Reed Johnson shows off his man strength with 2 HRs tonight, including a walk off HR to win the game 9-6.

The defending champs come into town for their second three-game set at the Rogers Centre, which means that this is officially no longer the Early Part Of The Season. And if you told the Jays' brass that on May 24, they'd be tied with the Yankees and just 2 1/2 games back of the Red Sox, they'd obviously be beside themselves. Notwithstanding the fine start by the Orioles, they'll still take it, and the Jays have to realize that this is a legitimately big series and a chance to make some local fans take notice. Unsurprisingly, Doc will take advantage of yesterday's holiday to leapfrog Ted Lilly in the rotation, thus ensuring an opportunity to inflict his mastery on the mighty Bosox.

The press in Boston, at least, has taken notice. Noted Boston Globe curmudgeon Bob Ryan recently praised the competitiveness of the O's and Jays in print, observing that "[f]inally, we'll have division games other than the ones with You-Know-Who we can savour."

This week's Scout features a slumping shortstop, a mashing catcher and a struggling world champion far, far from home.

On to the Advance Scout!

Well, here it is: the first Photo of the Day from this past weekend against the Nationals. I figured I'd start off with the new guy getting his pants dirty as he slides into third base:

Alone behind locked doors
And have scrambled eggs for breakfast
And sit and read the box scores

One win for the Toronto farm, and woulda, coulda, shoulda.

The Rogers Centre may get a little more crowded than usuual for this mid-week set as Boston comes to town, likely accompanied by a sizable contigent of Boston fans making the trip for the series. There probably won't be as many as there usually is for a weekend series, but there will still be a good number of loud Bostonians in the stadium.

Sure, it's unusual to devote a new Batter's Box thread to a move from a non-Canadian organization.

But how often does a team designate its all-time franchise saves leader, a recent All-Star and a guy with 10 saves in 20 appearances through May 23, for assignment?

Danny Graves flipped a fan the bird and now he's gonna be a street free agent within 10 days unless someone -- paging Mr. Steinbrenner? -- trades for him and his US$6.25M salary. So, is Graves worth a shot, and if so, by who? And what would you give up for him, if anything?

Hot Glyndwyr burns another opponent.
Pistol whips WAMCO while Europe holds off Posse.
Baseball North backs into first place thanks to sour Papaya.

We've selected the six finalists in the Batter's Box Splashy Headline Contest. The winner of the tickets is up to you -- make sure you vote in our new poll!

Read on to see our finalists.

A home run yesterday deserves an off-day photo of the day today, don't you think? The new material from the weekend should start appearing tomorrow if I have enough time to process some of it today.

The Marlins have overtaken the Braves for first place in the NL East as the Braves struggled last week with the Red Sox and the surging Padres. The difference between first and last place is just 5.5 games - the tightest of any division in baseball - so it's still anyone's race.

Francisco Rosario was great but Gabe Gross stole the spotlight. Josh Banks is back on form, the Dunedin bats were mashing, while Lansing were all wet. A 3-0 Sunday on the farm.

For only the second time this year does a Jays series at home not end up in a sweep, be it for or against the Jays. A sweep certainly would have been nice over the Nationals, especially with the Yankees capitalising on Mets defensive blunders to pull even with the Jays in the standings. Although it’s a bit disappointing to not win with Josh Towers facing a struggling Tomo Okha, there are very few teams in the majors against whom a series victory is not good news.

The specter of whether or not Babe Didrikson Zaharias should win a spot on the recent All-Babe team raised another interesting question ... what kind of Hall of Names team could be gathered using only the 74 men to have reached the MLB level whose last/family name begins with the letter "Z"?

Josh Towers went for the Jays against Tomo Ohka and had his first struggles in a while. He breezed through four innings but was manhandled in the fifth for five runs. Vinnie Chulk later tossed up a three-run bomb to little-known rookie Tony Blanco, and the Nationals put the same kind of walloping on the Blue Jays that they'd absorbed in the first two games of this series, winning 9-2.

The Sunday morning before Victoria Day might just be my favorite time of the year. A newspaper, brunch, no work the day before or after, good weather, and maybe a little gardening on the agenda in the afternoon. Ahh. Your interactive magazine brings good news too. Aside from the Jays' shellacking of the Senate, the farm affiliates went 3-1 on Saturday.