Now that the first general manager (the Mariners' Bill Bavasi) and the first manager (the Mets' Willie Randolph) have been fired, it's an easy guess as to who is to go next in each category. Yes, they should be nervous with Toronto. Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi and manager John Gibbons went into the season needing the club to contend for a playoff spot to keep their jobs. It is not happening. The last-place Blue Jays took their 11th loss in the past 15 games Tuesday night, dropping them to nine games out in the A.L. East. They are an ill-fitting team that lacks the grit of a winner. The Blue Jays begin Wednesday's play with a league-high 16 one-run losses and are 16-22 in games decided by one or two runs. Gibbons likely expected to be fired by now. This is the last year of his contract, and a losing record in mid-June usually puts a lame-duck manager out of his misery. This is Ricciardi's seventh season on the job, and the Jays could have their fourth losing season on his watch. Predecessor Gord Ash was fired after four losing seasons in seven years overall. What makes Ricciardi's performance look worse is that Toronto's best players are holdovers from the Ash regime -- ace righthander Roy Halladay and outfielders Vernon Wells and Alex Rios. In the Ricciardi Era, the Jays have drafted poorly and made bad free-agent signings. The payroll has more than doubled in Ricciardi's tenure, but he has not made the most of such resources. Ricciardi made a mistake signing designated hitter Frank Thomas for the 2007 season, and the Jays have not improved since his release this April. Righthander A.J. Burnett is an underachieving .500 pitcher paid like an ace. His recent comments about being willing to play for the Chicago Cubs were appalling, the babbling of a loser. "Do we have problems?" Jays president and chief executive officer Paul Godfrey told the Toronto Sun. "Obviously, we do. But I don't believe we're at a crisis point. "I'm sure there are guys on the team saying 'Oh my God, what's going on here?' You take a look at this team on paper. This is a way better team than we've played." If management stays with Ricciardi-Gibbons, the Jays are done for this season and beyond. If management recognizes the obvious, do not be surprised if Buck Showalter again leaves television to get what he always has craved -- complete control of an organization. D-backs traded away their offense This speaks to the quality of the N.L. West. The Arizona Diamondbacks went 20-8, opening up a 5 1/2-game lead in the division. The Diamondbacks are 17-26 since (heading into Wednesday's game), and their lead has dwindled all the way to ... 4 1/2 games. No club in the NL West appears capable of making a charge at the Diamondbacks, who are vulnerable. The D-backs' offense has retreated to last season's low level, particularly in the outfield. Arizona ranks among the bottom four in NL outfields for average, RBIs, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. The Diamondbacks are tied for seventh in homers thanks to the production of strikeout-prone Chris Young. The struggles make the offseason giveaway of outfielder Carlos Quentin to the Chicago White Sox even more curious. Having Quentin would lessen the impact of Eric Byrnes' problems. Byrnes, on the disabled list because of a strained right hamstring, is well off last season's output of 21 homers, 83 RBIs and an .813 OPS. The Diamondbacks gave Byrnes a three-year contract extension last season, which made Quentin expendable. Having Quentin would allow the Diamondbacks to give a mental break to struggling 20-year-old Justin Upton, whose season has mirrored that of the club. After hitting .327 with five homers, 15 RBIs and a .926 OPS in the opening month, Upton has lost his way. He begins Wednesday's play hitting .177 with three homers, 12 RBIs and a .673 OPS for 124 at-bats since May 1. That includes a 3-for-36 with no homers, no RBIs and 18 strikeouts in June. Upton also leads major-league outfielders with eight errors, mostly on mishandled hits. With Quentin traded to the White Sox and Carlos Gonzalez sent to Oakland, the Diamondbacks have no appealing option in right field, other than staying with Upton. "I've always been a tough person," Upton told reporters. "You try to stay as positive as possible and keep getting your wok in. That's the way baseball is." Dempster in shape; Myers not The Chicago Cubs' Ryan Dempster and Philadelphia Phillies' Brett Myers both made the switch from closing this season. Dempster has handled the switch much better than Myers. Dempster has been the Cubs' second-best starter, behind Carlos Zambrano. Dempster is 8-2 with a 2.76 ERA for 15 starts going into Sunday's matchup against the Chicago White Sox. The Cubs are 11-4 in his starts. Dempster wanted this chance to start and was ready from the beginning of spring training after a vigorous offseason training program. "He came to camp ready to fight (Oscar) De La Hoya for 15 rounds," Cubs manager Lou Piniella told reporters. "He was in shape and on a mission." That raises questions as to just what Myers did all winter. Handicapped by inconsistent velocity, Myers is 3-8 with a 5.58 ERA for 15 starts. He leads the N.L. in homers allowed with 20 in 92 innings.

nstant replay has gained momentum the point of inevitability in Major League Baseball. To heck, the league is saying, with purists, curmudgeons and that old fogey of a commissioner, Bud Selig. MLB wants replay implemented before the postseason and wants to give it some time before October rolls around to make sure all systems are operational. Thus it was revealed last week that we could be seeing replay -- limited to "boundary calls" -- by August 1. The cases to be made for and against replay are straightforward. If you're against it, you're basically worried about ruining the pace of a game and about the possibility of replay eventually being expanded to include fair/foul, safe/out and even ball/strike calls. If you're pro-replay, you just want to see the umps get home run calls right in a noninvasive way. Each argument has its merits, but, clearly, getting the call right has won out and rule changes are nigh. It's hard to argue against using all available methods to get things right. But it's also hard to argue that MLB isn't giving in to public pressure based on an unfortunate series of missed calls, all crammed into a short window. Momentum for replay was glacial when the season started, but that changed in the course of four days in May. The Mets' Carlos Delgado was robbed of a home run by a bad call at Yankee Stadium on May 18, and, the next day in Houston, a hit by the Cubs' Geovany Soto was ruled in play when it had actually left the park (Soto wound up with an inside-the-park homer). Two days after that, a home run by the Yankees' Alex Rodriguez was ruled a double, and crew chief Tim Welke, asked if he'd seen a replay, said, "We just did, and we made a mistake." An admitted mistake. Egads. That's the reason we're on the brink of replay. Three missed calls in four days, and ever since, the push for replay has been on. Something in the range of 99 percent of home runs are undisputed, but because three examples of that small disputable percentage popped up one after the other, we're going to wind up with a rush to replay. MLB seems spooked by the idea that, with this kind of momentum behind replay, there could be a blown call that tarnishes the playoffs.