I hate left-handed soft-tossers. I've hated 'em ever since Frank Tanana pitched for Detroit and I hate 'em every time one of them shuts down a high-powered Blue Jays offence, which is often. Nothing against Jamie Moyer (10-5, 4.75 lifetime against Toronto) personally, since I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but I'd much prefer if he tripped going out to the mound and missed this start altogether. He'll be opposed by a lefty who throws softer than you'd think, Mark Hendrickson, starting for a Blue Jays squad that was playing sloppy, uninspired .333 ball over their 45 games previous to last night's win. A victory tonight would give Toronto the rubber match of this home series against a Mariners team that shows every sign of being World-Series-ready.

Last Friday I attended my second game of the 2003 season -- the Mariners vs. the Red Sox in Safeco -- as I alluded to on an earlier game thread. The game itself was compelling enough -- a 9-4 Seattle win featuring an Ichiro grand slam, a mammoth solo homer by Manny Ramirez, and some questionable umpiring -- but equally exciting were the following events.

A BB regular and avid follower of the Jays' farm system has stepped in as a volunteer pinch-hitter with this update. Thanks, Gerry.

By Gerry McDonald

The minor league season ends on Labour Day. That makes for 13 days left in the season. Some teams are just playing out the string, some are home and dry, and others are in a fight. As this is the first minor league update in a while, I will look at the last few days in my comments.

I feel like escaping from the drudgery of work today, so I'm going to open a thread for some general chit-chat.

I'll lead off with this... isn't it terrific that there are so many good pennant races around MLB right now? The AL West is close, the AL Wild Card is a good race too, there's a great three-team dogfight in the AL Central, and the combined NL Central and NL Wild Card race has *seven* pretty good teams clawing at each other for two spots.

According to Richard Griffin in the Star today, "The odds of Escobar actually signing before the season ends are as slim as Keon Clark. The odds of Escobar signing with the Jays after the season ends are even slimmer."

Griffin projects Kelvim, at 27, to have 59 wins (and 58 saves) after this season, then makes some interesting comparisons:

Matt Morris, with 61 wins at age 29, earns $10.5 million. Bartolo Colon, with 85 wins at age 30, was given $8.25 million. Freddy Garcia, 60 wins at age 27, is making $6.9 million. Kevin Millwood, with 75 wins at age 29, is earning $9.9 million. Eric Milton, with 56 wins at age 28, is making $6 million. But none of them had bullpen time to cut into their W-totals.

This does support the idea that he's become too valuable on the open market for the Jays to do anything but offer him arbitration -- which he insists he won't accept -- and settle for the draft picks.

Ichiro? Boone? Delgado? A case could be made for any of the three to win the AL MVP, though there are, of course, other players in the mix. The surprising Gil Meche toes the rubber for the Mariners tonight, while the not-so-surprising Josh Towers goes for your Toronto Blue Jays. Mike Cameron rejoins the lineup and will tour CF for Seattle, and, for the Jays, Mike Bordick will hit sixth and play SS, Kevin Cash catches and hits ninth, and Greg Myers is the DH, hitting fifth. Where's Josh Phelps, you ask? On the bench, yet again. Bobby Kielty will hit eighth and play RF.

Now, I know batting order is largely irrelevant in the American League, but you'd like to think Kielty deserves to hit higher than Bordick, the former's struggles against right-handed pitchers notwithstanding. I'll be around from time-to-time to check out the game. Enjoy.

There are some great freebies at Baseball Prospectus, including the Postseason Odds Report, updated yesterday. Of particular interest is the AL wild-card race, in which Nate Silver's computations assign a 57.9% chance to the Red Sox and just 31.6% to the A's. To put Carlos Tosca's stubborn optimism into proper perspective, the Blue Jays "hopes" are down to 0.3% -- in other words, it's time to play Kevin Cash and Josh Phelps.

I'll bet the Diamondbacks (four games out with 39 to play) would argue with the notion that they have only a 6.9% chance of becoming the NL wild-card team. So would the Dodgers, who are one game farther back in the standings, with a mere 2.1% likelihood of playing in October. The Expos, despite being four games over .500, are impossible longshots (0.2%) according to these numbers. In both leagues, the Central Division remains up for grabs among three teams, but strength of schedule and third-order winning percentage favours the Cubbies (by a surprisingly large margin) and the Twins.

With his agent in town to negotiate a contract extension, Kelvim Escobar has an incentive to continue pitching well. His maddening inconsistency seems a thing of the past, as he's 4-0 with a 1.68 ERA in his last six starts, allowing more than two runs just once in that stretch. Since June 3, apart from a disastrous outing on three days' rest against the Yankees and the Jeff Conine beanball incident, when he lost concentration (and the game) in one bad inning, Kelvim's been superb. If you ignore those two blips, his ERA is 2.14 in his last 12 starts.

The Mariners couldn't solve Escobar last Thursday, when he scattered eight hits and a couple of walks over seven innings, striking out seven. He can expect some run support against Ryan Franklin, who was knocked out in the fourth inning last Wednesday after blowing a 5-0 lead. In his career against Toronto (that start and five relief appearances, totalling 14 IP) Franklin boasts a 13.50 ERA and has held the Jays to a .403 average. Josh Phelps and Bobby Kielty are both in the lineup; Catalanotto usually plays against righties, but at least for tonight, he's on the bench with Woodward, Wilson, Berg and Cash.

We apologize on behalf of the Advance Scout, a victim of technical difficulties. This is the most favourable pitching matchup of the series for Toronto; it's Meche vs. Towers tomorrow and Thursday is finesse lefty night, with Moyer and Hendrickson. Some of us are already looking forward to Doc's revenge against the A's on Friday and the scheduled Canadian debut of Rich Harden.

Time's running out in the playoff races. There were no changes in the standings last week among the top six teams, but fifth place Nation Builders solidified their position (by routing my hapless Walrus 7-3) and Mebion Glyndwr extended their tenuous 1.5 game hold on the final championship-round slot to 4.5 games with an 8-4 win over the Springfield Isotopes.

The Rockies, determined to prove they are a terrible road team, lost their fourth straight to the Mets this afternoon, managing just two baserunners. Colorado pitcher Chin-Hui Tsao (previously hitless in his brief career) broke up Steve Trachsel's perfect game with a two-out double in the sixth. In the ninth, Greg Norton reached on a Jason Phillips error. Trachsel threw 103 pitches, 70 for strikes. Remarkably, the notoriously slow worker completed nine innings in less than two and a half hours.

This breaking news, with no impact on the Blue Jays or any pennant races, does give me an excuse to remind you that time is running out if you want to Ask J.P. a question in the exclusive Batter's Box interview. Depending on his schedule, I'm hoping to sit down with him on Wednesday and post his answers by the weekend. Thanks to everyone who has participated.

Jack Curry of the New York Times examines bunting. (Registration is required). There are some interesting quotes from players and general managers, including our own.

"The biggest thing for me is I don't like giving up outs," Ricciardi said. "When you're in the American League, one run usually doesn't decide a game. You need to keep tacking on. And I'll be honest with you, who the heck can bunt today? We work on it and they still can't bunt. We don't want to be the ones wasting time on it."

The Blue Jays will probably set a record for fewest sacrifice bunts. The number is 16, by the 2000 Yankees and the 1998 Tigers.

"It's our goal to be under 10," Ricciardi said.

The series finale (and rubber match) could be the best of the three games, with Cy Young contender Roy Halladay taking on last year's winner Barry Zito. Doc was unlucky not to win his 17th in Seattle; the Jays left a lot of men on base early, and there were some weird bounces later on. His record is just 2-3, 6.31 in six career starts against Oakland, so there are no guarantees as he tries for his third complete game in a row.

Zito is just 2-6 in his last 13 starts; his ERA remains a respectable 3.20 for the season, but his walks are way up and his strikeouts way down over that span. You could argue that he's never been more vulnerable, or that he's overdue for a dominant outing.

The only surprise in Carlos Tosca's lineup is Orlando Hudson at 2B; Dave Berg hits lefties much better than the O-Dawg. Mike Bordick's in the 2-hole, with Eric Hinske batting sixth. Forgotten men Kielty (RF) and Phelps (1B; Delgado's the DH) provide a lot of potential power from the seventh and eighth spots in the order.

In the Saturday Star, Richard Griffin suggests the Jays need a bench coach:

Because he spent 17 years in the minor leagues, where the manager is all things to all people, Tosca may have believed he could do it on his own at this level. He may believe that because he doesn't actually have much offensive managing to do anyway, who needs another voice. But he's wrong.

It's highly unusual for a manager not to have a bench coach. Gil Patterson is usually at the skipper's side, but a pitching coach's duties are challenging enough. It's not a bad idea to have one more experienced baseball mind in the dugout, from a strategic standpoint and for the sake of appearances. If the status quo continues into 2004, the current complaints about Tosca will soon become calls for his head.

This afternoon, a .500 team with rookie Mark Hendrickson on the hill takes on a playoff contender led by Tim Hudson. It would be an even bigger upset than last night if the Jays can pull it off.

Hudson was spectacular in a duel against Pedro Martinez in his latest, shutting out the Red Sox on two hits. The league is hitting .176 off him since the break. Although he's 6-1, 2.64 in nine career starts against Toronto, he's had trouble with Carlos Delgado (8-for-20 with 4 HR) who is the DH today, with Dave Berg (3-for-6 with a homer off Hudson) getting the surprise start at first base. Josh Phelps and Bobby Kielty are still fastened securely to the bench. Frank Catalanotto (300/400/500 in his last 10 games) is seeing the ball much better and returns to the 2-hole, with Eric Hinske (280/351/560 for August) now hitting fifth.

The Jays have begun a very tough road trip 3-2, which could have been 4-1 if they had supported Doc with a timely hit or two in Seattle. The bullpen is beginning to stabilize, with Cliff Politte, who was sharp again last night, setting up the closing platoon of Lopez and Miller. If Lurch can duplicate his most recent fine showing, when he held the M's to two runs in 6.2 IP, this could be an exciting, low-scoring affair.

The power's on here in the Upper West Annex, at least temporarily. It was kind of peaceful to sit on the front porch last night, see the stars (normally not visible from downtown) and listen to the Jays game on the radio.

After two starts in which his fastball either missed the strike zone completely or left the yard, Corey Thurman has been sent back to Syracuse. I don't think it's a mechanical problem, as much as a crisis of confidence -- when you're afraid of getting hit, you start nibbling. I'm not giving up on his considerable potential, but Thurman needs to learn that he can get big-leaguers out with the same stuff that works in AAA, if he doesn't attempt to throw harder, or more precisely, than he can. Josh Towers, in a very similar position, continues his audition tonight in Oakland; if he avoids "trying too hard," he's capable of keeping the A's hitters off-balance.

With an off day on Monday, the Jays won't need a fifth starter until next Saturday, by which time Pete Walker might be ready. Brian Bowles has been called up for extra bullpen depth. The 6'5" righty has a 1.05 ERA in Syracuse, but his BB/K ratio (15/23 in 25 previous AL innings; 19/30 in AAA this year) is always a concern. Brian is another who must forget that the opposing hitters are better in the majors. If he trusts his stuff and doesn't try to be perfect, he has a chance to stick around. Even if they need to send him down when Walker's activated, I expect Bowles will be recalled when the rosters expand in a couple of weeks. He's going to be 27 on Monday, and there are some talented younger arms in the system, so it's now-or-never time.