Win streak!

Two wins in a row! All is well! Go ahead and shovel your antidepressants back into their industrial-sized tub!

Even with last night's 6-4 win over the Tigers, the Jays remain eight games back of the Red Sox for the Wild Card, although such considerations are probably way beyond moot at this point. Though they may be able to make up some ground on the BoSox, Yankees and Rays over the next two weeks of head-to-head matchups, the more likely scenario is that they split those series and end up pretty much where they are now.

And don't forget that with his acquisition by the Red Sox, the Jays will have to face the mighty Paul Byrd a few more times before the season is over. Given the fact that he easily disposed of the Jays with a 94-pitch complete game performance on Saturday, the Jays had better hope that they miss him in the rotation and draw punks like Dice-K and Josh Beckett instead.

Cito's lineup madness
It's probably best for everyone if we just forget Cito Gaston's bizarre insistence over the weekend on batting Brad Wilkerson in the second spot in the lineup. Maybe the dusty old book of baseball says that a left-handed hitter should hit second, but Wilkerson's big long wild stroke makes Adam Dunn look like Rod Carew.

Still, we're watching with interest how Cito utilizes Adam Lind. After a great game at the dish on Friday (2-4 with a couple of solid singles), Lind was bumped up to the cleanup spot on Saturday, where he promptly went 0-4. Lind was dropped to the five-hole on Sunday (0-4 again) and down to the seven-hole for the last two games, where he's gone 3-8 with a homer and three RsBI.

It's probably all a load of shite to speculate that any of this means anything, but we'd prefer to see Cito leave Lind lower in the lineup for the time being. We get that it must be tempting to move him up, especially since he is hitting better than anyone else on the roster at this point, but just let him settle in and hopefully see some fastballs with Rios, Wells or Overbay on base ahead of him.

Conspiracy theories? We got one.
A strange notion struck us over the weekend after we saw one too many hard-hit balls by Jays hitters die on the warning track: is there something funny going on with the baseballs in Toronto? We know that Colorado keeps theirs in a humidor or a deep chest freezer or something, but what about at Rogers Centre?

If the Jays pitching staff is mighty like few others (3.66 ERA ties them with the Dodgers for tops in the Majors), and their hitting is lowly like few others (only the Giants have hit fewer homers than the Jays' 81 so far), isn't it reasonable to ask whether if there is something in the environment that is causing the offense to be depressed in Toronto's games?

Somebody get us Oliver Stone on the phone.

A one-sentence post on...unlikely heroes

In the middle of this middling season of Blue Jays baseball, there's something odd and invigorating and bittersweet about a walkoff win where Kevin Mench drives in Brad Wilkerson.

Adam Lind is ridiculously awesome

There's some spooky numerological stuff going on with Adam Lind right now.

In 22 games since being recalled on June 22, Adam Lind has 22 RsBI. Weird.

Lind also has five homers, a .361 OBP and a .641 slugging percentage. Which adds up to a 1.002 OPS...which is really good. (Small sample size or not.)

In those 22 games since being mercifully brought back into the fold, Lind has one fewer homer than Alex Rios has in 94 games this season.

If Lind were to maintain that pace over a full season, he'd drive in 162 runs, hit 37 homers, and generally make everyone forget about whatshisname with the stupid chin hair and old creaky legs from the days of old.

(BTW, for those of you who are still pining for Reed Johnson, we'd note that the boy has a .717 OPS in 65 games with the Cubs. So stop.)

All of this raises two questions for us:

1) Who's idea was it to send Adam Lind down for more seasoning?
2) How can you trust the talent evaluation skills of someone who can make such an egregious error?

Mrs. Tao's Baseball Analysis
Our better half, upon seeing Brad Wilkerson's diving catch in the nervous ninth last night: "Holy shit! That's the second time this week that he's made an awesome catch like that! Why doesn't he play more often?"

We love her dearly and admire the straightforward simplicity of her assessment of Wilkerson. She might just be ready to be a JaysTalk caller.

Matt Stairs walks between the raindrops

It seems as though this is a post that we've been ready to write for months now, but every time we're about to commit our thoughts to the blog, Matt Stairs hits a game-changing homer, and we feel like a chump for having thought it.

But really, there's no one on the Jays roster who has escaped criticism more than the man from Tay Creek, N.B.. We're sure that it doesn't hurt his cause that he's a good, hockey-lovin' Canadian boy who has heart and grit and is a leader in the locker room (as if any of us would know that), but Stairs' production as a DH/Corner outfielder has been subpar all year.

For the month of July, Stairs is hitting .121, with a .521 OPS, one homer and three RsBI in 11 games while striking out in 15 of his 40 plate appearances. That just ain't no good.

For a good chunk of the season, it was hard to call Stairs out because he was actually leading the team in homers. But given a bit more time in this season and a bit more perspective, it's hard to tip your cap to the man for being the best of an outrageously feeble bunch.

Stairs is roughly on pace for about 16 homers and 50-odd RsBI for the season. No matter how much we love the guy, those are just not the sort of numbers that you can carry in your lineup for any extended amount of time, especially from a guy who is hitting somewhere in the middle of the lineup.

Telling sad tales about the feeble offense
Stairs might be struggling this month, but check out the OPS for a few of the Jays this month if you really want to ruin your day:

Gregg Zaun: .386
Rod Barajas: .451
Brad Wilkerson: .484
Scott Rolen: .573
David Eckstein: .560

Are we learning to love Scrappy Doo?

A funny and disturbing thing has been happening to us lately. We're going a bit soft on David Eckstein. Maybe it's the fact that John McDonald is hurt and therefore the scrappy gritty full-of-heart gamer isn't stealing playing time that we think rightfully belongs to the defensive whiz. But god help us, Ecks is growing on us. It almost feels like he's a Blue Jay at this point.

Mind you, we're not a big fan of him launching throws way wide of first as he did on Sunday versus the Angels, but now that Little X is hitting lower in the order and we don't have to think of him as the "prototypical lead off hitter" as some small ball proponents were suggesting earlier in the year, we can appreciate his ability to put the bat on the ball and extend at bats long enough to get a good pitch to hit just over the infielders' heads.

Speaking of small ball...
Against our better judgment, we're also big Brad Wilkerson fans in this corner. But watching him get thrown out at third last night just before Scrappy Doo dropped single into right sent us into a blind rage. We don't care how good a jump he got, Tabby and Ginger...you just don't need to take third on that play.

Stairsy makes Boof go poof

First inning grand slams are awesome, especially when they come from Matt Stairs.

We missed most of the first inning last night, so imagine our shock when we tune in and see the score at 4-3 before the sixth out of the game had been registered. Especially with Halladay on the mound, who deserved the extra run support for once.

Other things to like about last night's game:

• Two hits for Brad Wilkerson.
• Doc fighting back, and somehow becoming a strikeout pitcher again.
• That slider that Brian Tallet threw in the eighth to strike out Brendan Harris. That was so nasty, we had Janet Jackson songs running through our head for the rest of the night.
  
• Getting six runs on six hits, while holding the Twins to five runs on eleven hits.
  

Taking some time away from blogging to spend more time with work
Unfortunately, the real world has crept into our life and left us with a monstrous stack of work (real work!), so unless the Jays sign Barry Bonds or trade for Adam Dunn, things might be a tad slower in this corner in the coming days.

We could really use an intern.

What a Mench!

Hey now!

Not only have the Jays made it official by acquiring Brad Wilkerson, but they've also gone out and traded a sack full of mountie quarters to the Texas Rangers for Kevin Mench and his gigantic fucking cranium. (Which, as we pointed out before, couldn't have come from excessive intake of Lik-a-Maid. Swedish Berries, maybe.)

DFA'ed to make room for the two new dudes? Sergio Santos (we barely knew ye) and Gus Chacin. The Machine is dead. Long live the Machine.

Incidentally, it was Mench who hammered a comebacker off Roy Halladay's leg a couple of years back in Texas, so Doc should at least be allowed to get one good lick in on Heavy Kevy before his first game. Towel whipping, bag tag, indian burn, purple nurple...whatever the weapon of choice, Mench should prepare himself for the worst.

Now the question is: where in hell do you find the lineup spots for Stewart, Mench, Wilkerson, and Matt Stairs? And what happens when Scrappy Doo and the PMoD are back in the house in 15 days?

Moreover, What's Edgardo Alfonzo up to these days?

Waiting for Wilkerson

We're still waiting for the official word, but who are we to doubt Jeff Blair's report from last night that the Jays are about to sign Brad Wilkerson.

We've got mixed thoughts on this one. We like Wilkerson, but he really hasn't played well since leaving Montreal. There could be an argument made that the spacious grounds at RFK Stadium ate into his power numbers, but that wouldn't explain why his strikeouts have gone up and his walk rate has diminshed over the past few seasons. (Unless he was always swinging for the fences.)

As for the odd stat that he hits lefties better than righties, we can't shake the feeling that somehow, that's a bit of a fluke. We know that sounds stupid, but we also remember the lousy year he had against lefties in 2006, and wonder why he suddenly couldn't hit them.

Still, Wilkerson is a versatile player who can play anywhere in the outfield and at first. For the dirt cheap price that the Jays will end up paying, he's at least worth a look.

Useless Wilkerson Trivia
This will be the third Canadian city in which Wilkerson plays, after stints in Ottawa and Montreal. We'll bet he's still got a sack full of loonies and mountie quarters that he'll want to get rid of.

Also, Wilkerson's always worn a single digit number in the big leagues (usually 6 or 7), but all of the single digit numbers with the Jays have been claimed. Maybe a nice Timex watch express posted to Curtis Thigpen would wrest lucky number 7 out of his grasp.

(And yes, sad as it is, we care about such things. Numerology matters. Just ask our numerologist.)