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Kris Benson did it again, but alas, Scott Downs didn't. At the intersection of these two unfortunate events was an uninspiring, writer's block-inducing 7-2 loss that puts the Jays squarely between Daniel Cabrera and a hard place.


Boxscore: Maximum Terpitude

Star of the Game:
Melvin Mora keyed both early Baltimore rallies with clutch hits. He turned on a fastball and roped it to left for a two-run homer in the first, and knocked in two more runs with a groundball single to left in the second.

Defensive Play of the Game: There were a few contenders. Brian Roberts denied Lyle Overbay a base hit to right on a ground ball deep in the 3-4 hole. Aaron Hill tracked down a sharp 3-2 grounder up the middle off the bat of Davis Romero's first hitter, Jeff Conine. He fielded it, stepped on second to force the head-started Miguel Tejada and threw off balance to first to complete the double play. Mora made a slick glove save on a sharp one-hopper from Vernon Wells to lead off the fourth, and threw over for the easy putout. Two innings later, Roberts followed suit on a short hop to his left, denying Overbay another potential hit.

I'm giving it to Hill for picking up Romero and making him feel at ease, setting the tone for his 2.2 shutout innings.

Unsung Hero: Wells and Glaus crushed back-to-back homers to center off Benson. Jason Frasor looked excellent in two spotless innings with three strikeouts. But on principle, today's award has to go to Davis Romero, who was in prime Infuriating Finesse Lefty form in his debut.

Romero entered with runners on first and second, one out and Jeff Conine up. He missed with a couple of sharp-breaking changeups on the way to a full count, but was poised enough to throw a low fastball and induce a grounder up the middle. Hill made the Defensive Play of the Game to get Romero a good start on the road to the Brian "Wolverine" Tallet Memorial Award for Stranding Runners as a Mop-Up Guy.

After an uneventful third, Romero recorded his first major-league strikeout in the fourth, backdooring Ramon Hernandez with a 1-2 slider to get off the schneid. With one out, Romero made his lone egregious mistake, leaving a high fastball middle-in to Brian Roberts, who happily crushed it to the deepest part of the park. Luckily for Romero, Vernon Wells made the catch right in front of the 410 sign in left center. After Nick Markakis doubled on a grounder to Overbay that took a brutal hop and handcuffed him, Romero settled down and whiffed Melvin Mora on three pitches, jumping ahead 0-2 and enticing Mora to wave at a slider that bounced in the dirt.

Romero battled the opening-day jitters fairly well. He fell behind a few too many hitters for my liking, mostly in that uneventful third, but that's a minor quibble given the results. 2.2 innings, 2 strikeouts, no walks and 1 hit is a perfectly solid way to kick off a major-league career.

Today: Shaun Marcum and Daniel Cabrera reprise their pitchers' duel from 11 days ago. If you don't remember that matchup, Marcum didn't have his A game, but he battled and took a 2-1 lead into the seventh inning. With one out and Scott Schoeneweis throwing in the Jays' bullpen, Marcum was (rightly, I thought) entrusted with handling the always-dangerous Corey Patterson. Patterson doubled and advanced to third on the second out of the inning, bringing up Nick Markakis on Greek night. Understandably worried about letting a rookie face Markakis in his powered-up Greek night state, John Gibbons called on Schoeneweis. Unfortunately, the SS LOOGY was no match for Markakis, who scored with a cheap grounder up the middle to tie the game. From there, Schoeneweis' command vanished, the bullpen imploded, and the Orioles ended up coasting to an 8-4 victory.

Cabrera did have his A game, and he was impressively efficient in blowing away the Jays over seven innings. The Blue Jays produced some timely hits to coax two runs out of Cabrera on a good night, no small feat, but Cabrera still finished with seven strikeouts, a walk, five hits, only 92 pitches and, most importantly, a W.

Watching Marcum's performance in that game again on the brilliant archive service that is MLB TV, I noticed a few patterns. He insisted on pounding the Orioles' contact hitters with a steady diet of fastballs early, going for jam shots and soft flyballs. However, he made a conscious effort to avoid letting Mora and Tejada beat him, showcasing his off-speed stuff early and often. Even if you pitch those guys well, there's still a good chance they hurt you - Marcum fell behind 1-nil in the fourth when Tejada golfed a perfectly-placed fastball into the Jays' bullpen - but Marcum threw Mora nothing but off-speed stuff his first time up and had him guessing wrong the whole night, swinging on top of a pitch in the dirt for a K his second time and barely rolling over a 1-2 slider for a groundout his third time. Tejada was a different story; he got ahead 3-0 and lined out his first time, homered his second, and drew one of the easiest unintentional four-pitch walks you'll ever see his third. Whether Mora adjusts this time or Marcum devises a new plan of attack for Tejada are two interesting subplots heading into today's affair.

Marcum was quite efficient in that game, only needing 98 pitches to come within one out of getting through seven. He only pitched out of one jam, loading the bases around a Jay Gibbons one-out double in the second but inducing a harmless Markakis grounder to escape it. He'll need to be similarly efficient, since the Blue Jays' bullpen is quite tired; Downs threw 45 pitches, Romero 31, Frasor 27, Tallet 25 and Accardo 6. Fortunately, thanks to the modern miracle of 13-man bullpens, it's not an awful situation - League, McGowan and Ryan are all rested and ready, and Accardo's probably fair game to get a lefty in a tough spot. With the knowledge that the Doctor pitches tomorrow, John Gibbons can probably be liberal in his usage of League; if Marcum carries a small lead into the seventh, I'd expect a League sighting at the first sign of trouble, if not at the start of the inning altogether.

Elsewhere, after sweeping yesterday's doubleheader, the Yankees throw Randy Johnson at the Red Sox, who counter with 2003 World Series hero Josh Beckett. That's your east-coast Fox game of the week. The real question is, can Eric Hinske bash three doubles again, or is that just something he does in his first home game with a new team?

Game time in Baltimore is 4:35.
TDIB Saturday: Orioles 7, Jays 2 | 32 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
Dave Till - Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 08:33 AM EDT (#153520) #
One of the rarest, and most valuable, commodities is starting pitchers who are consistent - who can be counted on to give you a reasonable chance of winning every time out. Roy Halladay is such a pitcher, and is worth every dollar he is paid. Ironically, Jack Morris in 1992 was such a pitcher also. He wasn't good, but he didn't get bombed much - with a team with a good offense, that is usually good enough.

Scott Downs, unfortunately, is a pitcher who is virtually never mediocre. Sometimes, he is good (his previous start). And, sometimes, he is awful (last night's start). You can't count on him.

To a lesser extent, Ted Lilly has this problem: Lilly is a good pitcher on average, but on some nights he just gets gonged. Whoever signs Lilly next year will probably have to overpay to get him, and may wind up disappointed. (Or not. With Ted, you never can tell.)

I'm wondering: how common are pitchers who are consistently mediocre? For a team with a good offense, such pitchers would be more valuable than they would be elsewhere. If such pitchers actually exist, the Jays should try to find them, instead of spending big bucks on alternately brilliant and awful starters.

Elijah - Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 10:58 AM EDT (#153537) #
When I think of an effective mediocre starter, I always think of Kirk Rueter.  His career ERA+ is under 100 but he had a 130-92 career record.  Without looking the numbers up start by start, he was the guy that would epitomize the quality start.  He would almost always go just about six innings and almost always give up three or four runs.  In today's run scoring environment, that equals a lot of wins.

So while is ERA, strikeout totals and peripherals look mediocre, he regularly gave the Giants a chance to win.  Do you need a strong bullpen so a pitcher like Woody?  Yes, you do.

I put Aaron Sele and Brad Radke in the same vein.  Kenny Rogers has a higher level of performance than mediocre but I always think of him as consistent but with a higher ERA than what one would ordinarily see in a pitcher.  Maybe Kris Benson too.  I felt Chacin is kind of this way as well.  Dare I even say, a guy like Dave Bush.

But these guys aren't really cheap either - there's something to be said about a pitcher that will eat innings and give teams chances to win.  I'm not sure they're undervalued on the market because they tend to be serviceable third or fourth starters.  Which is obviously better than what the Blue Jays have this year with the likes of Towers and Downs.
js_magloire - Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 01:31 PM EDT (#153552) #
One guy this season is on pace to share one of my favorite records. Alonfso Soriano could become the 4th player to join the 40-40 club. He already has 39 homeruns, and is on pace for almost 50. He has 30 SB, and is on pace for 40, that'll be close. With one more assist, he'll become the first player ever to be in the 40-30-20 club, 40 homers, 30 SB, and 20 outfield assists, which is pretty amazing in and of itself (he leads the majors in OF assists with 19). He's also hitting .294, that's a pretty amazing season, I wouldn't say he's overrated now, as he will probably finish top 3 in MVP voting for the NL.
Curtis Dixon - Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 01:46 PM EDT (#153554) #
Regarding Soriano, I think he's a lock for 40-40 at this point. He'll be running wild the rest of the way, I wouldn't be surprised to see him attempt to steal anytime he's on first from here on in. Robinson gave Vlad the "red light" in this situation in '02, although he did fall short on the HR side.
Curtis Dixon - Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 01:56 PM EDT (#153556) #
I need to get my red lights and green lights figured out, at least before I get in the car again!

Obviously, I meant that Guererro had the "green light" in '02.
John Northey - Saturday, August 19 2006 @ 11:14 PM EDT (#153596) #
Well, at this point I'd say the Jays #1 goal should be to stay closer to first than to 4th (9 games from 1st, 10 from 4th).  Boston is still reachable (4 1/2 games ahead of the Jays) and moving into 2nd would be sweet. 

So, what is at AAA right now for starting pitching?
Josh Banks - 5.50 ERA 149 IP, 25 BB 111 K but 33 HR
Jamie Vermilyea - 3.85 ERA 107 2/3 IP, 25 BB 59 K only 8 HR
Josh Towers - 3.80 ERA 83 IP, 7 BB 53 K, 9 HR
Ty Taubenheim - 2.45 ERA 58 2/3 IP 14 BB 38 K 6 HR
Casey Janssen - 4.50 ERA 34 IP 5 BB 28 K 3 HR
Gus Chacin - 10.13 ERA  10 2/3 IP, 3 BB 11 K 1 HR

I think we can see why Chacin has been left in AAA.  Towers has to be tempting to managment to bring up as he seems to have found his footing at last, perhaps in September give him a few starts since the rookies aren't setting the world on fire, just the opposition bats.  Vermilyea is temping but that low K rate could kill him up here.  Banks needs to find a cure for homeritis.  Taubenheim is darn tempting everytime I look at his AAA numbers and I don't really know why he is still down there rather than starting up here (4.89 ERA over 35 IP 18 BB 26 K 5 HR in Toronto, 4.99 ERA as starter but 0-5 due to poor support). 

Y'know, looking at how JP deals with the kids I wonder if he mainly looks at W-L record for some reason.  Last year with Bush being demoted when he was pitching 1/2 decent but with no luck and now Ty getting the same treatment (Game Scores of 45-24-51-43-57-65-32 - two terrible, the rest decent). 

Looking at the kids who pitched this year and game scores (decent shorthand for quality)
Taubenheim - 45-24-51-43-57-65-32 - 7 starts, 3 50+, 5 40+, 2 sub 40
Marcum - 68-44-48-39-58-35 - 6 starts, 2 50+, 4 40+, 2 sub 40
Janssen - 43-39-78-50-81-49-51-54-61-28-6-38-63-27-40-44-25 - 17 starts, 7 50+, 11 40+, 6 sub 40, 3 sub 30, 1 sub 10

No other kids had more than 1 start (Rosario-37, McGowan-33)
Ty had 2 good, 1 bad in his last 3 then was sent down.  Seems weird to me.  Marcum needs a 50+ to hold his slot I suspect.  Janssen was gangbusters then 5 out of his final 8 were total disasters and 2 of the other 3 were bad so his demotion made sense.  I think the Jays should pick two and leave them in the rotation for the rest of the year, probably Taubenheim and Marcum at this point.  Maybe call up Janssen and let him do some long relief with McGowan.  Towers should be brought up just due to his contract and see if he can do anything.  I'd have Chacin see a doctor and do any surgery needed ASAP so he might be ready for next year sometime.

2007 - 2 slots locked in (Halladay & AJ) 3 open for offers.  Janssen, Taubenheim, Marcum having the first shots, Towers deserving one more try, Chacin getting a shot if healthy, Banks & Vermilyea being dark horses.  I have to think the Jays will get one more guy either through trade or as a free agent this winter (Lilly might come back but I doubt it).  Janssen showed amazing promise early then flopped, Ty looks good to me but not Jays management, Marcum the jury is out on right now.  Chacin is lucky when healthy but I wouldn't bet on it continuing.  Towers ... sigh.  I'd love to see two more pitchers brought in unless Marcum or someone else can show us they truly belong in the majors.
Mike D - Monday, August 21 2006 @ 01:12 AM EDT (#153671) #

Even though I have truly unbridled hate for both the Yankees and Red Sox, here I am at 1:10 am, glued to the television for a regular season game.  For all of the problems these teams cause the Jays and baseball generally, they create such great drama and so many wonderful games.  Seriously, how can you beat a ballgame like tonight's?

TDIB Saturday: Orioles 7, Jays 2 | 32 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.