JAYS-TIGERS: ROSARIO PHLIPPED TO PHILLIES

If you're going, Francisco: The Jays were frozen out in Detroit but there was action -- Francisco Rosario, who was playing "left out" after failing to make the team out of spring training and had to be traded by Monday before he would been lost on waivers, was dealt to Philadelphia for $100,000.

The Phillies are hard up for bullpen help. The anti-J.P. Ricciardi crowd will have a field day with this since the Jays didn't get much -- $100,000 cash -- not much more than roll of tape, but probably enough to keep Paul Godfrey and Ted Rogers in ivory backscratchers. Rosario, 27, throws serious smoke but his command fades in and out like the signal of a distant radio signal from the other side of Lake Ontario.

Game 2: Tigers 10, Jays 9 (boxscore) at wind-whipped Comerica Park:

• It's all relative -- would A.J. Burnett getting jocked for six runs in two innings be such a big deal if it happened in June? Give it time. It was a nutty game that got out of control due to lousy weather. At least A Joke stood up after admitted that he sucked out loud.
• How long will the Tigers' discriminating, pitch-spoiling ways at the plate -- nine bases on balls today -- last? I'll take July 25 in the pool.
• Any Jays fans who has Curtis Granderson (grand slam home run and a RBI triple) in their pool was a reminder of why yours truly doesn't do fantasy baseball. There's too much temptation to take consolation from an enemy player wearing out your team's pitchers.
• Aaron Hill came in 8-for-10 vs. winning pitcher Nathan Daniel Robertson (pictured) and continued that dominance with a dinger.
• As for the controversy over that Frank Thomas pillow-swat commercial (as seen Deadspin and globesports.com), what a bunch of nonsense.
  
  Parents and kids rough-house all the time. What's worse, a dad acting like a big kid, or one who demurs from physical contact? The ad did not mply child abuse or anything sick or invidious about the Blue Jays organization. It's a light-hearted, nonsensical ad and the only thing that's bothersome is the game footage at the end is doctored to show Thomas in a Jays uniform. (Last year, the Jays had a commercial with Troy Glaus which showed him with his former team, the Arizona Diamondbacks.)
• Man, most years the Tigers don't draw 24,881 fans for two games in early April. It's impressive that many people turned out on a rotten day.

What's with using Robertson's full name? Well, my dad is Daniel Robert Sager, which makes me Nathan, Daniel Robert's son.

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