Apologies for the belated Advance Scout entry. As Coach so ably predicted, the Jays' bats returned with a vengeance in Friday night's opener at Great American Ball Park. Toronto's hitting can only be contained by an excellent starter, and at least in the rotation, Cincinnati has nothing resembling an excellent starter.

The Reds can mash, especially at home, and can catch the ball. But a weak-hitting bottom of the order and dreadful pitching except for the three relievers at the back end of the bullpen make for a sub-.500 club. Much has been written of how lucky they've seemed to be, given the respectability of their record relative to their awful run differential; the Jays would do well to jump on Dempster and Haynes early to avoid the late-inning magic that Cincinnati's been able to conjure up this season with surprising regularity.

On to the Advance Scout!

Your humble correspondent, fresh off a scintillating e-mail interview with Keith Law and Coach (look for the full text here at Da Box on Tuesday), had the good fortune to attend an Ottawa Lynx game Frday night in the company of both the Syracuse Skychiefs and, far better, his wife (or "Mrs. Beeah Guy," as she's sometimes known). Here's my report on the evening's festivities.

Don't expect the Jays to go hitless for seven innings tonight. Cincinnati righty John Riedling, in three previous starts (and seven relief appearances) in the Great American Bandbox, has held opponents to a .325 AVG, walking 11 and striking out 8 en route to a 6.75 ERA. A fired-up group of Blue Jays, still annoyed at being victimized by an inept umpiring crew last night, will be ready to take advantage of his generosity. It's the regular cast for Toronto, except for very capable subs Reed Johnson and Dave Berg.

Roy Halladay gets to play stopper, and with a W beside his name in his last seven starts, I like his chances. Ken Griffey Jr. and F-Lop are not in the Reds lineup, and Adam "All or Nothing" Dunn is the unconventional leadoff man, with a .205 AVG, .318 OBP and more homers than singles -- a #6 profile if you ask me, which Bob Boone rarely does.

Our Advance Scout ran into some technical difficulties today, but Mike D. will fill you in on the Ohio perspective tomorrow. Spot starter Davis faces Dempster Saturday night, and Escobar takes on Haynes in the Sunday matinee. I correctly predicted 50+ runs in the Jays-Rangers series a while back, but I'll put the over-under at a mere 42 this weekend, because I expect Doc and Kelvim to keep the Reds somewhat under control. It's a good chance for the Jays to forget the St. Louis nightmare before returning home.

In a bold move, the Yankees today acquired Ruben Sierra to, in ESPN.com's words, "help the outfield." Though it only cost them Marcus Thames, the only team Sierra is going to help is Texas, where Buck Showalter no longer has the "temptation" to play Sierra over Mark Texeira, Carl Everett or other deserving hitters. A low-risk move by the Yanks, but nonetheless a puzzling one. Rob Neyer breaks it down; follow the link. A BB regular and Coach disciple, who goes by the moniker of "A," claims in an earlier thread that Sierra could have aided the Jays because he's cheap. I respectfully disagree; Reed Johnson is a better fit, and he's even cheaper.

For those interested, analyst and author Joe Sheehan (most recently of Baseball Prospectus) will be on the Fan 590 tomorrow (Saturday) at 3:15PM EDT. Webcast devotees can catch the interview here.

Instead of the usual Notes, I am going to describe some of the mechanics behind changing and reversing calls, to try to explain why the umpiring crew last night blew their decision.

In case anyone has missed it, the Diamondbacks pitching staff is looking a lot like an army in full retreat. Their list of wounded, walking or not, keeps growing. Mike Koplove has had a cortisone injection two days ago, so did Matt Mantei (did the D-Backs get the 2-for-1 Cortisone Injection Special at Joe's Auto-Lube and Cortisone?) Randy Johnson is apparently looking to have artificial cartilage injected into his knee (I think Joe's will take care of that too). Curt Schilling has a busted hand - from two line drives, of course, and not from punching cameras. Brandon Webb is just getting back, after a tendinitis bout. Brett Prinz has an injured groin, but he's coming back soon. So how's this for a super rotation - Elmer Dessens, Miguel Batista, John Patterson, Edgar Gonzalez, and Andrew Good. And Batista is even going to be throwing out of the bullpen between starts, they are so hard up for pitching.

It doesn't look promising tonight for the blue birds against the red birds. Woody Williams is having a great season, Mark Hendrickson has been inconsistent. The Cards are playing superb defence, particularly Edmonds, Rolen and Renteria, while the Jays have been shaky, especially on bunts and anything hit to short. Lurch at bat will resemble a typical pitcher trying to defend against Karl Malone in the paint -- embarrassingly overmatched -- while Williams frequently helps himself with the stick.

I'm not suggesting the Jays concede. Carlos Tosca does have a secret weapon; Dave Berg has hit Woody pretty well, and will probably get the nod at third. Delgado and Cat can rake off anyone, O-Dog has really come around, and Tom Wilson, the likely starter behind the plate, has been in a very good groove of late. Hendrickson might even keep the St. Louis hitters off balance for six innings; they've only seen him on video.

If Toronto does lose, there will be much gnashing of teeth among the Chicken Little faction, but in the big picture, it means nothing. They would still be three games over .500, beyond even the most optimistic fan's dreams not so long ago. Over the long season, some very good teams get swept; ask the Angels, Yankees or Red Sox, to name three recent victims. Relax, enjoy the game, and don't worry -- regardless of what happens in any given series, especially one played under strange rules, the Jays are going in the right direction.

Spencer Fordin of MLB.com has posted an excellent review of the Blue Jays' draft this week. They used 64 percent of their picks on pitchers, and 86 percent on players with at least some college experience -- only seven high-schoolers were tabbed. Toronto selected just two Canadians; they had chosen Aric Van Gaalen, a 6'6" lefty from Edmonton, 16th in 2002, and after a year of junior college, took him again this year, but in the 37th round. Paul Marlow, a 6'7" righty from B.C., is another draft-and-follow candidate as a 46th-rounder.

Also from the Official Site, Fordin talked with J.P. Ricciardi about first-rounder Aaron Hill. Asked about drafting a SS in the first round for two straight years, the GM certainly didn't consider it a problem:

"For all you guys that saw Russ Adams in the spring, the feedback that I got was you liked him. I think you'll really, really like this guy," Ricciardi said to the media. "We'll keep playing both of them at shortstop. If some day they have to play together, one of them flips over. It gives us two real good athletic guys that are going to be offensive players and fit into our philosophy."

Yesterday marked one year since Carlos Tosca took over from the over-challenged Buck Martinez.

The Jays have gone a pretty impressive 89-78.

In yesterdays Globe and Mail Jeff Blair quotes J.P :

"What Carlos and his coaching staff has done is given us a focus and direction that's allowed us from simply talking about what we wanted to do to actually doing it," Ricciardi said. "It just wasn't going to work with those other guys — and I don't mean that as a criticism of them. It's just that Carlos and the staff we now have fits the bill as far as what we were trying to create here."

Tosca's handling of the bullpen drives me as nutty as the next ZLC'er but he deserves a lot of credit for the Jay's turn around the last couple of years.

I wonder who would win a tussle between a Blue Jay and a Cardinal.

Tonight's matchup is Cory Lidle versus Jason Simontacchi, which should allow the Jays' bats to get back to their assault on the record books.

OK, if you're reading this, you're thinking "the site isn't down, I'm reading it right now." But actually, you're just lucky. (Relatively speaking. Not how-did-Ashton-Kutcher-become-a-star-and-date-Demi-Moore lucky, but lucky.)

According to an e-mail sent a moment ago by Technical Wizard Coach KW, "Rogers [the hosting service for this site] has been hit with a DoS attack. A bunch of frazzled techies are trying to keep everything alive, but I think it's going to be an intermittent problem all day, if not longer. The support engineer I talked to says that ... they are bouncing servers and routers trying to deal with this mess."

So some people, like me, can get in. And some, like Coach, can't. And before it occurs to you, NO, I don't know how to launch a DoS attack.

Meanwhile, please stay tuned for the re-launching of Da Box's new pinstripes-driven design. [Bahahahahahahahahahahhahaha!!!]

According to Coach: Rogers (who hosts this site) has been hit by a DoS attack, so people may have intermittent trouble accessing Da Box. The techies at their end hope to resolve the problem soon.

Me, I blame Bud Selig. :-)

Bud Selig picked up an "Urban Heroes Award" in New York last night (the award was for MLB's support of inner-city youth initiatives).

Who would have guessed that the Jays would begin interleague play with a better record than the St. Louis Cardinals?

Make no mistake -- the Cardinals remain an extraordinarily gifted and dangerous team. But they haven't yet amounted to the sum of their parts, even factoring for their various injuries. Although several of their hitters are having outstanding seasons, the Cards have been prone to collective off-days at the plate. Similarly, although the Cards are loaded with talented gloves, their play in the field has been spotty at inopportune times. And although they've had simply outstanding seasons from Matt Morris and Woody Williams, the back ends of their rotation and bullpen have been tragically Bostonesque. If the Jays can get to the St. Louis bullpen early, they will win games this series, period.

This will be a good challenge for the Jays' dominant hitting attack, who unfortunately draw both of the Redbirds' star pitchers in the series after a month of toying with AL starters not named Garland, Loaiza or (grr) Kennedy. The Jays may be forced to execute in more small-ball situations than to which they're accustomed, but given the roster-wide offensive production of late, just think of the bench they'll have most nights for pinch-hitting!

The Jays and Cardinals have obviously never met in meaningful games, but they do certainly have a bit of a spring training local rivalry. And there's always a great baseball atmosphere at Busch, so the Jays should be up for the series...

On to the Advance Scout!