With today marking the MLB trading deadline the Jays are stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place, as one of my high school teachers used to say. The Jays have three conceivable options: to go for it, to retool for the future or to stand pat. Those are slightly dramatic terms for the three options, but you all understand what I’m saying. J.P. and the front office face some tough choices today.

Quietly having a great little season is Aaron Hill.  Here he is transferring the ball from his glove to his throwing hand:

In a much-rumored deal, the Phillies traded All-Star RF Bobby Abreu and former Jay RHSP Cory Lidle to to the Bronx for 20-year-old minor-league SS C.J. Henry -- the Yankees' No. 1 pick in 2005 -- and 27-year-old LHRP Matt Smith. The Phillies will also pick one other minor-league player from an undisclosed agreed-upon list, while the Yankees will take on responsibility for Abreu and Lidle's contracts.

Abreu must still formally waive his full no-trade clause for the deal to be official. This probably clinches ...

Even the awesomeness of Huston Street couldn't make that game any better. Good thing I missed most of it.

The Toronto Blue Jays are driving me crazy.

We had yer fine pitching performances, yer awesome displays of power, and yer collisions at the plate.  More fun than a monster truck rally, as the farm affiliates went 4-3.

Maybe the Wild Card will be coming from the AL East after all...

Why does it always seems like at least one of the six teams is rained out every night? Can you guess who it was on Friday? Hint: it wasn't either of the two teams playing Burlington.

It was another typical day in the minors with two rainouts, two pitchers struggling noticeably with their control, a shutout, a team effort on offence, a 15-hit performance, a case of batter’s interference and players faring differently with their adjustment to Double-A.

 

I'm a little slow on this one -- the bad news has been out for a while that Pete Walker's season, and possibly his career, are over.  Here's hopin' rehab goes well, Pete!

Some things just don't change.

"Home run hitters drive Cadillacs. Singles hitters drive Fords."
--Ralph Kiner

Rehab in Syracuse, a guy named Ambiorix in Binghamton, Ontario boy does well in Dunedin, rain for Lansing, the empty set of things to discuss with Auburn, and a first-rounder's fifth homer.

Sigh.

After John McDonald's grand slam the other night, I promised another Photo of the Day for him.  And here it is -- John McDonald shaking the dirt out of his pants after sliding in to second base:

Again ... that's initially speaking ...

We'll go off the beaten path for a moment in this double-ititial odyssey for the Hall of Names (See the first four double-initial teams, "AA" Through "CC", "DD" Through "FF", "GG" Through "JJ" and "KK" Through "MM," here), and see if we can't put together a full team, or even a full roster, of players by combining the nine (there's a good baseball number omen) letters which did not have at least nine players reach the bigs with double initials.

Those letters, unfortunately, include II, QQ, UU and XX, each of which contributed exactly zero double-initial players; UU and YY, each of which produced just one; and NN (five), OO (eight), VV (two) and ZZ (three). So that's a total of just 20 players, eleven of whom were pitchers, but let's see what we can do anyway ...