Missed opportunities

Well that sucks.

Not that we want to engage in any discussions of the relative merits of scrappy left fielders. But Shannon Stewart has to take that bat of his shoulder with a man at third and the pitch dead red right down the middle of the plate in extra innings. That was just brutal.

There's no excuse for the Jays handing this game back to the Rays. None.

P.S. We think Shawn Camp may be a double agent. Somebody hook up some electrodes to his nether regions and make him deny it.

After a game like that, the snooze button is your friend

Extra innings can be fun. On a summer afternoon, with the lid open, free baseball is just the ticket.

But on a school night, with myriad projects to work on and a pressing need for sleep, last night's 14 inning, 7-5 loss to the Rangers was a bit of a shit sandwich. After seeing an A.J. Burnett sinking stinkball skitter between Gregg Zaun's wickets in the top of the 14th, we rolled over and told Mrs. Tao to wake us up if they managed to come back.

Unfortunately for us, the only thing that woke us up was the demonic squeal of the alarm clock.

Random thinkings

Gregg Zaun continues to like small ball, breakfast: When the Zaunbie King took second on a barely passed ball in the 12th, we were almost ready to concede that this whole small-ball, tempting fate running the bases like a maniac thing might just be working. Almost.

Joe Inglett is the saviour is a bum: Zaun's baserunning might have meant a little more if Joe Inglett could have done something more (or maybe more to the point, something less) with Franklyn German's splitters in the dirt.

Don't be fooled by Brian Tallet's ERA: Sure, it's sitting at a sweet 2.00, but Tallet's two walks and a hit in two-thirds of an inning was a flaming bag of poo left on Jesse Litsch's doorstep.

Stop dragging my heart around

If the past two games had us yelling at the TV screen and pulling our hair out, can you imagine what they would have been like if the Jays were playing for something more than pride?

Last night's 5-4 14 inning marathon sent us into conniption fits, especially when Aaron Hill flubbed the ninth inning game that would have sealed the deal.

In today's 12-11 extra inning loss to the Yanks, it was Matt Stairs getting called out on a close play at the plate that sent us into hysterics. We're actually pretty sure that he was out, but our fandom and wishful thinking had us convinced that he beat the tag.

We can only imagine how physically ill we'd be right now if this team were on the brink of a playoff spot and lost like that.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

The Return of the Gas Can: The Jays did a good job of hiding away the Gas Can for sixteen days, but Josh Towers managed to get out of the bullpen, see his shadow, give up the winning run, and then scamper back to the security of the clubhouse, where he can tell himself what an amazing control pitcher he is, and what a chump Tony Pena is.

Three more to the sick bay: We're wondering just who the hell the Jays are going to run out there in the final week, given that Shaun Marcum, Frank Thomas and Scott Downs all left the game with injuries today. We guess we're going to have to get used to the John-Ford Griffins and Joe Ingletts of the world for the next couple of series.

Were we dreaming?

Or did the Jays hang a crooked number up in the 12th late last night?

This is the sort of game that the Jays have been losing this year, so imagine our joy when we woke up at 3:45 AM (with the TV still on Sportsnet), and found that the Jays had rallied in extra innings for a 6-2 win over the A's.

Of course, we don't really know what happened, since we had already embarked on the jet train to Sleepy Town at that point. But it seeped into our sub conscience, and we felt good about it.

Equal Time for Commenters
Cheers to the Great Lakes Knuckleballer (CEO of the Fire Gibbons blog) for his spirited defense of Johnny Mac in the comments yesterday. It's worth a read.

The Marathon Men: Jays Win In Thirteen Innings

Before last night's game, we discussed Tomo Ohka's return to the rotation and how he had hoped to get real run support when he signed with the Jays. Well, he got it last night. By the time he left in the eighth, the Jays had scored 7 runs on 3 HRs leaving the rock solid bullpen combo of Janssen/Accardo with a Cadillac Comfortable 7-2 lead. Happy ending for Ohka right?

Add bullpen meltdown as a tag to the right hand column. Janssen came in and got jacked by Michael Cuddyer for two runs in the eighth. In the ninth Jeremy Accardo had his run-free innings streak snapped big time by a Twins team that put on a batting clinic resulting in a tie game. And the marathon began.

Brian Tallet was the pitching star last night. The gangly left hander pitched 2.2 innings of no hit baseball to allow the Jays offense the time to squeeze out the victory in the 13th on an RBI single by Lyle Overbay.

Highlights:

• "Is it safe?" The play of the night was our pal Sal Fasano's blocking of the plate to get Michael Cuddyer out at home in the fifth. He forced Cuddyer to slide past the plate without tagging and then darted towards him once he had stopped to get the out.


• Homer Dome indeed. The Jays (Overbay, Stairs, Clayton, and Rios) slugged 4 HRs in last nights game. Highest total this year.


• Manny? Matt Stairs' play in left field reminds us of another guy who often gets little respect for his defense. Like Manny, his arm sometimes makes up for his lack of agility. For the second time this week, Stairs recovered from fumbling the ball by nailing a baserunner trying to take advantage of the situation. We'd like to think that he does that on purpose.


• Rios and Stairs are red hot right now. Take note of that Gibby. No more riding the pine for Rios.


• Hard as Ohka. Tomo Ohka pitched a gutsy game last night and gave the team every opportunity to win. He was cheated.
• Defense with a capital D. John MacDonald's stellar double play at 3rd base in the late innings yesterday made our collective jaws drop. He can stick around.