JAYS: 8 DAYS IN MAY...

Checking in as the Jays' long slide continues:

• In Cool Standings' projections, the Jays average out to 76.2 wins -- bad, but more than the Orioles and Rays. (Of course, that's not where the bar is set.) So that third-place slot the Jays have eased into seven out of the last nine years is still available.
  
  The Jays' run differential (minus-12) is poor, but still comparable to that of the Seattle Mariners, who are somehow a game above .500. It's not that far from that of Arizona, who's also above .500 and just two games out in the tight (read: mediocre as ever) NL West. And yes, this feels like a program director at a radio station that's just fallen from No. 2 to No. 5 in the local ratings book trying to tell his boss how many stations would love to be No. 5.
  
  Factor in the Jays getting their injured players back, the position players returning to their normal mean and a possible bump from John Gibbons getting fired. The Jays can still finish above .500, albeit barely above with 82 or 83 wins.
  
  There's the rub, though. Expectations were so high that kind of finish, which seems optimistic today, would still be viewed as an abject failure.
• Must-read The Tao of Stieb has eight simple ways the Jays could right matters, all of which are practical and within the team's means.
• The Facebook group Fire J.P. Ricciardi has jumped from 16 members to 57 over the past 24 hours. Full disclosure: The group's admin, Cory Smith, is a friend of the blog.
• In the it's-been-worse department, The 700 Level recalls the blowout in the forgettable season of 2004 when Frank Menechino was called on to pitch. We call that game well. We were in a new town, on a Saturday, no money, no friends, and we drove around aimlessly waiting for that game to end. Who knows why. The reasons still aren't apparent.

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