...sort of. Nasty weather has staggered the Jays' higher-level farm teams, as AA New Haven has experienced three consecutive washouts and, more problematically, AAA Syracuse has had six straight rain/snowouts. That spells a lot of doubleheaders later in the year, which is never a good thing for a pitching staff.

On the brighter side, High-A Dunedin has seen sunnier skies in the Florida State League, and is off to a very respectable 4-3 start. The D-Jays' Website is not exactly rich in detail about statistics and player performances, though they're more than happy to report that every Thursday is Coors Guys Night Out. However, game summaries indicate that Russ Adams and Tyrell Godwin have started off the year particularly hot, and that the pitchers are throwing bullets.

Dustin McGowan and Chad Pleiness have both had very strong games, while Justin Maureau had a great start against Clearwater. Slightly tougher times were had by a rehabbing Justin Miller and young phenom David Bush, who's converting back to the rotation, but even those outings were quite respectable. Personal favourite Jordan DeJong has been solid in relief as well.

More updates to follow during the course of the season, especially as the weather improves and (hopefully) the team Websites get updated a little more extensively.

Three pitchers with the AA Carolina Mudcats combined last night to throw a seven-inning no-hitter. This comes one night after the AA Akron Aeros had three pitchers combine on a seven-inning no-no of their own. And that followed by one night the wildly improbable nine-inning perfect game by AAA Nashville Sounds and former big-league journeyman John Wasdin.

Now, I'm no Jayson Stark, but I'm pretty sure that never before, on any combination of major- and minor-league levels, have there been no-hitters on three consecutive days in professional baseball. I don't even want to guess at the odds against it. There are caveats, of course: 21-out minor-league no-hitters aren't as impressive as the real thing, for one --- kind of like saying Dreamcatcher was a great movie except for the last half-hour. And the frigid weather lately has probably been an advantage to pitchers -- witness the 26K-duel between Javier Vazquez and Mark Prior in chilly Wrigley yesterday.

But even though these three straight no-hitters have only freak coincidence value, I'm taking them as a symbol of a deeper, unrelated trend: the gradual but definite swing of the pendulum back from the hitters' era of the '90s to a new pitchers' era of the '00s. The young guns that have emerged in the last few years -- Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Matt Clement, Roy Oswalt, Wade Miller, Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, Mark Mulder, Roy Halladay, Mark Buehrle, Jarrod Washburn, Randy Wolf, Vincente Padilla, Brett Myers, Brandon Duckworth, Brad Penny, AJ Burnett, Josh Beckett, Javier Vazquez, and Matt Morris, to name some -- and those yet to come, including the likes of Rich Harden and Jason Arnold, presage a new dominance of pitching. I predict that by 2006, we'll be looking back at the 60- and 70- home run seasons of the late '90s and shaking our heads in disbelief. Baseball is a game of cycles, and I think the pitching cycle is in ascendance.

The Baseball Hall of Fame has cancelled plans for a 15th anniversary celebration of Bull Durham because of the anti-war activities of stars Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. Seriously.

This raises many important questions:

- Why, exactly, is the Hall of Fame holding this celebration? Did they take a percentage of the gross from Columbia Pictures?
- In the name of all that's holy, where's Kevin Costner? He could fix all this! He's the Postman, for crying out loud!
- Why are they making a mess out of the greatest baseball movie ever?

On impulse, I decided to go to Wednesday night's game, and I took notes in copious (and somewhat scattered) detail. I took the liberty of starting my own entry for this, since it goes on a bit. Hope you like it.

Some notes on various pitchers around the circuit...

You have to use your bench players sometime, so tonight Carlos Tosca is going to get Dave Berg (RF, batting second), Tom Wilson (C, sixth) and Mike Bordick (3B, ninth) some AB against Boston lefty Casey Fossum. There will be no second-guessing from me; Hinske can use a night off to get his mind right, Cat's back is worth taking precautions with, and Myers has made two consecutive very good starts.

Ken Huckaby will get one of his final starts as Doc's personal security blanket tomorrow, unfortunately relegating Myers to the bench again, and there's another southpaw (Rogers again) slated for Saturday, so we'll soon know whether this is a strict platoon or mere lineup juggling; my guess is Hinske plays Saturday but Hudson or Woodward sits. The A-team won't be on the field together again until Sunday.

I hear there's another sporting event on TV tonight, and I might even watch it, but I'll also be listening to Tom, Jerry and Mike on 610 AM.

If you do Mens Journal has the full instruction kit on the famous Bonds' offseason workout

Personally just reading it was often to make me need a long lie down and a cold beer.

I particularly liked the "* Do not try this drill at home; you could break your wrists" disclaimer

Pirates farmhand Jonh Wasdin threw a perfect game last night for the Nashville Sounds against everybody's second-favorite AAA team, the Albuquerque Isotopes.

Well, thankfully we have a domed stadium in Toronto.

There's not a great deal of significance in the Week One standings in the major leagues; the Royals are undefeated. So in the Batter's Box Fantasy League, let's not award the Ricciardi/Tosca autographed T-shirt to R Billie just yet. If this sounds like the whining of a guy in 15th place in a 20-team league, it probably is...

Peter Gammons weighs in on the opening week of the season, dropping as many names as he can, as usual, including a familar one:

The Reds do love infielder Felipe Lopez as much as they say they do.

The latest rumour out of Cinci (heard it on the Braves game today) is Barry Larkin replacing Junior in CF, opening up a chance for Lopez to prove there's more than a 10-cent head attached to his 5-tool body. The prolific Gammons has two new columns on ESPN today, and in this one, mentions another ex-Jay getting an opportunity:

Brandon Lyon -- claimed off the waiver wire from Toronto last October -- has been (Boston's) best reliever with a win and a hold in two strong outings. As (Theo) Epstein points out, Lyon has some closing tools -- hitting 95 mph in short stints with good command of his fastball, changeup and slider -- but he hasn't yet proven he can bounce back or shoulder a lead.

I don't remember Lyon ever throwing that hard, especially last year. Youneverknow.

Kent and I watched the game along with Aaron Gleeman of Aaron's Baseball Blog.

We had a few things to say... watch out, this is a massive log. Pun sort of intended. Editor's comments are in **double asterisks**.

Just trying to point out, with the headline, how silly it is to get too excited -- or depressed -- about the first week of the l-o-n-g season, or to over-analyze the significance of one game or even a series. That said, break up the Royals!

Last night, the Jays left 15 men on base, which isn't good. However, they had 10 hits and eight walks, which is great. When faced with a "half-empty, half-full" conundrum, I always try to change the size of the glass. Considering that four of the Twins pitchers were tough southpaws, and I had predicted the "under", it was a fine offensive performance, and the Toronto OBP machine is starting to fire on (almost) all cylinders.

Some of us around here have been quick to jump on Richard Griffin when he resorts to J.P.-bashing instead of journalism, but that's not the case today. The Star columnist has broken a very important story -- an idiotic decision by an insurance bureaucracy has forced the Blue Jays' team doctors to resign. This is a knee-jerk reaction by the Canadian Medical Protective Association (motto: "covering our own ass since 2003") to the successful malpractice suit by ex-NHL-er Dave Babych.

The doctors -- Ron Taylor, Allan Gross and Erin Boynton -- would risk bankruptcy by treating injured players, because any malpractice insurance the Jays could purchase for them would not cover suits by U.S.-based athletes. This decision also affects the six Canadian NHL clubs and the Raptors. The next time someone gets hurt at a sporting event, they will be attended by paramedics, and if necessary, taken to a walk-in clinic or hospital emergency room (assuming you can find one that's open) and treated by someone whose expertise with athletes pales by comparison to the specialists.

Griffin shows restraint by guessing the CMPA is full of proctologists, but he's in the right neighbourhood.

Let's hope we see the real Doc Halladay tonight, and that the Jays keep swinging the bats well. We know they're vulnerable to lefthanded pitching, so I'm expecting a low-scoring affair.

I'm in baseball heaven tonight. My last draft, the Roto Junkies AL league, is under way, and I'll be watching the game later between picks.