Jays 2, Sox 1

General Thoughts on the Jays' 2-1 win:

• Dice-K's 4th inning meltdown was ugly, in a Rick Ankiel sort of way. If only the Jays had someone a little more fearsome than Jason Smith come up with the bases loaded. (Although to be fair to Smith, he has 3 RBIs in 20 ABs, one less than Thomas has in 47 ABs.)
• The Jays pitching looked fantastic tonight, with Gus Gus (6.2, 6H, 3Ks 0 BBs, 1 ER) looking as sharp as he has in a while, and Janssen and Frasor continue to look strong.
• Vernon was probably out at first, but we'll take it.
• Is it too early to be excited about the fact that the Jays leapfrogged the BoSox into first place with a win tonight?
  
• Danny Heatley can start scoring any time now. (Sorry, that was the other game we were trying to watch simultaneously).

Game 2 tomorrow - Wakefield (1-1, 1.38) v. Ohka (0-1, 7.84).

Now if you'll excuse us, all this Dice-K talk has us craving a gyro.

Tumblin' Dice-K

In honour of Daisuke Matsuzaka's first start in Canada, here's a paper from Professor Alan M. Nathan of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on the physics of the gyroball.

There are lots of additional links here, all of which essentially point to the fact that no one really knows what the gyroball is, but that it is probably not what everyone else says it is.

Pitching for the Jays is Gus "The Machine" Chacin (see, people really are calling him that name! Wikipedia never lies!) Chacin is 5-0 for his career against the Sox, with a 4.29 ERA, although his secondary numbers in those games (1.60 WHIP, 15 BB versus 11 Ks, .292 BAA) are somewhat less promising. Chacin also got past the 5th inning in just one of his starts against the Sox last year, and David Ortiz went deep on him twice.

Let's hope that Gus made an early night of it last night.