As Aaron Gleeman recounts over on his blog, Phil Cuzzi, by now so familiar to Blue Jays fans, was at it again last night in Montreal. In the top of the ninth inning, home plate Cuzzi stopped calling strikes for Montreal's rookie closer Chad Cordero, and eventually cost them the game when his crew inexplicably turned an extra-inning foul ball by Luis Rivas into a home run, as the Expos surrendered a 4-2 lead to lose 5-4 in 11 innings.

For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins.

It's an early one today, and no Barry Bonds. Game on!

Better late than never. Two wins, two losses, and a whole lot of runs scored for Toronto's farm teams last night.

I’ll start with the bad news. Russ Adams tweaked his left quad muscle in the 7th and is out for a week or so. Marvin Benard also went down with a groin pull and will likely be out much longer. On the brighter side, so called “Rios-lite”, Miguel Negron is having a breakout year of his own in the pitcher friendly Florida State League.

On my horse.
He's called....T-t-t-t-t-trigger
Of course.

The Blue Jays' best everyday player - Vernon Wells - has been placed on the disabled list. Mike Wilner stated that he's never seen anything the like of this injury plague (for me, it's similar in nature to what the Raptors suffered through during most of 2002-2003).

Still, it'll be great to see the O-Dog back on the field and I also look forward to seeing more of Alex Rios. The young man has played better of late, and playing at his natural position (centrefield) might relax him a little bit more.

For the Jays to win tonight, Pat Hentgen will have to have excellent command and the Jays batters will have to be super patient with soft tosser Kirk Rueter.

All kinds of Blue Jays news has come down the pipe this afternoon, none of which appears to be 100% official at this time.

UPDATE: J.P. Ricciardi will be on The FAN 590 with Mike Wilner for an hour starting at 8:30PM EST and I'm sure they'll be covering some of these issues. They'll be taking your calls at 416-870-0590 or 1-888-666-0590. Thanks to Mr. Wilner for the info.

Batter's Box recently received this press release. Sorry about the formatting; I wanted to get this up as soon as possible.

The Blue Jays have played in Oakland many times, but this will be their first ever visit to San Francisco proper for a baseball game.

With both Miguel Batista and Jason Schmidt pitching well, this figures to be a fairly low-scoring affair. As with any visiting manager, it will be interesting to see what approach Carlos Tosca takes with Barry Bonds.

Don't be fooled by her kind
There's a wind in my sails
Will protect and prevail

Ironically enough, it’s New Hampshire that officially had an Off Day yesterday. Syracuse, Dunedin, and Charleston all played some ball, and combined for 2 runs while giving up 28.

The Jays pay their first visit ever to McCovey Cove and SBC Park, where I had the pleasure of attending a game back in 2002. It's a beautiful place to catch a game and the second-nicest park in the majors. (If you haven't made it to Pittsburgh, you really ought to go.)

Barry Bonds, still ludicrously dangerous at the plate at age 39, leads the Giants into this three-gamer with his club very much alive in the wide-open NL West at one game over .500. Coming off a long road trip, one might think the Giants could be prone to a first-game-back letdown, but the nasty Jason Schmidt gets the ball tonight. Although Miguel Batista will almost certainly have to continue his heroic recent efforts tonight, the Jays have more favourable mound matchups tomorrow and Thursday.

On a more sombre note, Jerry Howarth mentioned in his Batter's Box interview that he was really looking forward to seeing SBC Park in his native Bay Area. I'm sure that he won't enjoy the series quite as much without our friend Tom Cheek able to join him. If you haven't already done so, please add your best wishes to Tom in our dedicated thread.

On to the Advance Scout!

Good morning, this is the Batter's Box Minor-League Update for Monday, June 14. Gerry McDonald is on assignment today and is not available to post his report. This is Kenny Brocklestein delivering Gerry's report for him.

The three Jays farm teams that played yesterday combined for exactly four runs. New Hampshire eked out a win thanks to a strong start from Cam Reimers and some excellent relief pitching.

Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You're lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream