MARINERS-JAYS: HANGING IN THERE (SEATTLE'S NOT THE ONLY ONE WITH A PUTZ)

Sunday -- Jays 8, Mariners 0: There's the difference between the 21-year-old Félix Hernández and his future 26- or 27-year-old self. The phenom wasn't too phenomenatin' when the Jays turned the game into women's fastpitch — trade three-up, three-down innings until you can load the bases with walks and infield hits to set the table for the sluggers.

To be honest, this was in the bag as early as the second when Roy Halladay pitched around Adrián Béltre's leadoff double. Taking two out of three from the Mariners is a little like that sweep of Colorado -- it was more about the other guys having an evenout and crashing back to earth a little.

Still, enjoy this: Beautiful weather, a complete-game shutout from Doc and Steve Simmonswrote today that it's "hard to imagine that John Gibbons will be back next season."

Saturday -- Jays 1, Mariners 0: Enough about Josh Towers and co. combining on a shutout -- just tell us if the Jays managed to win.

The hitting, uh, has been kind of badly lately. Anyways, this "base ball" is very quirky and often hard to know. Here we thought the magnificent bastards of The Tao of Stieb had the Towers vs. Jeff Weaver matchup covered off quite nicely with their prediction, "Five bucks says that by the third inning, the managers just bring a tee out to the plate, and let the players have at it." Instead, two pitchers who came in with respective less than respectable ERAs of 5.40 and 6.82, just pitched a game that had a combined one run and seven hits despite the fact the wind was "19 mph, out to centre."

Vernon Wells and Frank Thomas are now the Nos. 5 and 6 hitters, not that helped.

Friday -- Mariners 4, Jays 2: There's baseball without metaphor (see Bonds, Barry) but there's never baseball without pop-culture references.

The Jays are akin to the last episode of Lucky Louie that actually aired where Kim (Louis C.K.'s wife in the show) decided she just hates Louie's guts and can't stand the sight of him. The whole time, it's done with a sense of knowing it's going to pass eventually, but there's no fixed timetable.

That's kind of how it is with seeing every weakass two-hop ground ball hit right to a Mariners infielder, every sub-warning track fly ball from a Jays hitter and everyone in the middle of the order hitting into double plays at almost every conceivable opportunity. (Jesse Litsch , who was behind in the count all night and get the first batter of an inning out to save his life, gets a free pass for this one.)

Eventually, one won't feel like such a schmuck for sticking around -- speaking of sticking around, Jason Phillips won't be. He's drawn his release and Curtis Thigpen is up with the big club to stay. There is no requiem for this backup catcher.

As for the Jays, there's a bright side out there somewhere. At least A.J. Burnett is throwing off a mound.

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