Zen Dayley: Travis will soon have as many big hits as Gordie Johnson

Top of the fifth inning at Fenway Park, Travis Snider, three-run home run off Paul Byrd to break open the game on the way to an 8-1 victory. He also adds a double and finishes with five RBI.

This one's for you, Massholes:



(What do you mean, there's still another game to play today? Details.)

Noteworthy

• Those among you lot who like to play GM should take note that Canadian starters Rich Harden and Erik Bedard are each free agents after next season.
• Sorry for the horn-tooting, but the weather-inflict scheduling snafus -- six doubleheaders today, along with the Houston Astros having no idea of when or where they'll play a big series vs. the Chicago Cubs -- occasions reviving a pet idea: A shorter schedule with more built-in off days.
  
  It doesn't have to 162 games crammed into 180 or 181 days.
• The Rays have called up phenom lefty David Price. This is like Christmas morning for a baseball geek.
• Mike Greenberg, the New York radio personality, argued that Manny Ramírez should be National League MVP for his quarter-season with the L.A. Dodgers. He's just as far gone as John Klima.
• Carlos Delgado sprucing up his case for Cooperstown. He's still no MVP.

Damn, the Jays

• An 8-0 lead over the Red Sox? Someone's decision not to follow the first game of today's doubleheader (had a date with a bunch of men who wear yellow and call themselves Gaels) is paying off.
• Sun Media's estimable baseball writer Bob Elliott is reporting that the Jays will have their Triple-A team in Albuquerque or New Orleans next season. Finally! An excuse to buy an Albuquerque Isotopes cap.
  
  Basically, your preference comes down to which Simpsons episode you like more: The one when Homer went on a hunger strike to keep the Springfield Isotopes from moving to Albuquerque, or when Marge played Blanche Dubois in a musical adaptation of a Streetcar Named Desire (with Ned Flanders cast against type as Stanley Kowalski)?
  
  Glove tap to John Edwards, who called that the Jays would end up with a far-flung farm team.
• Elliott caught up with John Gibbons, who says that he has a Sarah Palin t-shirt. (And Gibby was considered a dumb manager?)
• The DJF linked to an article in the London Guardian by a BBC personality Colin Murray, who inexplicably, cheers for the Jays. It's always good to get a Brit's perspective on North America's version of rounders (but seriously, Roberto Alomar was one of the "greatest short stops" of all time?).