ROCKIES-BLUE JAYS: HEY, IT'S BACK-AT-.500 FEVER

Sunday -- Jays 5, Rockies 0: So the feelings Dustin McGowan had a good bounceback start in them turned out to be incredibly well-founded. The really remarkable aspect is he took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning in a series where the home-plate umps seemed to be squeezing the strike zone all weekend on both teams. Again, it goes to show why this "base ball" is the best game ever invented: The Rockies and Jays combined for 34 runs and 55 hits across two games before McGowan went out and threw this one-hit shutout.

The Facebook group Dustin McGowan Will Breakout in 2007 (admirable sentiment; the spelling, not so much) is sure to have more than its current 49 members by tomorrow.

As a personal share, work commitments require leaving the house between 2:30 and 3 p.m. Imagine the dilemma. Along with McGowan having a no-hitter going, Frank Thomas was one swing of the bat from becoming the first player to hit his 500th career homer in a Jays uniform, and I had to catch the bus for work. Can you imagine the scene in 2027, the Sager brood — bright, athletic kids who thankfully for them look like their mom, Rachael Leigh Cook — asking, "So where were you, Dad, when Dustin McGowan threw a no-hitter on June 24, 2007?" ... "Oh, I had to catch the bus to work."

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Jim Hughson is hopefully going to get past the cliché-mouthing on his next few broadcasts.

Following Vernon Wells' home run with two runners on base which staked the Jays to an early 3-0 lead, Hughson said, "Sometimes you do just have to sit back and wait for the three-run homer." The Jays weren't sitting back. The Texan had just tried a hit-and-run with the previous batter, John McDonald, which as Alan Ashby noted on the radio, is something teams rarely do when there's a runner on a first base with none out (there's the risk of a line-drive double play and ruining a promising inning). The Jays were trying to force the issue vs. a shaky pitcher, Josh Fogg, who plunked McDonald after he had fouled off the pitch on the hit-and-run, putting two runners on ahead of Wells.

The announcers use hundreds and hundreds of words in a broadcast and not all of them are going to be perfect, but it's annoying to see a smart broadcaster trot out the same tired, long since discredited conventional wisdom. Granted, clichés, clichés, clichés ... people love them, you can never use too many.

Saturday -- Jays 11, Rockies 6: Syracuse call-up Two Cokes Ty Taubenheim -- that is what it takes to calm one's nerves when he pitches -- didn't pitch well enough to deserve the win, not that it mattered with all that offence, including Mr. Frank Thomas' reaching base all five times up on the afternoon. Seriously, once Two Cokes had a typically schizo second inning, where he struck out the side around a home run to Troy Tulowitzski on a first-pitch fastball and a hit batter, we were out of there. Still, the Jays won, somehow.

It's hard to trust this newfound offence, since these last two games seem to be at least as much about the Rockies starting to throw a couple games away. They're a decent team, but that 20-9 record since May 22 and that head-turning sweep of the Yankees probably flatters their team a bit. They're an 83- or 84-win team, which is probably the Jays' future.

Deadspin, by the way, has an item about a minor-league team who wheeled the casket of a recently deceased fan around the bases that concludes, "hey, he still made it around the bases faster than Frank Thomas."

This is where you say, "Hey!" indignantly and then nod and say, "Yeah, that's pretty much right."

Friday -- Jays 9, Rockies 8 (10 innings): There's one of those 54 games a team win in spite of themselves; the Jays seemed to have let this one get away by failing to get a big inning in with fifth (bases loaded, one out, only scored two on a Troy Glaus single) and the seventh (men on the corners, none out, and settled for one on Glaus' game-tying sac fly). Then bam, four straight singles from the bottom of the order and one bad throw from Rockies catcher Chris Iannetta in the 10th, and the Jays had a win.

With Lucky Number Seven Josh Towers starting, a night of Russian roulette didn't seem so bad, but fortunately for Toronto there was no bullet in the chamber.

Vernon Wells in the leadoff spot? This is one of The Texan's redeeming qualities -- he's willing to try stuff that's not rooted in orthodoxy. Wells scored three runs, so why not try it again?

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