Joyce admitted he made a mistake when he saw the replay. Oddly, though, he said that he thought that Donald had beat the throw. Huh???? Donald clearly did not beat the throw. Perhaps Galaragga missed the base. Perhaps he bobbled the ball. But Galaragga, and the throw, most definitely both beat the runner to the base.

Major league baseball players deserve far better than the umpires that are currently charged with calling their games. Incident after incident of shoddy work, to say nothing of the far too numerous overbearing personalities in the profession. I'm not sure what the solution is, but something has to give. This can't continue.

What Ryan said.

Weird game if you were scoring it, by the way (I was working it).

A couple of quick fixes to the bullpen would be:  put Tallet into the bullpen (replacing him in the rotation with Mills or Litsch); demote Janssen; and announce the reinstatement of "closer by committee" with an expanded committee that could include almost anyone:  Frasor, Downs, Gregg, Camp, or even Lewis or Purcey, depending on who seems to have the hot hand or the right amount of rest.  Of course that would violate MLB's unwritten rules about a rigidly defined closer for 3 outs in the 9th inning, so we probably won't see it. 

Long-term, the Jays need to sort out their closer for 2011 -- which might explain why the Jays keep going with Gregg.  If this is a rebuilding year, they can give auditions to several possible closers, as they've been doing so far this year.   With regard to Gregg: the Jays need to know if he can handle 4 games in 5 days.  They need to know if he can recover his equilibrium after walking a batter or two.  They need to know if he can handle a couple of questionable calls by an umpire.  Well, at least they're getting some answers, even if the answers aren't good ones...

I thought leaving Marcum in was a great decision by Cito when one considers the long term. How do you teach a guy to be an ace starter who can properly perform is situations such as those if he isn't tested in situations such as those? And let's face it...the Jays are performing well but the priority this season should be teaching.

I think the best way to find a closer is always to build your own. History is full of examples of teams who go through all kinds of contortions to find a decent closer only to discover that they had the best solution in-house all the time. Look at the Jays with Henke replacing Caudill in '85, or the Escobar/Myers/Koch dance they did in the late '90s.

Not that I have any idea who a good candidate for this would be. The obvious suspects are all defiantly refusing to take a step forward. But, remember: there's no rush. This team isn't going to get where it's going in the next couple of years. I'm willing to watch Gregg and Frasor and, I don't know, Roenicke fumble around for the foreseeable future while the Jays get the rest of their ducks in a row.

No others jump out at me as a closer who their team would want to dump

He would cost a hefty price in prospects because he's amazing and under a team friendly contract for awhile, but Joakim Soria would be somebody to target if you're serious about acquiring a stud closer.

One of the interesting things about last night's game was Maddon's decision to have all his switch-hitters (Aybar, Zobrist, Navarro) bat right-handed. The idea was to take away Marcum's change-up, which is his weapon against LH batters and also his big strikeout pitch (this season he's had far more Ks against LH batters in just slightly more plate appearances - and of course, LH batters are hitting just .169 against Marcum).

It worked, more or less - Marcum only got 2 Ks on the evening. But he still took a 2-1 lead into the 9th inning, which says a helluva lot about Marcum, to me.

Marcum would have badly, badly wanted the CG last night, and would have very much appreciated his manager giving him the chance. He's never pitched one and every starting pitcher worth his salt wants to be there at the end when everyone is shaking hands. Right now Ricky has bragging rights on him, and these guys are all pretty competitive.

got the benefit of tremendous defense

Longoria turned two absolute shots to LF into 5-4-3 DPs. The one Wells hit was right at him, but how on earth he turned the ball Hill hit into a DP mystifies me. What a player.

So Galarraga set down all 27, in order.  Then because of a blown call on batter #27, he faced, and retired, batter #28.  I suggest this game go down in history not as the 21st perfect game, but as the first perfecter.

He says that the only thing that is important to him is that the team gets the W, and I believe him. 

I believe him, too. But I'm sure he'd still love to be out there at the end of the game.

It's amazing that I look at the Jays lineup on June 5 and the three worst hitters, and only hitters under 100 OPS+, are Overbay, Lind and Hill.  I think it bodes well for the sustainability of the offense (to a certain extent) that those three could get hot and carry us for a while (and possibly Snider).  I think the bigggest threat to a 86-90 win season is starting pitching tiring in the second half.

I think the bigggest threat to a 86-90 win season is starting pitching tiring in the second half.

Without intending to criticize, I think both Romero and Marcum are pitching over their heads right now. I think they are both very good pitchers, but I would expect a regression-based drop in performance as well as a possible fatigue-induced drop. Further, I'm not sure that the brass wants either to pitch 220 innings, so some forced rest may be introduced as well.

Brett Cecil may have some rest foisted upon him, too.

And the 5th spot in the rotation seems open for all comers.

So I think we'll see a cast of many new (to 2010) characters paraded through the rotation in the second half as well as a regression, and reduced playing time, by the three-headed Marcum/Romero/Cecil beast.