In a recent thread a Batter's Box regular made the comment:

of course, we wouldn't even be having this discussion if Russ Adams hadn't turned out to be so terribly, terribly underwhelming, especially relative to his draft position.

Which lead a number of us to wonder how much we should expect from a mid 1st round draft pick. In "Has Russ Adams Been A Disappointment?" Craig Burley compared Adams to other players taken in the middle of the first round of 2002's draft. I thought I'd take a different approach.

Batter's Box regular Paul D takes a look at some late-summer reading.

With his Beatles and his Stones
We never got if off on that revolution stuff
It was such a drag

Or nearly so.

The season from hell continues with the Jays facing Pedro Martinez. Ted Lilly will have to induce flyballs to centre and right and not to left to be effective today.

The Inter-County Baseball League Championship Series starts today with London facing Guelph. Here’s a quick overview look at the two teams involved.

I decided to pull together a couple of rooting necessaries for those watching Team Canada's games from Athens, and reproduce some terrific photos from the IBAF (that's the international baseball federation, by the way). Enjoy!

Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death construction

At the beginning of the season some Bauxites thought the Red Sox were the class of the A.L. East, citing the acquisition of Curt Schilling and a world-class offence. That has turned out not to be the case.

But I also thought Arizona would win 84 games, so I'm one to talk.

As the Toronto Blue Jays roll into town coming off another kick-in-the-groin loss, I expect the wild card hungry Sox to feast.

Frankly, I don't think there's a single one of us who didn't have high expectations for Russ Adams when he was drafted out of the University of Notrh Carolina with the 14th overall pick in the 2002 MLB Draft. Adams is currently being challenged defensively and offensively at AAA Syracuse, hitting just .272/.344/.384 and showing a few signs of being stretched defensively at shortstop. Adams has plenty of time to turn his career around and become a star, but he hasn't performed up to reasonable expectations so far.

Or has he?

As I mentioned in another thread I was looking at the Current Equivalent Averages page at Baseball Prospectus and I was stunned to find that Frank Menechino is leading the Blue Jays in "Runs Above Replacement Player". I decided to look closer at the stats provided to see what else I could learn about the Jays woeful 2004 offense.

Last night, Jays fans were treated to a nice pitching performance by Josh Towers, quality bullpen work from Speier and Ligtenberg and a booming home run by King Carlos. Today, fans get impressive young David Bush on the mound and a bunch of dogs....really.

By the time most bauxites wake up on Monday morning, Canada will have either lost to or (more likely) defeated Italy in the second game of their quest for the gold. Jason Dickson gets the start for the red and white.

Canada played solid baseball in downing Chinese Taipei, winning 7-0. The game story from CBC/Canadian Press provides some of the details. TSN has a more detailed game story.

And here's the BOXSCORE! from the official site of the Olympiad.

You can watch the game on CBC, starting at 11:30am EST.

but there's someone who's torn it apart
and she's taking almost all that I've got
but if you want, I'll try to love again
baby I'll try to love again but I know

After today's bullpen implosion there were many frustrated Bauxites in the game thread.

Mike in CT asked 'How many more games would the Jays have won this year if they had even an average major league bullpen?'