CASEY JANSSEN'S FUGITIVE COMMAND

Don't worry, boy. When you get a job like me, you'll miss every summer.

Well, even if you were only tracking the game via GameCenter on CBS Sportsline, you surely saw that coming: the Jays dropped their first game post-All-Star break 5-3 to the Seattle Mariners.

Casey Janssen has regressed to the game but struggling rookie that he is, and the infield continues to make the fans sitting behind first-base wish that this was some Mad Max-type world where Kevlar was worn on a regular basis. (My smart-ass way of saying that Aaron Hill had another throwing error while playing out of position at shortstop.)

Naturally, this all went down while the Red Sox were being held down and having handfuls of dirt dropped down their pants by the A's, who whomped Boston but good, 15-3 at Fenway. But, of course...

One game never proves anything in baseball; trouble is for the Jays, game after game, you keep seeing the same things: Pitchers who can't get past the fifth inning, a failure to turn double plays, falling behind early and having to play catch-up.

The Geek has the long knives out for Janssen, who's now 6-8 and has seen his ERA shoot up by a run and a half since June 7, but getting on a 24-year-old rookie who's only in the rotation due to one guy's injury (Gustavo Chacin) and another's apparent total loss of major-league ability (Josh Towers) is a little unfair. It's like blaming the Jays' struggles on Troy Glaus because he isn't batting .420 with thirty-five homers.

Still, only 4½ out, and Doc Halladay is throwing today. The way things are, Jays fans will take that. Win the next two, and that buys as all a little more plausible deniability as it relates to sinking suspicion this isn't "our" year.

OTHER BUSINESS

• Is Toronto Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo done making over his roster after adding shooting guard Anthony Parker and 6-foot-6 swingman John Salmons this week? Scott Carefoot believes more moves are in the offing, especially in the backcourt: "Jose (Calderon) and Joey Graham should make sure their real estate agents are on speed dial."
  
  By opening night, it's conceivable that the only Raptors holdovers from the start of '05-06 will be Chris Bosh and Morris Peterson. Which begs the question: how are all these new guys going to mesh together, especially with Sam Mitchell being a potential lame-duck coach?
• The Hamilton Tiger-Cats actually won, beating the Calgary Stampeders 20-17 for its first win in five tries this CFL season. However, they have irked the football gods due to the use of an American placekicker -- which used to be unheard of in the Canadian game -- and the Hamilton Spectator's use of phrases such as "upright splitter" (in lieu of what those of us on Planet Earth call a "field goal"), "tough overland sledding" and "11-yard burst out of the paddock." What is this, 1935? Here I thought Grantland Rice was dead.
• None of the columns centring on Greg Marshall's firing in Hamilton this week (at least of what I read) seemed to play up the fact that Hamilton failed to score a second-half touchdown in any of its four losses. That was as much Marshall's downfall as anything in his Ticats tenure: failure to make in-game adjustments. Far be it, though, to say that running up 62-0 and 72-0 wins over York and U of T when he was at McMaster University didn't prepare him for that: What, you mean some of our plays might not work?
• Visit my friend Greg Hughes' blog.

That's all for now. Enjoy your average weekend. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.