Toronto Blue Jays

With the Blue Jays signing pitcher Ricky Romero yesterday to a five-year, $30.1 million contract, they locked up a very important part of their rotation.

Romero, who is still only 25, has been very strong for the Jays this season, only his second in the major leagues.

His inexperience at the big league level does create a bit of risk in this deal. But considering his willingness to compete and his improving emotional and physical control, he could well be the Jays' future ace locked up in a reasonable contract.

The Blue Jays signed 25-year-old former top-10 pick Ricky Romero to a five year, $30.1 million contract that will keep him signed with the team through 2015 on Saturday.

Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports has reported that Alex Anthopoulos has signed Ricky Romero to a five year $30.1 million contract extension. This is very odd for Anthopoulos, as he normally gives a bit less money in the early years of his contracts with options for big money later. In this case he gave Romero reasonable money, but this is the largest amount given to a player with less than two years of major league service.

According to Jon Morosi of FOX sports, Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Lyle Overbay has cleared waivers successfully, and now can be traded by the Toronto Blue Jays.

When Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos traded away Toronto's anointed next great First Baseman Brett Wallace, even the most hardcore of fans were perplexed.

We tried to console ourselves with speculation regarding Adam Lind taking over 1B full time or waxing poetic on Anthony Gose's huge upside (the guy we got in exchange for Wallace).

As Ric Flair used to say “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, that is just not going to happen. Woooooooo!!!”

There was no way the Tampa Bay Rays could be fooled three times in one season, could they? First it was Dallas Braden. Then it was Edwin Jackson.

The Toronto Blue Jays not only sweep the Tampa Bay Rays, they dominated in all aspects of the game in their recent series.

In the first game of the series, Toronto capitalized on Tampa's mistakes, as two of their runs were unearned.

We also saw the first of Toronto's strong pitching performances in the series, with Brett Cecil going seven complete innings while giving up one earned run on four hits.

J.P. Arencibia may have surprised most baseball fans on Saturday by hitting his first Major League pitch over the fence and then homering again in the sixth inning for the Toronto Blue Jays. However, the Blue Jays organization has been expecting this kind of power from Arencibia due to his power production in the minors this season.

Yesterday, Toronto Blue Jay Brandon Morrow arguably pitched the strongest outing of the year, let alone one of the finest in history. Morrow went 8 2/3 before surrendering a single to Evan Longoria off the glove of Aaron Hill. In only 136 pitches (93 for strikes), he gave up one hit and two walks. Oh yeah, then there was the 17 strikeouts, the most in a game since Johan Santana had 17 in 2006.

J.P. Ricciardi's tenure with the Blue Jays can be described with one word, mediocre. The Jays were never really that good under him, but also never really that bad. They had their good stretches and they had their bad ones as well.

Had they been in another division, however, the team could have succeeded in my opinion. But the unbalanced divisions in baseball is a story for another day.