Jul 3, 2026; Seattle, Washington, USA; Toronto Blue Jays starter Dylan Cease (84) delivers a pitch during the sixth inning against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park. Mandatory Credit: Stephen Brashear-Imagn Images | Stephen Brashear-Imagn Images

Happy Sunday.

Dylan Cease will be the starter for the AL in the All-Star game, John Schneider has decided. The nice part about being All-Star manager is that you can give your own players a little treat (not that Cease doesn’t deserve the starter role). Dave Stieb and Roy Halladay are the other Blue Jays to start an All-Star game. That’s pretty good company to be in.

Cristopher Sanchez starts for the NL.

Nolan Perry had a good inning in the future’s game. Jo Jo Parker was 1 for 2 with a double and a fly out. The AL won 6-1. Parker had a run and an RBI.

Blue Jays pitching prospect Nolan Perry was up to 94.9 mph during the inning of work he just completed in the Futures Game prospect showcase.

He allowed a run on a hit batter, walk and two grounders. The 22-year-old, back this year from TJ in 2024, just reached double-A.
— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) July 12, 2026

JoJo Parker, the Blue Jays' first-rounder a year ago, missed a HR by inches at the Futures Game, ends up with an RBI double off RF wall.

Impressive swing on a 101.1 mph fastball from Miguel Sime Jr. pic.twitter.com/dtqEJWnekJ
— Shi Davidi (@ShiDavidi) July 12, 2026

Today’s lineups. Last game of the first half. It would be nice to go into the break with a win. No Springer today. I’m glad to see Clase getting a chance to a bit. He’s doing a great job (small sample size), hitting .308/.400/.769 in just 15 PA.

Sean Keys is also getting into the game. I’d like to see more of him. His small sample number aren’t as good, but it is early yet. .207/.207/.345 in 29 PA. I’d feel better if he would take a walk, but it is early days. He had 39 walks in 286 at bats in the minors, so the eye is there. It will come.

Today’s Lineups

BLUE JAYS	PADRES
Ernie Clement – 2B	Fernando Tatis – RF
Nathan Lukes – RF	Jackson Merrill – CF
Vladimir Guerrero – DH	Xander Bogaerts – SS
Kazuma Okamoto – 3B	Manny Machado – DH
Daulton Varsho – CF	Gavin Sheets – LF
Brandon Valenzuela – C	Ty France – 1B
Sean Keys – 1B	Jake Cronenworth – 2B
Jonatan Clase – LF	Rodolfo Duran – C
Andres Gimenez – SS	Sung-Mun Song – 3B

Kevin Gausman – RHP	German Marquez – RHP

I meant to talk about it earlier, but the start of July marked 18 years writing on the site for me. It really doesn’t seem that long, other than days when I look at a blank screen and see it as a reflection of my mind.

I’ve told the story often, but I just offered to help out while Hugo was going to be away for a couple of months. I really didn’t know what I had signed up for.

My first day, in the game thread, we were overrun by Mariners’ fans. I didn’t know how the site worked at that point (barely knew how to put up the post). There was some things posted that should have been instantly deleted, and I didn’t know how (I remember someone post clips of a plane flying into a building, something we didn’t need).

We got to the end of the game and the nice fellow who managed the baseball sites emailed me, saying ‘We do a recap after games’. I said that I’d been on the site for 6 months and hadn’t seen a recap. He said ‘We do a recap after games’. So I wrote a recap.

A day or two later, he emailed me, ‘You should do a morning post.’ Again I hadn’t see one on the site before, but I started doing morning posts.

He waited a week or so before emailing ‘An afternoon post is a good idea.’ I’m pretty sure I used some language not allowed on the site, suggesting that I was doing three posts a day, and had said everything I wanted to about the Jays.

Considering our daily page views were into the double digits at that time, I thought four posts a day was a little excessive. But the numbers did raise, and added more writers and life got a little easier. I’m more willing to give myself a day off, here and there, than I used to be.

Anyway, 18 years and I’m still here.

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