The Roundup

Singing Country Lady Mindy McCready confirms that her relationship with Rocket Roger Clemens did involve naked hugging. And so on.

Jeff Blair calls out Vernon Wells, who's been like night and day this year:

It's nice that Scott Rolen has infused the Toronto Blue Jays with a little bit of presence but, really, shouldn't that be Vernon Wells's job?

Good point. Through the first 3-4 series of the year it looked like V-Dub was re-establishing himself as the one-man wrecking crew he was in 2003 and 2006. Since then he's looked like Shea Hillenbrand: dead pull hitter, the patience is gone, the results are disappointing. I will pass on the opening for an inappropriate lemur comment.

The big loser from more of the same from V-Dub this season will not be the handsomely-rewarded centrefielder as much as it will be manager John Gibbons, who still has the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

We go into Boston with these three matchups:

Halladay-Lester
McGowan-Matsuzaka
Burnett-Wakefield

I suspect the finale will be the most encouraging game of the set as AJ finally brings it all together and throws a gem against a legitimate offense. It was nice ending the losing streak on Sunday, but now the real business of deciding whether we're going to let this season spiral out of control is about to be addressed and I am feeling more than a little bit of trepidation.

MLBTR reports that the Reds have been shopping an unhappy Ryan Freel with little success. The 32-year-old former Jay is owed $7 million over this year and next. Do you see where I'm going with this? If the Reds were willing to eat some salary to move him and unclog their outfield logjam, Freel (good OBP skills, has hit lefties well, good OF D, basestealing speed) is far more worthy of a roster spot here than Shannon Stewart.

ELSEWHERE:

* The Big Hurt socked a triple yesterday, his first since the dead ball era, and went 3 for 3 with a walk in the A's 14-2 drubbing of the Angels yesterday. Mmhmm.

* Ouch! The Giants move $100 million shitballer Barry Zito to the bullpen. Have I ever mentioned why I dislike Bob McCown? It's not because he's abrasive, that I have no difficulty with. But the man clearly knows nothing about baseball. When JP failed in his bid to resign Ted Lilly and bring Gilgamesh on board in the 2006 offseason, McCown dropped this wisdom bomb: there's money in the kitty, if you can't get two $10 million starters why not go for one $20 million one? He wasn't disuaded by Brunt's (I think it was Brunt) counter argument that the money required to git 'er done was just as silly as the idea of targetting a rapidly declining lefty with fly ball rates that spelled disaster in the Rogers Centre. The Bobcat probably does know alot about sports I don't care a lick for, primarily the CFL, golf, and professional car driving (I'm just pulling them out of a hat, correct me if I'm wrong) but he's a poor source for informed baseball commentary and is thus totally useless to me.

* Things that pass for funny in the lesser divisions of the American League...

-- Johnny Was