Well I certainly never saw this coming. /end sarcasm.

Just to put my comments in contest, I may be the only member of this blog who had a worse weekend than the Jays (some bastard tried to break into my house, now let’s go find 3.000 loonies to repair everything!) and honestly after Saturday’s horrible effort (yes I even interrupted a vacation out of town 2 days earlier to get home and watch that awful thing!) and Sunday’s too-recurring one-run loss, I had a bad feeling about Monday night. Despite Doc, of course but after all he’s human too and if the Jays can’t score at home against a team trying to overtake them in the standings (TB is up by 2 games btw!), do the Jays need some change among players? Does the club have a will to spend or not?

About Garza, that 1.99 career ERA against Toronto is a worry but for example when the Jays played Philly, they solved Blanton who had won three straight starts against them posting a 1.57 ERA so yes such situations can be solved but on Monday night, there was no offence until the club was trailing 4-0. Not even Doc can do much more than allowing just two runs in 6 innings after being on the DL, right? Plus, Rod Barajas made an error that was crucial. Although it was the club’s first in 11 games, seems like these lapses always come at the worst times and end up costing a whole lot more. These two things really worry me right now: too many soft starts in the first inning (just think about Saturday!) as Toronto has more runs allowed than scored this year in the opening frame but there’s also a trend where the few defensive lapses and just a few bullpen errors (a couple of runs allowed here, a couple there the following night!) end up costing maybe even a game in some cases. And the standings do show how costly this is becoming…..

…….I mean, the very good plays even lately do outnumber by far the one lapse made in the last 11 games but still, it’s an awful feeling knowing that the one error Monday night cost a lot although maybe not the game. However, a normal offensive performance on Monday would have more than made up and would have been enough to win. So yes maybe bad luck about those long flyballs but against a team that’s trying to overtake you and playing at home for the 3rd straight series, you need a solid offensive effort first of all to back up Doc’s return. In these last 3 losses, we only scored 5 runs. What else do we need to say? On Saturday zero. Sunday, they trailed early. Monday, almost no hitting.

…………had to be used to pay down some club debts toward the banks? I keep thinking about these things because Toronto didn’t sign a big bat and because the world keeps getting worse economically while football players in Europe get paid much more than the best baseball players despite playing a lot less. Since all major sports clubs over in Europe are fairly stuck in debt…I don’t know, I haven’t read the club’s financial statements

……….and before McDonald was caught stealing (not the first time we see that type of mistake this year) we had two on and nobody out in the ninth against Lidge. I mean, we had started the inning perfectly with the Chavez bunt and then we got the walk for Marco Scutaro. You just can’t throw away these big chances at home against the defending champions if you want to repeat 1992 and 1993 by replacing them. As simple as that!

……….well, that would be Jayson Werth sadly………in the last 9 games against Toronto he has 8 homers (he has gone deep in 7 of those 9). In the other two games, in one case he had a sacrifice fly and in the other (Sunday’s 5-4 loss at SkyDome) Werth had a hit and a whopping four walks. Infact, including Sunday’s game Werth had reached safely in 10 straight plate appearances. I can’t think honestly right off the top of my head of many other offensive players that have been so hurtful for the Jays of late. Can anyone?

Maybe more so than Jayson Werth. Including Monday’s game, when he was 2-for-3 with two RBI plus a steal and a walk, Crawford lifetime against the Blue Jays has hit .323 over 106 games racking up 37 extra-base hits (15 doubles, seven triples and 15 home runs!) with 59 RBI and 46 steals! Worse yet, he’s hit .318 with two homers and nine RBI when facing Doc Halladay.