Jays make it close, but no cigar

It was almost as rare as the sight of a unicorn galloping across a rainbow; Roy Halladay giving up back to back home runs. It’s such a seldom occurrence that Halladay himself was probably just as stunned as everyone else when he watched that second straight home run sail over the right field fence.

Sure, since June 8th Roy Halladay only has one win to his name but that’s not really his fault. In those 8 starts he has a 3.12 ERA, so the problem is not really with Halladay it’s that his team can’t put runs on the board when he needs them to.

Given, at least the Blue Jays made it interesting down the stretch. A two out RBI double from Vernon Wells (no, that’s not a misprint) led the late charge, but came up just short of staging a miraculous comeback against the best closer in baseball today. For a brief moment Mariano Rivera showed he was actually human, but then he was back to his usually dominant self and got Aaron Hill to pop up and end the game.

Once again, there were several questionable managerial moves (or lack thereof) during the game. First off, having Kevin Millar as the cleanup hitter is a death sentence right from the start. When your best hitters at the top of the lineup are on base and Millar with a .167 batting average in the number four spot comes up to the plate, it’s almost bound to end badly.

As Wilner pointed out on Jays Talk, Phil Hughes owns right handed hitters this year (.206 AVG) as opposed to lefties (.255 AVG). That’s why the decision to keep Kevin Millar in the game with Lyle Overbay on the bench is even more puzzling. Sometimes Cito’s moves would make a hell of a lot more sense if he was at least consistent with his reasoning. But once again, we there are no answers but plenty of unanswered questions.