Okay, I couldn't think of anything clever to include in the title of the thread. The Blue Jays are 16-22 after a tough split of their four-game series against the Red Sox, and now face the Minnesota Twins, leading their division by 2 games with the second-best record in the league. Ted Lilly shut down Brad Radke and the Twins at the Metrodome last month in his best outing of the season; he'll need to do it again in the rematch, as the Jays bats are still cold. Slumps and false starts have been the order of 2004, and Toronto still hasn't shown that it's a team to be reckoned with, or even to be particularly concerned about; tonight would be a good time to start changing that.

All of us at Da Box would like to thank Rob Bradford for his great answers in our interview that we published on Friday. Rob and his publisher, Brassey's, were kind enough to allow us to run this excerpt from Chasing Steinbrenner, which will hit bookstores early in June. It's available for pre-order now (click the link above) from Amazon.

Enjoy!

Alexis Rios has been struggling badly at the plate for the last two weeks. I decided to do some investigation to see if there was a pattern to his hitting.

The day after a fine win, everyone's probably basking in the memory of yesterday's sunshine.

Here it is, the thread to talk Cheer Club strategy for Monday and Tuesday's games. And yes, we will have the drum, so come on out and join us in section 518, which is quickly becoming the Loudest Section in SkyDome.

It's pretty remarkable that arguably the two best starting pitchers in the American League East have faced each other three times before Memorial Day. In their two previous matchups, Pedro Martinez has emerged victorious over Roy Halladay, by 4-1 and 4-2 counts. Today, Doc needs to be especially sharp to keep Pedro and the BoSox from winning their third straight game at Skydome and sending the Jays back into their home-field doldrums. After an encouraging start on Thursday night, the Jays have been let down by their bats and their bullpen in consecutive losses; today, Roy Halladay might need to do it all himself.

The Jays bats were quiet yesterday while the Red Sox were able to hit 3 balls out of the park. The result was a 4-0 loss to the Red Sox.

Another day of mixed results for the Jays' farm clubs was overshadowed by a promising start to Jesse Harper's 2004 campaign.

In today's afternoon game RHP Bronson Arroyo (1-1, 4.55 ERA in 2004) takes on RHP Pat Hentgen (2-2, 5.59 ERA in 2004).

A 3-3 tie in the 8th quickly turned to a blowout as Ligtenberg failed to retire any of the 5 batters he faced. The result was a 9-3 loss to the Red Sox that snapped the Jays home winning streak at 6 wins.

I had a spectacular minor-league report ready for you, folks. Terrific stuff, took me an hour to write. And because I have a lousy computer and because my computer has a stupid owner, it's gone and I can't get it back. And it's now past 5:00 pm on Saturday. So here's the quickest damn minor-league report you ever saw:

Rob Bradford is the author of Chasing Steinbrenner, which is an in-depth look at the 2003 season of both the Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox. In Rob's words, "it is about the journey two teams (and the people who run them) take through the 2003 season in baseball’s most warped division. From the inside, it looks at the highs, the lows and everything in between that these particular professionals are forced to deal with on a daily basis." Rob was quite taken by the epic nature of the baseball season: "former Red Sox manager Grady Little said it best when he compared the campaign to not 162 games, but 162 seasons. Spending the time I did with the people involved on both sides makes you realize there couldn’t be a more true statement."

Chasing Steinbrenner is due to be released on May 21 and is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com. I initially spoke to Rob during the winter; the frenetic activities of the Red Sox and Yankees this past winter resulted in Rob telling a little more story than he had originally planned and a new publication date. So we caught up again recently and invited Rob to "step into Da Box" for a Q&A about the Sox, the Jays, and Chasing Steinbrenner.

I'm not around for the next three games of the homestand, so here's a thread for planning and meeting up.

And hey, let's throw the great party
Today for the rest of our lives
The band is just about to get started
So throw the switch
It's rock-n-roll time

The 13th of May was unlucky for Dustin McGowan and Blue Jay fans. In case you have not heard McGowan is out for the season with a torn ulnar collateral ligament. The Union Leader has the sorry details.

On the field Syracuse and New Hampshire extended their winning streaks while Dunedin and Charleston are still struggling.