SEPTEMBER THIRD, RAYS 7, JAYS 5:
WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE!
Will no one rid us of this troublesome second baseman? I'd better be careful what I write. According to the story, some of King Henry II's knights overheard him asking roughly the same thing about Thomas à Becket, and we all know what happened to the saintly Becket! So it's not that I want Logan…
SEPTEMBER SECOND, RAYS 8, JAYS 3:
INTO THE EYE OF THE STORM
The Blue Jays must have been feeling fortunate that they had an off day on Thursday to make their way from Baltimore to Tampa Bay for this weekend series against the Rays, since they had already safely arrived when the fringes of Hurricane Hermine, with its epicentre over the Florida Panhandle north and west of…
AUGUST THIRTY-FIRST, JAYS 5, ORIOLES 3:
THE PITCHER FROM SINGLE A
It's strange how your mind works sometimes. Shortly after the Blue Jays won the series clincher over the Orioles tonight, I saw a headline on a game recap that referred to Aaron Sanchez as a “single-A pitcher”, a humourous reference to his recent “demotion” to Dunedin for R and R, which ended with tonight's start…
AUGUST THIRTIETH, ORIOLES 5, JAYS 3:
MAN BITES DOG STORY:
WIENER WIETERS GRILLS GRILLI!
Well, that didn't turn out very well! It looked like we should have had everything going for us tonight in Baltimore. First, there was momentum. We had won four straight, including the first game of this series, while Baltimore had lost four of their last six, including two big blowouts by the Yankees on the…
AUGUST TWENTY-NINTH, JAYS 5, ORIOLES 1:
BIG SERIES? CALLING VINTAGE MARCO!
As the cameras panned around the beautiful Baltimore home grounds at Camden Yards, the only thing more striking than the amount of Blue Jays' paraphernalia visible was the proliferation of equally royal blue empty seats in the ball park. I wrote about a month ago that I believed the division race would end up being…
AUGUST TWENTY-EIGHTH, JAYS 9, TWINS 6:
PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM (ER, JOSH)!
It may have been the same old song today, but that doesn't mean we didn't want to sing along, does it? Once again a Jays' starter pitching a nice steady game is bedeviled by one big inning by the Twins. Once again the Jays' hitters are stymied by an opponents' starter who comes into the…
AUGUST 27TH, JAYS 8, TWINS 7:
TRUE GRIT IS MORE THAN A MOVIE TITLE
Among the positives that I saw in yesterday's smashing 15-8 Toronto romp over the Minnesota Twins was that the ravaging of the Minnesota bullpen in the first of a three-game set would likely have consequences for the Twins down the line. Today's stirring and improbable come-from-behind Blue Jay win can be traced directly to the…
AUGUST TWENTY-SIXTH, JAYS 15, TWINS 8:
THIS YEAR’S SNACK SENSATION AT THE EX:
SMOAKED TWIN-KIES!
In the wake of the disturbing series loss to the Angels this week, I wrote yesterday that I was afraid that one terrible abyss that could open up for the Blue Jays on their erstwhile path to the playoffs would be occasional, or worse, more frequent breakdowns of their starting pitching while their hitters remain…
AUGUST TWENTY-FIFTH, ANGELS 6, JAYS 3:
THE AGONY OF DE-FEET,
AND BRETT CECIL
DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANY MORE
It's easy enough to pinpoint the exact moment when Toronto's hopes of winning tonight's rubber match of the current three-game series with the Los Angeles Angels went down the drain. Going into the top of the sixth inning, Jay Happ had been masterful in pursuit of his eighteenth win against only three losses. He had…
AUGUST TWENTY-FOURTH, HALOS 8, JAYS 2:
JAYS’ DEMON OUTWITS EXORCIST,
ESCAPES CUSTODY
I started yesterday's report on Toronto's lovely and relaxing 8-2 win over the Angels (ah, how we long for the good old days!) with a silly riff on all of the demons that the Blue Jays needed to exorcize when they got back home for these six games with two basement-dwelling teams. The gist of…