JAYS-MARINERS: THE DEAD MANAGER WALKING ISN'T NAMED HARGROVE

Sunday -- Mariners 2, Jays 1: The worst is when you can actually see a team unravel before it happens. It's called Dead Manager Walking syndrome (OK, not really).

The Jays were dead when they couldn't get stretch the lead past 1-0 in the seventh after putting runners on second and third and none out following Frank Thomas' leadoff homer. That kind of stuff is practically psychomatic. Sure enough, José Guillen hammered Casey Janssen's first pitch in the M's half of the eighth for a tying homer. An inning later, he drove in the winning run with a hit past Troy Glaus.

It wouldn't take Eddie Greenspan to argue the people's case against John Gibbons' continued employement. The Mariners battled to send their manager Mike Hargrove out as a winner following his teary resignation and the Jays went about it the same way they have more often than not all year — lazy at-bats, mental mistakes in the field. (If the all-star Alex Rios had ever been given any pointers about throwing behind a runner, he might have picked off Adrián Béltre at second base in the ninth inning and nipped Seattle's winning rally in the bud.)

It adds up to a 2-5 road trip where Roy Halladay and Shaun Marcum have started four times and A.J. Burnett has landed on the disabled list again. Quoth Rotoworld, "Could the Blue Jays handle injured pitchers any worse?"

Along with mismanaging A.J., who's been good when he's healthy, Gibbons' teams didn't look ready and didn't seem to care. Compare that to the Twins, who got a series win over the Tigers this weekend relying on a lot of young players. The Jays only seem to care when everything's falling right for them and that reflects back on the manager.

(At least there's Marcum and his 1.66 earned-run average across his past seven starts. He can't lose, but the Jays have only got him three wins in that span.)

Saturday -- Mariners 8, Blue Jays 3: It's so, so tempting to go off half-cocked after this one and get on Gibby's-Gotta-Go soapbox after watching the Jays get their hind ends kicked in with their ace, Roy Halladay, throwing (Doc left trailing 3-1 after six and the Mariners salted the win away with a five-run seventh).

Then again, since every impulse we have these days tends out to be wrong, maybe it's better to give a 24-hour extension. Who knows, if Jason Frasor had got a strike-three call on .208-hitting Richie Sexson right before he hit an opposite-field RBI double that brought in the first of those five runs, it might have turned out differently. Or maybe not. In the meantime, keep the soapbox handy. It feels like there's a 90% chance the wild card is out of reach, but live for that 10%.

Besides, Port Dover, Ont.'s John Axford got a save for the Staten Island Yankees last night. He's receiving a four-inning stint every few days, and has 14 strikeouts and just four walks in 12 innings with the short-season Class A team. True, this has a tangential connection to the Jays-Mariners series, although Axford grew up two hours southwest of Toronto and was drafted by Seattle out of high school. (Hat tip to River Ave. Blues.)

Friday -- Mariners 5, Jays 3: Have you heard about the Lonesome Loser? He's the guy who ends up watching a Jays game on the Friday night of a holiday weekend and then has this exact scenario play out. Frank Thomas strides to the plate, representing the tying run against Mariners closer J.J. Putz after a one-out walk in the ninth. The L.L. says, "Game-ending double play right there," and that's exactly what happens -- only there's no one else in the room to bear witness.

Yes, it was a night to be prophetic, in a sad kind of way:

It might take the Jays a night to disperse the bad vibes after failing to get a series win in Minnesota and (Dustin) McGowan might regress a little after pitching so far over his head Sunday that it was a surprise he didn't give himself a nosebleed.

He wasn't half-bad, but he wasn't half-good either. He'll be fine eventually.

Anyone want to lay some money down that Matt Stairs won't start vs. the left-handed (Jarrod) Washburn even though he has two homers off him in seven at-bats?

Game, set, match (and yes, this was written with full awareness of Stairs' stinky splits vs. southpaws -- but he had a good history with Washburn albeit in limited reps.)

Meantime, the real question: According to Hardball Times, Ichiro is leading the majors with 20 Win Shares through Thursday's games for surprising Seattle (10 games above .500, although their run differential is less than that of the one-below-.500 Blue Jays). So should he be getting more first-half MVP buzz than the Tigers' Magglio Ordonez, who's hitting .377 with power and plate discipline? Well, it probably won't happen. Ichiro is hitting .364/.419/.466, is leading the AL in hits and is 22-for-24 stealing bases, but doesn't he do that every year?

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