RAYS-JAYS: SEO MUCH FOR A SWEEP!

Saturday -- Rays 2, Jays 1: The tipping point for Shaun Marcum was that ball first-base ump Charlie Reliford called on a 2-2 check swing by Rocco Baldelli with two out in the top of the sixth.

If it's a veteran such as Mike Mussina pitching at Yankee Stadium or Curt Schilling at Fenway Park, Reliford perhaps punches out Baldelli and the pitcher floats back to the dugout as the entire stadium flips out. Umpires are aware of playing to the crowd and the TV cameras too. Instead, Marcum needed 10 more pitches to complete the inning, losing Baldelli and Brendan Harris on full counts.

That was enough to convince the brain trust he was gassed. Marcum got Carl Crawford with off-speed stuff in the late 80s, so it was time to make the move. Then Jason Frasor happened. As for the itting, the Jays were doing their usual routine of being the team that a struggling pitcher straightens himself out against — Jae Seo was a lot better than the 8.82 ERA and 2.02 WHIP he brought in, and for a change his late-breaking change-up, which must be as tough to control as it is for North American umpires to call, was working.

(UPDATE: Apparently John Gibbons can't explain pinch-hitting John McDonald for Jason Phillips. God only knows what was behind that move — and She is shaking her head.

Gibbons-McDonald might be the Jays' version of the Sam Mitchell-Matt Bonner dynamic the old Raptors had. Bonner had to be traded to the Spurs just to keep Mitchell from playing him too much — and now he might end up with a NBA championship ring.)

Worth reading to increase one's understanding of baseball finance: The Star looks at the Jays' decision not to take out insurance on the salaries for injured high-dollar stars such as Halladay and B.J. Ryan. (Found via Ian Bethune''s Sox & Dawgs.

Saturday -- Jays 5, Rays 4: By all accounts, Jeremy Accardo is a reasonable facsimile of a closer, for one day at least.

C'est la vie and que sera, que sera for the Rays: Vernon Wells, with some astute coaching from Brian Butterfield, scored the winning run from first base on a single after uber-prospect B.J. Upton lobbed the ball back to the infield with all the alacrity of someone playing fetch with an older dog. An inning earlier, Royce Clayton's game-tying two-out single was the type of hit that looked like it should easily be enough for a reasonably fast runner such as Aaron Hill who was running on contact to score standing up. Upton threw a did-you-see-that strike to the plate that pegged a sliding Hill right in the chest.

Figure that out. One inning Upton — a terrific player with a position to be determined later — almost makes a near-impossible throw; the next he got caught off-guards and couldn't make a simple throw which ultimately cost Tampa Bay the game. That's why it's always worth tuning in when the Rays play the Jays.

Friday -- Jays 5 Rays 1: The speculation among fans over the past 24 hours has proven founded: Jays ace Roy Halladay has landed on the 15-day disabled list with appendicitis and will miss 4-6 weeks.

Since it would have been too cruel for the losing to continue, A.J. Burnett was able to go out and zap the Rays in an easy win, shutting down Tampa Bay after a first-inning Elijah Dukes homer. That figures.

Doc had not looked quite right in his past two starts, which led to some conjecture over whether or not he might be hurting. This is entirely random, of course. The Jays still have questions about the other three pitchers — Gustavo Chacin, Brandon League, and B.J. Ryan — who have all developed arm problems in the past year.

(Victor Zambrano doesn't count, since it's his first year in the organization.)

WORST TAILSPIN SINCE... ?

The worst losing skid the Jays have had since -- well, it couldn't be that long, the franchise only began playing in '77 -- came right on time.

Think about it. In pre-season, the bandwagon teemed with 25-to-34s, plus a few of later vintage, who were gung-ho to get back into the Jays for the first time in oh, 13, 14 years since it looked like they might quote-unquote "do something" this year. (So Halladay winning the Cy Young Award and Carlos Delgado hitting four homers in a game in 2003 wasn't "doing something," we take it?)

The nine-game losing streak, with John Gibbons serving as a clueless version of Drill Sergeant Hartman, might have been designed to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to cheer for our beloved Blue Jays. It's acceptable to want Gibbons and J.P. Ricciardi fired (they got it coming), but the test is here is whether people hunker down for the long haul of a bad (and long) season, so you can say I was there.

In '88, when the Orioles lost 21 games in a row to start the season, they had 50,402 fans out for their first home game after they finally got a win. Think about it. More than 50,000 turned out to see a 1-23 team that would go on to more than 100 losses face the Pete Incaviglia incarnation of the Texas Rangers.

Essentially, this tailspin has been a baseball boot camp. The Jays fielding has supplied enough boots for everyone.

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