KICK IN THE TEETH LOSS FOR THE JAYS

Loneliness and frustration / We both came down with an acute case / And when the lights came up at two / I caught a glimpse of you / And your face looked like something / Death brought with him in his suitcase . . .

How many R's are sufficent to express how Jays fans are feeling right now. Seven? Nine? 11? Arrrrrrrrrrrgh. That ought to do it.

With this team, 12 seasons with no post-season baseball, every loss to a sub-.500 team just gnaws and gnaws.

A come-from-ahead 10-8 loss to D-Rays on May 24 isn't the end of the world. But it just seems like the Jays, who haven't a swept a series yet this season, just lack that killer instinct needed to compete with the Evil Empires 1 and 1-A. Of course, it isn't that simple. Josh Towers was terrible once again and went straight from the mound to Triple A; Carl Crawford goes 5-for-5, scores five runs and steal four bases; Jason Frasor throws a fat pitch to Toby Hall -- Toby Hall!! -- that became a two-run homer after the Jays had rallied to take the lead.

But it's just baseball. It's not that the Jays didn't lack desire; certain players just didn't do aspects of their jobs very well. But it still teeth-gnashing worthy.

Anyways, on the Towers and Russ Adams demotions: Towers was given chance after chance to get straightened out this season, and simply hasn't done it. The Jays can't afford to carry him any more.

Now if Adams is having a Chuck Knoblauch / Steve Sax case of the throwing yips, by all means he should go down to The 'Cuse in hopes of correcting it. It makes you wonder, though, if Adams should have been playing second base all along. Why not simply see if Adams and Aaron Hill would be a better match if they switched spots?

Again, if only it were that simple. Some people will no doubt point out Hill was drafted as a shortstop. Guess what? Almost every second or third baseman in the majors played shortstop once, and got switched for a good reason.

Hill's athletic, but I haven't seen any evidence he could be a good shortstop on the major-league level. Besides, the timing for experimenting with Hill at a new position is lousy. He's just started to hit, so taking him out of his comfort zone might not be a wise idea.

But it might come to that if there's anything to these Adam Kennedy rumours. Hill might not be a great option, but between a yips-addled Adams, John MacDonald (nice fielder, but a stopgap solution) and career minor leaguer Luis Figueroa, he might be the best one there is.

Bottom line, as much as Jays fans have every right to be excited about this team, nights like tonight, when they put up runs but don't pitch or field well, suggests this team is just a rehash of the 1998-2000 crew. Yours truly has said this before, and is sayin' it again.

OTHER BUSINESS

• SABRES 4 HURRICANES 3 (Buffalo leads 2-1): What was I was going on about in the hours leading up to this game?
  
  

  If you have a generalized idea of how the game turns out before you sit down to watch -- it's going to be a 4-2 final, with two power-play goals for the winning side -- then it's boring.

  The game itself wasn't boring, necessarily, but it's worth noting the Sabres scored four goals, two of which came on the power play. Interesting, even if the final score was slightly off. Buffalo came back and won tonight after playing a good third period in Game 2; Carolina did the same tonight, so the obvious question is whether that leads to a series-tying win for the Hurricanes on Friday.
• Wide receivers everywhere owe part of their continued good health to Jim Trimble, a Grey Cup-winning coach in the 1950s and '60s, died yesterday at the age of 87. Trimble helped market and develop the modern goalpost that replaced the old two-post model. Not many coaches in any sport can point to one of their innovations every time they watch a game; Trimble could.
• Well, it was bound to happen sooner or latter: a Texas Longhorns championship ring is up for sale on eBay. Texas gave out 200 of the damn things to coaches, players and staff, so you had to figure there was some fifth-string walk-on tight end who figured he could turn a quick profit. Bidding had surpassed $10,000 US by yesterday afternoon, putting the Longhorns bauble right up there with a 2002 Lakers championship ring that had fetched $12,099.99 US as of this writing. Don't worry; if that's too rich for your blood, you can bid on a Longhorns belly ring.

That's all for now. Tonight, we're going to see that there ain't no party like an Edmonton party. Let's hear it for The Grapes of Wrath.