On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Chicago Cubs (24-16) vs. San Diego Padres (15-26) - 2:20PM Est.

There are thirteen games on the schedule today in baseball, and nine of them are going to be played under the sun, the way the baseball gods intended it to be. So I figure I may as well feature the team that plays more day games than anybody else in baseball, the Chicago Cubs.

The Cubs offense has been mashing the ball all season long, and now Alfonso Soriano has finally joined in on the fun, as he's homered in three straight games (leading off the last two). Soriano is hitting .487 on the current 10-game homestand for the Cubs, a homestand that Chicago is off to a 5-1 start on.

Today will also mark the debut of Jim Edmonds in a Cubs uniform, as what most Cubs fans would surely consider a sign of the apocalypse becomes reality today. Why the Cubs would need Edmonds, I don't know, but they got him.

The unassisted triple play has only happened 14 times in the history of baseball (after last night), so whenever it does, people always praise its beauty, etc. But there are a lot of lucky circumstances that have to happen for someone to pull it off. Like the batter hitting a line drive with runners on first and second and the hit and run on. Which is what happened with Lyle Overbay at bat last night in the Toronto - Cleveland game. Here's the result, courtesy of Asdrubal Cabrera.

The Blue Jays presciently added a bit of depth to their outfield on Friday, acquiring Kevin Mench from the Rangers for cash considerations and signing Brad Wilkerson. Just hours later, Vernon Wells celebrated by breaking his wrist while attempting a diving catch. He'll miss the next 6-8 weeks.

The Jays will attempt to fill Wells' spot in the lineup by sliding Alex Rios to center and using Wilkerson in right field. Jeremy Accardo also went on the DL, and the Jays filled his spot in the bullpen with a familiar name, purchasing the contract of Armando Benitez from Triple-A Syracuse.

Yes, in case you lost track, Benitez signed a minor league deal with the Jays back in March and has down on the farm ever since. He only pitched a total of one inning for Syracuse after straining a hamstring and spending most of his time (seven whole innings) with Single-A Dunedin, but he's back in the big show, where he hopes to avoid picking up where he left off last year, which was pitching horribly for the Marlins down the stretch.

Can Benitez provide the Jays another weapon in their bullpen? My first reaction was that the guy was toast, but upon further reflection, he did strike out better than a batter per inning last year, even while getting shelled with the Marlins. So long as he's not put into a high pressure situation, there's no real reason to think he can't stick around a while with the Jays, perhaps providing inspiration for another failed closer trying to work his way back to the majors.

Earlier today we talked about how well the Blue Jays have been pitching of late. On more than one occasion we've discussed how poorly the Blue Jays have been hitting all season. That's why their decision to send Adam Lind to the bench after 19 at-bats is such a curious one.

It's true that Lind has struggled in those at-bats, just one hit and one walk, but making a call that quickly is asinine. Lind's proven himself time and again at AAA and didn't make a fool of himself in the big leagues during an extended cameo last summer. He may not be a star but you need to actually take the time to find out.

Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star makes a strong point when he says that the latest move shows the Jays have a real problem with indecisiveness.

Consider that on Nov. 2, the Jays signed Stairs to play in left. In December, they offered Reed Johnson arbitration to platoon in left. In February, they signed Stewart to battle for a platoon spot in left. In March Johnson was released. In April, Thomas was released. Stairs entered a DH platoon with Stewart and Lind was promoted. And then came yesterday. All we can say is stay tuned.

At this point, it's only a matter of time until Lloyd Moseby gets a call. This kind of haphazard team building starts at the top and is a bad sign for J.P. Ricciardi's job security.

(H/T Baseball Musings)

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Toronto Blue Jays (16-17) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (16-15) - 7:07PM Est.

It's been a few weeks since the Blue Jays cut themselves loose of slugger Frank Thomas because he just wasn't contributing anything on offense for them. Since that move, the Blue Jays still haven't scored very many runs, pushing only 37 runners across the plate in the 14 post-Thomas era games. Generally when you're only scoring 2.6 runs a game, you aren't going to win much, and the Blue Jays haven't going 6-8 in those games.

Over the last few days, though, Toronto has figured out how to win without scoring runs, and that's just not letting your opponent score any either.

Toronto didn't play a major league baseball game until 1977, which means they missed the Dead Ball Era by about a half-century. They've done their best to make up for lost time over the last nine games, though. After last night's 1-0 win against the White Sox, the Jays have thrown nine straight quality starts.

In that stretch, they've allowed just 12 runs and held the White Sox to five runs and 15 hits during a four-game sweep. It's not just the pitchers who are turning back the clock, though. Blue Jay bats have provided only 22 runs in support of their excellent pitching in the span, which is why the Jays have won six of the nine instead of all of them. And it's why the Blue Jays will need to keep up this otherworldly work on the mound if they hope to climb back into the AL East race.

Even though they've scored the second-fewest runs per game in the American League, Toronto has outscored their opposition by 14 runs thus far. Based on those figures, Baseball Prospectus figures they should be 18-15 not 16-17 to this point which you could take two ways.

If you're a glass is half-full type, it would mean that a boost to the offense could spur better things ahead. The rotation is strong from one to five, so good pitching should remain a common occurrence in Toronto.

The problem with Roy Halladay losing a one-run complete game in Boston last night isn't just that the offense failed to score runs for him, it's that those kinds of losses just keep on happening. The Jays have lost 11 of their last 15 games and aren't scoring nearly enough runs, 12th in the AL, to make it clear that there's an end in sight for their slide.

That usually means that the seat under the manager, John Gibbons in this case, is getting mighty toasty. He's not immune to thoughts about his own mortality and neither, it seems, is his 96-year old grandmother. Gibbons visited her on Monday's off-day for a little encouragement but got something else.

"She's still pretty sharp," Gibbons said of his mother's mom prior to yesterday's game against the Red Sox. "She asked me 'What's wrong with your team'? I said that's a good question.

Gibbons hasn't done a terrible job this season. He's been better about abusing his pitchers, has tried to run more to spur the offense and hasn't punched out any of his players yet. In fact, if anyone should be feeling unsure about their future, it's J.P. Ricciardi, the general manager.

There are few baseball sayings more ridiculous than a pitcher who just knows how to win. You'll hear it when a guy wins a bunch of games despite being an average pitcher, as if it were only the pitcher, with no help from prodigious run support, responsible for the victories. He pitches to the score, they'll say, and then denigrate a better pitcher with fewer wins as not having the ability to win games.

Next time you hear such nonsense, bring up Roy Halladay. The Blue Jay ace has thrown four straight complete games with an ERA of 2.86. He's struck out 22 against four walks in that period and has exactly one win to show for it. That's because his offense has scored five whole runs for him in that span not because Halladay just doesn't know how to win.

Sure, he walked David Ortiz and then gave up two hits in the bottom of the ninth of last night's 1-0 loss but that ignores Vernon Wells's misplay on Kevin Youkilis's winning hit. Ortiz, not exactly the swiftest of runners, didn't have to so much as slide to win the game. Jeez, Roy. Couldn't you just grit your teeth a little and spontaneously combust a run. That's what Jack Morris would've done. Because he was a winner but you're a loser!

When the Blue Jays released Frank Thomas last Sunday, they did so because they felt that Frank was breaking down and wouldn't be able to contribute the offensive production the team needed from him. Originally they just wanted to bury him on the bench, but after Frank complained (nothing new there) he and the team decided it was best to part ways.

Now no matter what the Blue Jays say in this situation, I refuse to believe the team let Thomas go because of his play (or was it the lack of high fives), and that it had a lot more to do with not wanting to pay him $10 million next season. I mean, considering general manager J.P. Ricciardi is one of them newfangled "stat geeks" runnin' baseball teams these days, there's no way he would think the small sample size of the 60 at bats Thomas had had up to that point were enough to make a judgement on.

So instead the Blue Jays just decided to let Frank go, and pay him $8 million to play for somebody else. Well, hell hath no fury like a Big Hurt scorned, because Frank has been tearing the cover off the ball since joining the Oakland Athletics.

In his first five games with Oakland, Frank is hitting .313 with an OBP of .476 and an OPS of .914. The man even tripled yesterday. That's right, Frank Thomas tripled, and the game still managed to take under five hours to complete.

In other words, life is good for the Big Hurt right now. Not only is he hitting well and proving his doubters in Toronto wrong so far, but he's gone from a last place team in the AL East to the team with the best record in the American League right now.

Where's My Tater? tracks the slow starts of notable sluggers who are taking their sweet, sweet time leaving the yard.

In the very first edition of this series, I singled out Troy Glaus for his sudden penchant for knocking doubles off the outfield wall instead of poking homers over the wall. Well, he finally got his first home run of the season on Sunday night, a two-run shot in the fifth inning that put the nail in the coffin for the Astros in a 5-1 Cardinals win.

Ironically, Scott Rolen, the man Glaus was traded for this winter, also hit his first dinger for the Blue Jays -- a solo shot in the first inning that helped set the tone in a 5-2 win for the Jays. Unlike Glaus, Rolen has an excuse for waiting nearly a month until hitting his first home run of the season: he broke his finger in spring training and didn't play his first game of the season until Friday.

If Rolen keeps up his "one homer for ever 11 at-bats" pace, he'll hit 45 dongs this year. Meanwhile, if Glaus keeps up his "one homer for ever 89 at-bats" pace, he'll finish the year with six. Inevitably Rolen will fall off and Glaus will heat up, but it's still fun to play with numbers.

Also breaking their homer cherry this weekend: Wes Helms, Kaz Matsui, Tadahito Iguchi, Akinori Iwamura and Michael Cuddyer.