We're open for comments now. It was disappointing to see Towers get hit so hard but he'd pitched well before that and he's been so good to date, it doesn't hurt as much to have reality intrude.

Will Halladay be pitching in the upcoming Boston series?

The trouble is, now that the sweep was blown, we have to endure a day or two of quotes from Mr. Ricciardi about how "we have to start getting a little greedy." He will say it three times, to three separate reporters, and it will be repeated 18 times, and my head will explode.

Them's the breaks with Towers. We get very good value from him, overall, for a fifth pitcher.

But I'm interested. Do people see Towers as the fifth starter in a contending Blue Jays? Or one of the young up-and-comers instead? The latter types are, I would think, the more likely to collapse spectacularly.

It's nice to see Barney's back in the bigs.

He was hired by the Red Sox as a non-uniform assistant.

http://tsn.ca/mlb/news_story.asp?id=125705

I can't help but be annoyed when the Jays have they chance to sweep a series, and two of the most reliably pitchers so far this year explode, whilst we make their fill-in starter look like an ace.

There's something wrong with that.

"jacket from banana republic"

What a great 10 questions.

Regarding Andrew K's question about Towers, my view is that he is not a fifth starter on a contending team. I admire him for what he is able to do with what he has but unfortunately what he has isn't enough. Too bad you couldn't marry Lilly's stuff with Towers aptitude. If I was either one of them, though, I would be looking over my shoulder soon as Francisco Rosario put up 8 shutout, one hit innings for Syracuse today and IMO is just about ready. I will be surprised if he is not starting in TO by July, at whose expense yet to be determined.

Towers has had 2 poor starts this season. That's a perfectly fine number. I am as comfortable with the starting rotation as I have been since the glory years. In the event of injury or sudden ineffectiveness, there are plenty of good options, but if Lilly has indeed turned the corner, those can wait.

BA has their top 200 draft prospects available

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/2005draft/top200h

Despite the outcome, from a Cheer Club perspective, it was an all-round fun day. I got to the gates at 9:00 a.m. hoping to get a decent spot in the lineup for photo day only to find that World's Biggest Fan had been there at 6:00 a.m.(!). I snuck into the front and we waited until 10:00. The absolutely incompetent group of security who's average age must've been about 75 kept us waiting a full hour after we were adverstised to go in. We proceeded into a the dungeons of the underworld where we were locked up for about 45 minutes. After being dehydrated, cramped and complaining, about the 3,000 Jays fans who were there finally got on the field. It was worth it.

I received several compliments from the players about the Cheer Club cowbells and such, and Aaron Hill thanked me for the Fan Club in his name. I got a picture of Chacin with the glasses sticking his tongue out ala Gene Simmons, and several other Blue Jays in their funniest faces I could make them put on.

Andy Dominique's face couldn't fit the diameter of the lens. I'm not joking. He's a pretty funny guy though.

No kidding. Towers is doing better than fine.

Towers is 37th in among all pitchers (starters & relievers, AL & NL) in VORP so far this year. He's ahead of Mark Prior, Tim Hudson, Rich Harden, Roy Oswalt, Matt Clement, Brad Radke, Mark Mulder and Randy Johnson.

I'm not suggesting he'll stay above those names all year, but I imagine any team would be happy from what Towers will give as a 5th starter.

VBF, so you got positive reviews on all the cowbell happenings?

Did you get any feedback on any of the chants, as barely audible as some of them may be?

There was very good feedback about the chants. Sometimes we think they can't hear them, but they can. We really didn't talk about specific ones, but Aaron Hill recognized our efforts for the "Aa-ron H-ill" chanting yesterday.

Rios already knew me, but when I told Vernon that I was the guy with the cowbell he said "0h you're the guy with the cowbell". He sounds very different live than he does on TV. Maybe he had a sore throat.

Dave Bush likes the cowbell alot. I really wanted to get a chance to talk to Ted Lilly, since over the course of this year his successes have varied when we have and have not used it. I wanted to hear what he had to say about it.

Out of the 3,000 people, nobody wanted a photo from Scott Downs. I really didn't recognize him at first glance since he looks very different live, so maybe that's why.

Has anyone else from Hill's draft year made the major leagues?

From the 2003 draft besides Hill, Ryan Wagner, Chad Cordero, and Tim Stauffer are in the majors.

#2 2B Rickie Weeks, Milwaukee
#4 P Tim Stauffer, San Diego
#14 P Ryan Wagner, Cincinatti
#20 P Chad Cordero, Montreal
#22 P David Aardsma, San Fran

Those are the ones I know of scanning down the list of the 2003 first round. Weeks was only up for a 12 AB hype-the-prospect look-see in September 2003, so Hill might be the first position player to 'legitimately' make it.

With regards to Towers and a contending team, I don't really look at starters as slotted #1 thru #5 - I do however believe contending teams strive to have two dominant front of the rotation starters and then 3 solid depth starters. We have only one front of the rotation starter in Doc, so ideally we would want another one and then in 2006 we can pick from Bush, Towers, Chacin, Rosario, Gaudin, Lilly, Banks and possibly Marcum as our 3 depth starters. Of those depth starters, ideally I'd want the 3 to each give a different look. Towers and Bush are too similar in my mind (and I am guessing that Banks and Marcum are rather similar to the two of them as well), so only one of the 4 ideally should start for the Jays in 2006. I'd assume that Bush has a much higher trade value, so he'd be the one I'd be inclined to let go and keep Towers in our rotation.

Anyone, including VBF, who was there for photo day, we'd love to get your favorite shots for Batter's Box exclusives. E-mail craig@battersbox.ca and we'll arrange something!

I wouldn't have believed the players could hear anything from the 500 level. Good to know.

The 2003 first round is looking to be a pretty strong right now. Several players are already in the majors and there's about 10 highly regarded players in the minors.

I forgot to mention, on Saturday I had the camera trained on Shea Hillenbrand when Doc went 0-2 on somebody, and the cowbell started up and Hillenbrand said, "Yeah!" and punched his fist into his glove and got set.