Today's fun stat:

A-Rod is batting .471 with 11 homers and 24 RBI in his last twelve games against Toronto.

Plus that double.

Hendrickson, hitting his spots well, went right after A-Rod with two outs; that's six straight hits for Alex. With first open, he was careful with Gonzalez early, but got more aggressive and eventually made a mistake with the fastball; 2-0 Texas.

First four guys all hit the ball hard -- Stewart right at RF, Wells up the middle and Delgado right at 1B for outs. Cat's single looked like it was off a tee; Cerutti said, "he's playing pepper with the left fielder".

Ted Rogers is taking a deserved bow on Sportsnet.

4-0.

Todd Greene is known as an offensive catcher despite his career line of .242/.275/.432. He has only one skill, hitting the homer.

A pair of two-run HRs leads me to believe that Hendrickson's command has deserted him, but then I'm not lucky enough to be at the game, living many many kilometers to the west.

http://economics.about.com
The fans are certainly getting their money's worth tonight.

MP

A-Rod is batting .491 with 12 homers and 25 RBI in his last twelve games against Toronto.

http://economics.about.com
Pointless diversion..

NAME THIS PLAYER

Career Hits: 3505
Career Homers: 298
Career Slugging Percentage: .336

MP

[I really gotta get back to work]

Way to wake 'em up, Carlos!

Sounds like the paper airplanes are a more exciting diversion than the local 9. Hopefully at least one of Cat's catches will make ESPN's highlights - I'd rather see footage of him making a sweet play rather than reading about how bad his RF defense is.

Can anybody pitch here?

Did anyone think the Jays pitching would be this weak so far? I wonder how long management's patience will last, and if and when the axe falls who will go first? Unfortunately the weakest performers in the bullpen seem to be the one's with the higher salaries making them harder to dump.

And is there anyone ready to come up and pitch? How far away is Justin Miller?

Josh Towers has been effective at Syracuse though his strike out rate (13K in 22 innings) is not a good sign. (This is the same reason I don't think Hendrickson will be a great starter unless he starts striking a few people out). The only other players at Syracuse who have decent K/BB ratios right now are Thurman (16/9) and Thomas (15/6) and neither have been dominant (and coughing up about a hit an inning). So there doesn't look like a lot of help is on the way immediately.

http://economics.about.com
Ugh.. why was Tosca leaving each of his pitchers in there for only one inning? Did he want to tell the fans, "Our relievers aren't quality, but they make up for it in quantity".

He should have found one that could pitch to these guys, and left him in there for awhile. It isn't rocket science.

Does anyone want to chip in to buy him a book on baseball strategy?

MP

In the Star it quotes Tosca as saying the pitching is something they will have to look at, you can look all you want but it won't help this crew, the main thing is not to panic and bring up the young pitchers, like Thurman and Arnold, but let them mature in the minors until they have proven conclusively that they are ready for the majors,

Mike, the answer to your question has to be Roger Clemens, although I don't have his updated stats in front of me. No other pitcher has 3505 hits allowed, and no other active player would be close enough to be there now.

http://economics.about.com
I would like to retract my statement regarding Tosca's strategic ability. Tosca probably has forgotten more about baseball strategy than I'll ever know and my comments were made purely out of frustration of watching the generally poor performance of the bullpen over these 27 games.

MP

M.P., you may have a point. Tosca does seem keen on bringing in every single pitcher every single game; the Jays have used more relievers than any other team in baseball.

The problem may be that the Jays don't have enough long men. Creek is a LOOGY. Miller, Politte, and Escobar can't handle long outings, and Kirshner looks like he can't, either. (Tam can't handle long outings, short outings, or anything in between.) If the starter can't make it through the fourth, there's nobody other than Lopez who can pitch three innings, and Lopez can't do it every day.

I'd suggest bringing Justin Miller up to put in the rotation, and bringing Linton back for long relief. The Jays can then use Linton, Walker, and Lopez in turn for two or three inning outings, and then save the rest of those guys for short-inning spots. (Having three short lefties is superfluous - I'd suggest getting rid of the worst of them. Of course, figuring out which is the worst of those three is difficult.)

Also, Tosca may just have to learn to let the starter suck the runs up for an inning or two. Right now, he's managing the way Jim Fregosi did: he's getting the starter out at the first sign of trouble every night, and turning his bullpen into a collection of rag arms.

The way things are going, the Jays may option the O-Dog and bring up yet another pitcher.

Sorry, that's "Kershner", not "Kirshner". I keep confusing him with Don Kirschner, of "Don Kirschner's Rock Concert".

http://economics.about.com
I pretty much agree. When you consider the performance of a pitching staff, there's three factors:

1. Who is on the staff
2. How the pitchers are used
3. Luck

I think we can all agree that #3 is killing the Jays right now. There are problems with the second two, though.

This team *does* need more long relievers, less short relievers. Having Linton back would be good. He wasn't doing all that well, but to me he wasn't doing any worse than anyone else other than Lopez and Politte. Contracts being the way they are, it was easier to send him to AAA. I can't fault the decision, though I'd like to see him back up.

Having Miller back health would allow either Walker or Hendrickson to go to the pen, which would be an improvement.

Honestly, I don't think Tosca has had the quick hook at all. There's been a couple of times where I've been saying.. "Get this starter out of the game before he blows it!" The starter stays in, gives up a double and a homer and the game is over. The Jays have gotten 76 and 2/3rds innings from their bullpen, which is about MLB average. Overall I don't think the starters are being over or underworked.

I just get frustrated when I see a 4 relievers come in to pitch 4 innings, when the first one was pitching just fine. Last night wasn't a good example of that because pretty much everyone was stinking up the place. Of course, if I'm going to fault Tosca on doing that, then I have to find fault with about 25 other major league managers who operate the same way. I'm prepared to do so, tho. :)

MP

The Jays have gotten 76 and 2/3rds innings from their bullpen, which is about MLB average. Overall I don't think the starters are being over or underworked.

The Jays have gotten an average number of innings from their bullpen, but have changed pitchers far more frequently than any other MLB team. (I think they were 10 changes ahead of the second-most frequent team.)

http://economics.about.com
The Jays have used 90 relievers, which is about a dozen higher than the next best team.

MP

Bringing Justin Miller up is not an option; he hasn't pitched since reinjuring his shoulder in his first rehab start for Dunedin. No reason to rush Arnold or Thurman, so I'd call Josh Towers up and move Walker, the long man everyone agrees they need, to the bullpen. Towers made a typical start last night -- seven innings, 2 ER, 8 hits, 2 walks, 3 Ks, no decision. Hardly dominant, but his 3.38 ERA is the best in the Syracuse rotation, and he has AL experience. I don't know what was wrong last year, but if he's anything like the pitcher he was in 2001, he can help the Jays.

Bringing Justin Miller up is not an option; he hasn't pitched since reinjuring his shoulder in his first rehab start for Dunedin.

Oops. Time for me to write 1000 times on the blackboard: Must research posts before sounding off. Must research posts...

Calling up Josh Towers may be a good idea, agreed.