Zen Dayley: Thompson deals a lesson to Ricciardi

David Eckstein's out of the leadoff spot and the Jays actually put up a crooked number in the first inning for the first time since God knows when ... how about that? Just give Dustin McGowan some time to spit the bit.

There's a good chance that Cincinnati Reds rookie Daryl Thompson, who went five innings to win his major-league debut in a combined shutout at Yankee Stadium, will be the last Expos draft choice to make the major leagues.

Thompson and another rook, Bill Bray, blanking the Yanks is actually germane to the Jays' predicament. ShysterBall notes, affirms that fans can have a blind spot when it comes to parting with their everyday players. That seems to be J.P. Ricciardi's blind spot -- prizing barely league-average hitters like precious family heirlooms.

(Interlude: Please do yourself a friggin' favour and read Michael Lewis' Vanity Fair article on Cuban baseball. Thanks to Andy Grabia for the link.)

Then-Cincy GM Wayne Krivsky was roasted in '06 when he gave up two regulars, Felipe Lopez and Austin Kearns, in the trade with Washington that brought Thompson and Bray to Cincinnati.

Kearns is injured and unproductive this season and Lopez is just plain unproductive. The Reds don't have a great record, but at least they have some production in their old spots after realizing there was more out there for them.

• Now, a question for the group: How long before someone will get to removing a graphic that says "Catch John Gibbons' post-game press conferences" from the JaysVision channel (399 for Rogers Digital subscribers? That's one of those things that gets overlooked when the manager gets fired on a Friday.
• It's one thing to not be getting any run support, but the Jays' Roy Halladay and the Mariners' Erik Bedard are both among a group of ballplayers who lost a lot of money in a real estate investment. Unsecured loans? That sounds like a bad idea.
• There's a lot to relate to in this profile that appeared last month of the late Padres right-hander Eric Show (forever remembered for giving up Pete Rose's record 4,192nd hit, but so much more than that -- aren't we all):
  

  "Show later explained himself, to some degree:
  
  " 'We have a choice – to think or not to think – and I've come to the conclusion that most of these guys don't want to think about anything but baseball, and I'm kind of ostracized for that.' "

• One more nit to pick with the Jays organization. The JaysVision infomercial also has a featurette on former reliever Duane Ward that states "he took over as the closer in 1993 when (Tom) Henke retired."
  
  This would come as a great shock to many people, including Tom Henke, who pitched quite well for three years after leaving the Jays. Cripes, it's almost like Rogers Communications doesn't pay much attention to detail when it comes to their baseball operation.
• Ottawa Lynx fans would be interested to know that former outfielder Val Majewski has been signed by the Houston Astros. He had been hitting very well in the Atlantic League with Newark, where one of his teammates was Keith Reed, Ottawa's leadoff man for much of 2006.

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