By TERRY NAU

Sports editor

Some things I think I think:
-- The Toronto Blue Jays will not trade ace pitcher Roy Halladay to the Red Sox, Yankees or even the Tampa Bay Rays. They can’t risk losing hockey-loving Toronto fans, who would completely boycott their baseball team if Halladay is traded inside the division, especially to a hated rival like the Red Sox or Yankees.
Halladay might end up with the Phillies, or -- more likely -- he will remain with Toronto through the end of the season and get traded when the time is right.
-- That doesn’t mean the Blue Jays won’t be taking a careful look at Clay Buchholz this Friday night when the righthander makes his first start of the season for Boston. Of course, half of the teams in major league baseball will be looking at Buchholz, who is blocked from a big league berth this season by Boston’s boatload of starting pitchers.
The key for Clay is to take Friday night like any other game. He’s been in the big leagues before. He can use the experience he has accrued over the past two years -- both the good and the bad -- to his advantage.
Clay knows what he has to do. Just go out and throw strike one. He has been doing that for most of his International League season. Throw strike one and then let big league hitters start guessing what is coming next.
-- There’s a parallel between Buchholz and New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain. Both were late-season phenoms in 2007 who have battled great expectations from fans, media and themselves ever since. Buchholz threw a no-hitter against Baltimore in his second major league start while Chamberlain dominated for two months coming out of the Yankees’ bullpen.
The career paths of both pitchers demonstrate how difficult it is to master the art of pitching.
Just look at Josh Beckett’s career if you doubt this. The Boston righthander just won his 100th career game on Sunday. He’s been in the big leagues since 2002. Injuries and a stubborn nature held Beckett back for most of his career with Florida. But look where he is today. That’s where Buchholz and Chamberlain can be some day, at the top of their profession. But it all starts with strike one, something Chamberlain is having seriously problems throwing over the past month for the Yankees.
-- Speaking of the Yankees, they just got swept by their jinx team, the L.A. Angels, over the weekend. The Angels put Torii Hunter and Vladdy Guerrero on the disabled list before the series started, then lost slugging outfielder Juan Rivera after the first game. Even so, they scored 29 runs in three games, beating up on Chamberlain, Andy Pettitte and C.C. Sabathia (to a lesser extent).
The Angels can’t beat the Red Sox when it counts, yet they own the Yankees. Why? Because Boston’s pitching shuts them down. The Yankees’ pitching can’t get anyone on the Angels out when it matters.