BRANDON IN A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN... KNOCK ON WOOD

Roy Halladay was his usual brilliantly banal self last night with another seven strong innings in the Blue Jays' 4-3 win over the Devil Rays.

Doc would not have earned his major league-leading 15th win, though, without Brandon League, who inherited a two-on, one-out jam in the eighth and struck out Damon Hollins and got Travis Lee to ground out, thus preserving a one-run lead.

It was semi-halfway important to see League come in and do that, since this final month and a half is going to be a chance to start auditioning pitchers to fill the 7th/8th inning roles next season. No one expects the Jays to come up with the cash to re-sign either Scott Schoeneweis or Justin Speier, so there's going to be a lot more late-inning work available next spring.

(UPDATE, 3:35 p.m. Aug. 16. Well, that was prescient. The Jays just traded Schoeneweis to Cincinnati for a player to be named later.)

OTHER BUSINESS

• With Evgeni Malkin apparently having been kidnapped by Penguins, SI.com's John Rolfe looks at some past cloak-and-dagger work hockey teams had to perform to get Eastern European players in uniform. This is a great history lesson for kids who are too young to remember the Cold War.
• And we were all reminded that the number of double plays turned usually reflects on how many runners you let reach base: The Seattle Mariners turned a DP in each of the first four innings against the A's last night, during which time they fell behind 9-0.
• Hat tip to Baseball Musings for noting that Colorado Rockies righty Jason Jennings should get some Cy Young consideration, which would be a first for someone who has to pitch half his games in Denver's thin air. Jennings pitched eight innings of one-run ball last night, moving into the top five in the National League with a 3.34 ERA. Teammate Jeff Francis, the B.C. native, isn't far behind at 3.39. To put that in proper perspective, do you know how many Rockies starting pitchers have finished a season with an ERA below 4 in the franchise's first 13 seasons? One. Joe Kennedy (3.66) did it two years ago -- and barely quicked enough innings to qualify.
• This is crazy, and a little sad: The former business manager of the WHL's Kamloops Blazers has admitted stealing nearly $1 million from the junior hockey club. There's a longer wire-service story which I haven't found online, but apparently the woman would write a cheque to herself for, say, $2,300, record it on the books as $300, and pocket the difference. The differences got larger and larger, since both she and her husband were cocaine addicts. Hockey blogger extraordinaire James Mirtle is originally from Kamloops, so maybe he'll have a take later today.
• It's not looking good as far as the Ottawa Lynx and the International League playoffs are concerned: they're 5½ games out of the wild-card spot with only 18 games to play after losing to Rochester yesterday.

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