Purcey, New York. 72°F, partly cloudy.

Resident favourite Big Dave Purcey was good but not great in his first outing back with the bus-riders in Syracuse. It looked like this:

Syracuse
Player	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Purcey (L, 2-1)	6.0	5	3	2	4	9	1	2.16

The D behind Big D was less than stellar, leading to an unearned run. Ironically neither of Syracuse's 2 errors was made by Russ Adams. In going 6 complete, Purcey threw 63 of 104 pitches for strikes, induced 3 groundouts and 6 flyouts, striking out 9 and walking 4 (against a patient Bosox affiliate). He surrendered a solo homer to George Kottaras.

This is pretty much typical Purcey: lots of Ks, a few more walks than you'd like to see and not to many hits.

If Gibby railed against Litsch last night because he doesn't have "stuff", the club might as well send him down to Syracuse to work on his sinker, just as our friend Jon Hale suggests. If Gibby was railing against Litsch because he wasn't throwing strikes, he's not going to be happy with Purcey, either. Pick your poison. They'll probably continue to go with Litsch until he pitches his way into a demotion, and the Vegas odds on that aren't long.

Adam Lind went 0 for 4, dropping his average to .355. He clearly needs to bring it back up to Ted Williams 1941 territory before earning a call to the big club. Rios is sick, too, but whatever.

The Syracuses lost the game 3-1, ending a nifty little 8-game winning streak.

As I write this the Jays are trying not to lose to the Rays again, but are finding that to be a mean task as they are fielding a team that is 5/9ths declining veterans, raw rookies and career minor league utility men.

Rando notes from the 8th inning:

* Robinzon Diaz made his ML debut, making outs of the first pitch of his first two ABs. Since he was DHing, he must've had time for a talk with Denbo between innings because in his third trip he took 3 straight pitches, 2 balls and a strike, fouled three more off, then hit an easy grounder to short. His PPA skyrocketed from 1 to 3! That's ML patience. Rance "likes his approach", even though it doesn't necessarily fit with the Denbo system. I don't really know what to think about him yet.

* Barajas played first for Overbay tonight, which fits with the strategy of "resting" one of the team's few productive to semi-productive bats in favour of roster filler. I thought it would've been Hill, but I guess he can take tomorrow night off for J-Mac as the Rays look to complete the 3-game sweep.

* Stairs socked a pair of dingers, and hit two deep fly ball for good measure, earning big cheers from a "home" crowd that doesn't appear to be paying much attention to anything on the field. He's probably the most feared hitter in the lineup now.

* That 5th inning ralley was something: Inglett single, SB, SB, runner on 3rd with none out. Eckstein K, Stew hits an easy infield fly, and Hill grounds out. I told Jay K. earlier I figured Doc would take another CG loss tonight, and it's sure looking like that'll be the case.

* Looking forward to listening to JaysTalk as I watch the D-backs with the mute button on. There have been several managerial moves over the past three games that were clearly indefensible, so it'll be interesting to see how Wilner does crowd control.

-- Johnny Was