In First Place, Blue Jays Are Pretty Sneaky

With the focus on the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox in the American League East, it has almost gone unnoticed how the Toronto Blue Jays have quietly sneaked into a two-game division lead.

“We’ve played pretty well,” General Manager Gord Ash said. “And we’ve certainly taken advantage of the Yankees and Red Sox not playing well. We’re not fooling ourselves in that regard, but I also think we’re as good as they are. We’re absolutely for real.”

The Blue Jays were supposed to have baseball’s best young pitching but, “We’ve survived on offense,” Ash said. “After [David] Wells and [Billy] Koch, our pitching has been very inconsistent.”

Koch has 17 saves, and Wells is 13-2 and headed for an All-Star start, but the high expectations for Roy Halladay, Kelvim Escobar and Chris Carpenter have not been realized.

“It’s a little disappointing, but it’s also the nature of the business today,” Ash said. “With great young arms, we all tend to fast-track them to the majors, where they learn it takes more than velocity.

“In the big leagues, command is essential. Take Wells. The most impressive thing is how many times he’s gone out there without his best stuff and battled. He doesn’t have overwhelming velocity, but he has command. He sets an example.”

Meanwhile, first baseman Carlos Delgado could be considered a one-man wrecking crew if he didn’t have others on that crew--Raul Mondesi, Shannon Stewart, Brad Fullmer and Tony Batista, among them. The Blue Jays lead the league in home runs and are fourth in runs. Mondesi, the former Dodger and replacement for Shawn Green, “has been everything we had hoped for and more,” Ash said. Mondesi is tied for the league lead in steals with 21, has hit 19 homers and driven in 50 runs at the halfway point, but he injured his ankle Saturday.

The Blue Jays are in the pitching market, but who isn’t?

“When it comes to pitching, we’re all in trouble,” Ash said. “It just depends on the degree of trouble.”

Meanwhile, the Blue Jays will quietly sneak along, not intimidated by the bigger spenders in New York and Boston.

In fact, Ash said, “Of the clubs we’ve faced, the [Oakland] A’s and [Chicago] White Sox are the toughest.”

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The Blue Jays have been one of the six teams contemplating a spring-training move to Las Vegas. Ash said, however, that the Vegas project “seems to have lost some momentum and is quickly dropping as a possibility from our point of view.”

Instead, the Blue Jays have moved closer to a deal that would keep them in Dunedin, Fla., beyond their 2002 option year, and the Dodgers--the key team in the Vegas venture--seem more likely to remain in Vero Beach, now that Florida has freed funds to improve the facility.

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The acquisition of David Justice and his $7-million salary lifted the New York Yankee payroll over the $100-million mark, officially making the Yankees the first team to pass that plateau. The Yankees are now at about

$102 million, with the Dodgers--in third place and 5 1/2 games out of the lead in the National League West--roughly $15 million behind.

“It’s been coming, so it’s not a surprise,” an American League general manager said. “It’s just another example of why we need a system that will effectively minimize the [payroll and revenue] disparities. I mean, wait until the Yankees sign their new cable deal.”

The Yankees’ 12-year, $486-million deal with Cablevision ends this year. They are expected to sign an even richer deal with Cablevision or start their own system through YankeeNets.