Its a long weekend, four game, battle at the bottom with the teams with the third and fourth fewest wins in baseball battling it out for draft pick order. For the Jays Justin Smoak is back and Billy McKinney is gone, to Buffalo we assume.

Your Blue Jays head into Boston with one thing on their minds....can we win one game in this series? That's how things have been going recently. Boston have had an up and down season so far, and many would say they have disappointed, but their record is 41-35 and they would be in the playoffs if the season ended now. The Red Sox have won seven of their last eight games and their only loss in that spell came in 17 innings. As it happens, the Red Sox throw out three starters against the Jays with none of them having a winning record. But don't get your hopes up. Chris Sale is 3-7, Rick Porcello 5-6, and Saturday's starter, Brian Johnson, is 1-1.

It's a tough Fathers Day weekend for the Jays, they will do well to win one game. It's also the "Biggio goes home" weekend and the "Gurriel brothers" weekend.

The 23-42 Blue Jays take on the 20-45 Orioles. The Orioles will be hoping for a sweep to get themselves out of being alone in last place in the division because, as we all know, misery loves company. Misery loves company could be the sub-heading for this series with both teams tanking 2019. This is the start of a 16 game stretch without an off-day for the Jays. After this three gamer, they play 13 against the Astros, Angels, Red Sox and Yankees so make hay against the Orioles guys.

The Jekyl and Hyde Jays head into Tampa for a three game set. Today is memorial day in the US so the game is a 1pm start. There is a flu bug going through the clubhouse so it remains unknown who will be effected, other than Cavan Biggio who was moved from 2B to DH because he has been ill.

Even though the Jays are just plodding along, there are some reasons to tune in this weekend. On the Blue Jay side Cavan Biggio will make his debut and will play second base on Friday night. We will see if his patient approach works or if the Padre pitchers challenge him. His father Craig should be in town for the big day. Lourdes Gurriel is back too, although he won't be at second base tonight. He played more second base than outfield in Buffalo so any outfield exposure would still be classified as experimental. Zac Rosscup will make his Blue Jay debut as a Mayza alternative for lefty hitters and another lefty, Thomas Pannone, is back to provide some long relief.

It's rematch time. As is usual in MLB these days, the Jays and White Sox face off one week after their previous get together. It will be a different Jays team tonight as Richard Urena is back and Teoscar Hernandez is down in Buffalo. There could be another move before Saturday. The Jays are in a part of the schedule where they need five starters. Daniel Hudson is listed as Saturdays starter, we will see if that comes to happen. Clayton Richard is in Chicago and speculation is that he will start on Saturday.

The Blue Jays had a welcome and necessary day off yesterday and now it is time to see if they can end their recent slump and get back to winning some games. Although its not just winning games, its playing better baseball. The weak offense can be easily observed, it’s the poor defense that’s a capper on the disappointment with losing. The fans know it’s a rebuilding year so seeing the team lose more than win is expected. But the players and the team need to start showing sings of improvement. The defense needs to be tighter, the base running better and then let the offense and pitching fall where they may.

The Bautista-less Jays venture into Arlington for a resumption of hostilities. The Rangers are one game under 500 while the Jays are now three games under. With the Alen Hansen era over, the Jays will look to bounce back from a bad series in Anaheim.

The second place Baltimore Orioles trundle into town having taken two out of three games off the Yankees. With the Red Sox and the Yankees holding up the standings it is opposite day, or week, in the AL East.

Whoa. More than 300 comments? Strike another match, go start anew...

It's time for a fresh thread, and I want to alert one and all to Nate Silver's modest proposal to fix that which is broken. That thing being baseball, of course, which has been broken by an endless procession of ordinary pitchers wandering out of the bullpen to throw as hard as they can for no more than one inning. The result has been tedium, historic numbers of strikeouts (seldom the most exciting thing that can happen on a baseball diamond), and a game awash in mediocrity. Your modern dugout manager has found a way to actually weaponize mediocrity, and roughly a third of each team's active roster consists of these... mediocrities.

Yes, I'm an Old Fogey. And this isn't what I signed up for. You?

It has been a long, tough, ornery winter. But baseball is back, the Blue Jays play their first game of the year today.