Final Countdown

Tuesday, March 27 2007 @ 09:20 AM EDT

Just a few days of spring training left. The starters seem to be in place now. The battle will be for the final couple bullpen spots.

It appears that Ohka and Towers have locked up starting spots. At this point the only other consideration is Victor Zambrano, but I'm not sure that he's ready to start - he tired in the 4th inning against the Yanks on Saturday and still is coming of TJ surgery.

Player	ERA	IP	H	K	BB	HR
Halladay	2.40	15.0	11	5	1	1
Burnett	4.36	10.1	6	9	5	1
Chacin	5.93	13.2	16	6	6	2
Towers	3.20	19.2	15	18	3	2
Ohka	2.84	19.0	17	8	2	1

Chacin is still considered the 3rd starter. Towers and Ohka could go in any order, and really it doesn't matter all that much. Personally, I'd have Towers 4th and Ohka 5th.

The interesting thing to me so far is Towers' strikeouts. He's always been right around 5 Ks/9 innings so to see him at 8.4 K/9 is surprising.


The decisions that the Jays will have to make with the roster are in the bullpen. Ryan, Frasor, and Downs appear to be locks. The talk out of camp seems to make it sound like Marcum is a lock as well.

If the Jays intent to come out of spring training with the '12 best pitchers' on the major league team it would seem that both Casey Janssen and Zambrano would make the team.

Player	ERA	IP	H	K	BB	HR
Ryan	9.00	3.0	5	2	0	0
Frasor	3.52	7.2	6	7	3	0
Downs	3.38	8.0	8	6	0	2
Marcum	4.85	13.0	10	16	4	2
Zambrano	1.98	13.2	14	10	6	0
Janssen	2.31	11.2	11	14	1	1

In that case the Jays would be down to one spot remaining in the bullpen and a few candidates.

Player	ERA	IP	H	K	BB	HR
Accardo	6.76	6.2	8	10	1	1
Rosario	3.86	7.0	5	8	6	1
Gonzalez	4.50	6.0	7	6	1	0
Tallet	7.50	6.0	8	6	2	2

Personally, I'd go with Accardo, but I suspect that the Jays will go with Rosario or Tallet instead of risking losing them for nothing. There's also been chatter that the Jays are looking to trade Rosario.

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