Aaron is doubtless teaching young Theo the fine art of recognizing a slider ("you look for that red dot the seams make while it's spinning"), so today's Picture comes from Liam McIlroy, who wishes to express his apprehension regarding the next few weeks.

This is no ordinary Instant Replay. This is also a look back at what every Toronto Blue Jay All-Star ever did in the Big Game.

The D-Jays finished the first half in second place behind the Lakeland Tigers, and started the second half well.

Always look on the bright side, right? Well, the title is the bright side. The whole bright side. Otherwise, it was an altogether rotten night for the Blue Jay farm as they dropped 4 of 5 matches.

Why does the baseball have the best all-star game?