THE GEEK IS TALKING ABOUT SUBS AND DOMS IN BASEBALL

Question: Off the top of your head, name the teams who account for the top six records in major-league baseball entering today's play.

OK. Um. Been hearing a lot about how well the Mets and Detroit Tigers are doing. The Yankees and Red Sox are always right up there since they have the largest payrolls. The Chicago White Sox won the World Series last year, so they're probably still pretty good. How many is that?

Five.

Damn. (Long pause) Who's the sixth?

Give up? It's my beloved Toronto Blue Jays, and if you asked 100 random selectly people who pay at least casual attention to the majors to rhyme off those top six, how many would know that?

The Geek is pretty conflicted today. Happy that the Blue Jays got a sweep with an 8-4 romp over Washington last night, irritated at all the front-runners who always have an excuse not to support this team, especially now that its current mini-roll -- seven wins in the last 10 -- has actually caused them to fall to five games behind Boston (winners of 12 in a row).

There's even more irritation toward baseball for wanting to have it both ways by playing an unbalanced schedule and offering interleague play but offering only one wild-card berth in each league.

If people would look around, they would notice that the Jays have the sixth-best record in baseball. They have done so despite despite having had major problems (injuries or poor performance) with three-fifths of its starting rotation, an unsettled middle infield, and an offence built too much around Dr. Longball.

Unfortunately for the Jays, they are Royally screwed, since their division and interleague schedule doesn't give them much chance to pump up their record against the Kansas Cities and Pittsburghs. Yes, the Detroit Tigers aren't totally a product of scheduling, but it's played a large part in why they're 54-25, which is at least 10 wins more than their real worth.

Now, the Jays haven't helped their own cause (getting swept in Colorado and Florida comes to mind), but you totally rule out how the factors working against them.

Here's how out of whack it is. Two weeks ago, yours truly looked at the top AL East and Central teams and their respective records against winning teams (Doms) and sub-.500 clubs (Subs), and found the Jays did better against the teams that had winning records. A couple weeks later, with a couple of teams moving from one side of the break-even mark, it's no longer true: they're 18-19 (.486) against the Doms, 26-15 (.634) against the Subs. That's a difference of 148 percentage points.

Boston? Try 18-20 (.474) against the Overs, 30-8 (.789) against the Subs -- a whopping 315-percentage point difference, although probably still in Tiger Country.

For the Evil Empire, currently four games behind Boston, it's only an 88-point difference (.533 vs. Overs, .621 vs. Subs).

But wait, there's more. Interleague play! Where Boston has won 14 of 15 games entering this weekend's series against Florida, while the Jays are only 7-8 as the Phillies come north. The Evil Empire hasn't been shit-hot in interleague either (8-7), so it's entirely possible that the Red Sox will be like the '97 Florida Marlins -- a team that slips into the playoffs by virtue of its interleague play.

Boston's winning percentage against the AL's Doms, by the way, is a mediocre .429. The Jays are at .548 (17-14), topping both the Bosox and Evil Empire (.526).

For the Jays, it keeps coming back to that lost weekend in May against the Colorado Rockies. Incidentally, the Red Sox don't play the Rockies, instead getting to play two series against the craptacular Phillies since they're designated as "natural rivals." (Why? Because the Patriots and Eagles played in the Super Bowl two years ago, or because the Flyers and Bruins met in the 1974 Stanley Cup final?)

Knowing the Jays' luck, the Phillies play so far above their heads at Rogers Centre this weekend that their noses bleed for a week to 10 days. In fairness, the Evil Empire also plays three more games against the NL East-leading Mets than Boston does due to their rivalry.

That manifesto calling for realignment and/or changes to the playoff system will be coming any day now. You betcha.