The final game of the homestand.  Mark Buehrle faces Jake Peavy.  Buehrle has an ERA of 4.43, Peavy's ERA is 4.50.  The main pitchers in both bullpens were rested last night, except for Brett Cecil.  Janssen, Santos, Loup, Uehara, Tazawa, etc. should all be ready to go.

After this game the Jays head to Tampa, New York and Houston.  The Jays play a day/night doubleheader on Tuesday in New York.  With Monday being an off-day the Jays could roll through their rotation but that would cause a problem on the Saturday when they would not have a rested starting pitcher.  Baseball rules now allow teams to add a 26th player for a doubleheader, will the Jays recall a pitcher for Tuesday for the spot start?

Josh Johnson (29, RHP, 1-7, 6.08) tries to show his last 3 games were flukes (13 2/3 IP 19 ER 4 BB 17 SO 6 HR) while the Angels hope Garrett Richards (25, RHP, 2-4, 4.33) is Dr. Jekyll (2 of last 4 games were 0 runs allowed) rather than Mr. Hyde (other 2 of past 4 were 5+ runs).

You can use statistics to prove anything. 95 percent of all people know that.

It's another song in this key yeah, but this one's about me

I was thinking about how the ex-Jays are doing this year, not just the ones who were playing here at some point in 2012, as many have left, but also some of the older ones.

"The Blue Jays have reached .500! Remove the stone of shame!"

"Woo-who!"

"Attach the stone of triumph!"

"D'oh!"

"Not the box factory again, Seymour."

Tonight Fred McGriff happen to take batting practice at the Lugnuts game, and Kevin Patterson might have picked up a few tips leading to a monster night.  Deck McGuire continued to see his stock fall nearly 3 years after his draft .Taylor Cole had an outstanding start for Lansing as well, in a night where the farm went 3-1!

"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fooling around"

Word has it that former Yankees standout Chien-Ming Wang has opted out of a minor league deal to take on a major league contract with your Toronto Blue Jays. The sinkerballer is slated to start Tuesday instead of Esmil Rogers.

Earlier this year I presented a top 10 list of minor league pitchers according to Age-Adjusted Dominance Ratio - a stat that I developed last year as a quick method of assessing a pitcher's dominance by weighing strikeouts against walks, HBP. HR and Hits.

"Well crying about it isn't going to make the Blue Jays a better team, unless your tears smell like pine tar. So you can go drink can after can of pine tar until your tears smell enough like pine tar that the Blue Jays start playing better, or you can go out there and find your dog!"

Or something.

I believe the 4:30 start time is a new experiment for the Blue Jays.  Day games are usually 7pm unless it is a getaway day when the game is 12:35.

Mark Buehrle takes the hill for the Jays.  Buehrle has pitched better over the last few starts, can he sustain that today?

"And so, the Blue Jays must go forwards, not backwards! Upwards, not forwards! And always twirling, twirling towards freedom!"

Game 2.  Can Ramon Ortiz continue to pitch like the ace of the staff?  When will the bubble burst?  The Jays trot out the usual lineup as of late.  No Izturis, Bonifacio is at second base.

There has been a lot of talk about the Dickey effect, meaning the pitcher who pitches the day after Dickey has a benefit.  I could possibly see a benefit if the following pitcher was Brandon Morrow or Josh Johnson, both of whom are very different pitchers to Dickey.  I am not confident that Ortiz will have a Dickey effect.