OK (OK) BLUE JAYS (BLUE JAYS): LET'S (LET'S) PLAY (PLAY) BALL!

Good gosh, has it really been almost a week since The Geek and I last saw our Blue Jays play, save for those who represented the American League so ably in the All-Star game on Tuesday.

Some will focus on Troy Glaus getting a hit during the American League's winning rally that helped make B.J. Ryan the winning pitcher, or Vernon Wells throwing out a runner at home plate. Lest we forget, the injured Alex Rios managed not to get in the way of any of the AL all-stars who were actually playing as they walked to and from the bench, the field and the clubhouse john. Well, done, Alex.

(Yes, that is Ryan's all-star jersey in the photo. Except it's his 2005 all-star jersey, from when he was with the Orioles. Nice touch.)

The least the Jays can do, from this author's perspective, is make a show of hanging around the AL East race for a couple more weeks, at least through next weekend, when yours truly and my good friend Neil Acharya will be attending the Yankees series. Is that too much ask? As a loyal fan, I feel they owe me.

Here's the pitching matchups:

Tonight: Gil Meche (8-4, 3.83, 1.32 WHIP) vs. Casey Janssen (6-7, 4.73, 1.27 WHIP). The Jays could be in for a long night -- Meche has allowed two earned runs or less in six of his past seven starts. Janssen's been bombed in four of his past five starts, although he is pitching on five days' rest. And what is it about Janssen that he gives up a lot of runs even though he really doesn't allow all that many baserunners?

Tomorrow: Jamie Moyer (5-8, 3.50, 1.26 WHIP) vs. Roy Halladay (12-2, 2.92, 1.03 WHIP). Moyer is the superannuated southpaw who would look good in a Jays uniform a couple weeks from now; Halladay is Halladay.
Sunday: Felix Hernandez (8-8, 4.95, 1.39 WHIP) vs. A.J. Burnett (1-3, 4.58, 1.39 WHIP). A matchup between arguably the two most inconsistent pitchers with undeniably live arms that you 'll ever see.

Incidentally, if the headline doesn't make sense, you must not remember the cheesy fight song the Jays used to play back in the '80s, when management, in its infinite wisdom, decided that Take Me Out To The Ballgame was good enough for the other 25 teams in the majors, but Toronto needed something different. It was cheesy, it was unlistenable, it made us all look like a bunch of rubes, yet I'm humming it right now. You got the bleachers, you got them from spring till fall, you got a hat, a bat, and that's not all.

OTHER BUSINESS

• The Toronto Star's Dave Perkins puts the blame for Toronto Proper losing its OHL team -- what with Eugene Melnyk moving the St. Mike's Majors to Mississauga -- squarely on the shoulders of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, pointing out, among other things, that MLSE is only interested in hockey history as it suits their profitability. Well, that, and getting into an endless shin-kicking contest with Eugene Melnyk.
  
  In a just world, the Majors would have been playing in a scaled-down, renovated Maple Leaf Gardens, but as Perkins puts it, "The very idea of competition is anathema to MLSE." Hey, if you saw the Raptors and Leafs at times this past winter, you would understand why MLSE is afraid of a little competition.
  
  Still think the real story is either (a) Melnyk trying to get the 2008 Memorial Cup played in his team's building and (b) possibly trying to leverage getting an OHL team into Scotiabank Place. Honestly, the more likely scenario is the Mississauga IceDogs moving to Buffalo -- after all, the general manager of the NHL team Melnyk owns, the Ottawa Senators, is John Muckler, who lives in Buffalo and is said to be interested in becoming a junior hockey mogul.
• That's why he's an ESPN.com senior writer and you are not: Gene Wojciechowski presumably used the company dime to travel to South Bend, Indiana for a an article on Notre Dame, but didn't talk to the coach or any players. Sadly, his dispatch was surprisingly un-Hunter S. Thompson-like.
• Note to readers: Out of Left Field is adding a "Blog Associate." Starting some time next week, my good friend and former colleague at CFRC radio in Kingston, Neil Acharya, will be contributing a post here and there. Neil's an interesting voice and will have some good takes -- you can find some of his past interviews at cyberkrib.com.

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