I'm glad to see Mills get a shot. Here's hoping the $75 I paid for his Lansing jersey in last season's jersey auction was a wise investment. Go get'em, Brad!

With all these injuries, I think the Jays are approaching the stage where they need to start seriously considering cancelling the rest of the season. At what point does it become irresponsible to keep sending young men in Toronto uniforms out onto the field?

At what point does it become irresponsible to keep sending young men in Toronto uniforms out onto the field?

When they're hockey players?
(Sorry 'bout that, Leafs fans ...)

Jordan Bastian says Halladay will be placed on the 15-day DL tomorrow.  So, who's the Next Man Up this time?   Cecil, I'm guessing?  Or maybe Purcey?

That is the question. 
Fabio Castro: 2.83 ERA in AAA (excellent) but 25 BB vs 28 SO (bad) with 4 walks in each of his last 2 starts
Brett Cecil: 5.69 ERA in AAA (ugh) but 19-32 BB-SO ratio.  5 starts since back in AAA with 5 2/3 to 8 IP (last start) per start. 
David Purcey: 4.28 ERA in AAA with variable results - 2 starts (out of 9) were sub 5 IP, 4 times got 7+ IP.  3 times walked 5+, 3 times 2 or less. 

Not the most exciting group, but I'd bet on Cecil out of these 3 being the call-up unless the coaches saw something in Purcey lately that encourages them.  Guess we'll see very soon.

Well we're truly in the hands of the young guns now.  The schedule coming up doesn't look too bad

@ PHI (2 more games)
@ WSH (3 games)
CIN
PHI
TB

That leaves us about two weeks from now, when we could expect Doc to return.  Aside from the PHI/TB games I think we should be able to battle out .500 ball at least.

And he's also reporting now that Downs will be placed on the DL tomorrow too.  So, Cecil and Accardo both up tomorrow?  If Accardo still doesn't get called up this time, he's going to start thinking there's a conspiracy against him....

I remember their was a point last season where I thought the 2009 Jays rotation would be Doc, Marcum, McGowan, Janssen, and Litsch. Every member of that group is currently on the DL. No other team in baseball has their 5 main starters on the DL at the same time.

Are the Jays simply unlucky with (major) injuries to their starting pitchers or should some blame fall on the front office/coaches/training staff/doctors?

The DL for pitching is getting a bit nutty.

Starters: Halladay, Marcum, McGowan, Litsch, Janssen, Ray
Reliever: Downs

Ouch.  6 starters and our closer plus the guy who is getting $10 mil to close spent a fair amount of time on the DL and doesn't seem fully recovered.  Guess the Jays trainer isn't going to win any post-season awards this year.

But he is an All Star (actually...)

Are the Jays simply unlucky with (major) injuries to their starting pitchers or should some blame fall on the front office/coaches/training staff/doctors?

It's definately time to start asking that question seriously.  Numerous posters have argued convincingly that the Jays haven't been THAT unlucky with regards to man time lost to the DL - but 3 key guys in one day (and I recognize that Downs was pretty fluky), added to an already worrisome list, has to silence somewhat the argument that this is 'normal' for a pitching staff.

Which leaves two possibilities - extreme bad luck (plausible) - or coaching problems (also plausible).  Will Caroll at BP in a chat earlier this week aruged answered the question thusly. 

Disastrous run of bad luck that could have happened to anyone, or indication that the organization doesn't know how to keep the pitchers healthy and ready to go?

Will Carroll: Both, but I'd lean more to the latter. Why? Because they don't know any more about why it's happening than they did at this time last year, or the year before.

I'm inclined to believe Carroll.  I've heard others posters argue that one reason that Arnsberg gets more out of pitchers than some pitching coaches is because he coaxes maximum effort / strain pitches out of them - improving BOTH performance and injury risk - again, very plausible.

Regardless, with the amount of money invested in pitchers these days, it seems likely that someone could be held responsible for this.  the Jays simply MUST protect their investments.  If someone is held responsible, who?  The trainer Poulus?  He has a good rep as far as I can tell.  Arnsberg?  JP?  Cito? 

Well, if someone know how to keep a guy from hurting his toe while he's swinging a bat, I'm all ears.

And if anyone wants to suggest that Roy Halladay strained his groin because he... what? Doesn't work hard enough to keep himself in shape?

Janssen and McGowan fall into the camp of Guys Who Hurt Themselves Pitching Once Are Very Likely to Do It Again. Both pitchers, by the way, were subject to fairly drastic violations of Verducci's Year After Rule (for more on this, wait until tomorrow!).

So the ones for your real consideration are Litsch and Marcum. The same injury, and first manifesting itself with the same symptoms - a problem in the forearm. The pitching coach in the case of Litsch seems to want to blame the pitch - he thinks Litsch fell in love with the cutter and threw too many of them.

There may be something to that, I wouldn't know. Maybe they should find a different way to throw the damn thing.

Roy Halladay himself fell excessively head over heels with the same pitch, and also reported forearm problems. He reduced its role in his repertoire. Of course, he's Roy Halladay. He has other things he can do. Not every pitcher has his resources.

The Jays have confirmed that Accardo will be called up to fill the bullpen vacancy.  It is certainly the logical move.  But I'd still like to get a look at Castro at some point this season, whether it's in the rotation or the bullpen.

Jays pitchers are apparently under strict orders not to swing the bat in tonight's game.....   They're not taking any chance of a repeat of the Scott Downs situation.

There may be something to that, I wouldn't know. Maybe they should find a different way to throw the damn thing.

They have two arms. Why are they using just one?

The one thing that I have been thinking about with respect to the high number of DL visits by pitchers is the type of pitches that Arnsberg likes his troops to employ. This relates back to a previous comment about high success vs high arm stress (and probability of injury).

What pitch (or approach) does Arnsberg preach. Is he a strong proponent of the cutter, a pitch many Jays through. I know the cutter can be very stressful on the arm? Does he have a unique approach to pitching -- throwing patterns or repetitions between games, conditioning approach, etc.?

Just curious.

Well, the guy Arnsberg succeeded, Gil Patterson, famously taught the cutter to a few pitchers. Of course, Mariano Rivera has thrown nothing but cutters his whole career.

I'm not sold on the idea that a pitch, any pitch, is necessarily dangerous. Anything that's not a fastball will get blamed for hurting pitchers. There are people who thought that it wasn't the number of innings Billy Martin had his pitchers throw - it was the enormous number of curveballs. All kinds of people, some of the pitchers, have looked on the slider as a Destroyer of Elbows. And it wasn't all the innings Lasorda made him throw - it was all those screwballs that burned out Fernando Valenzuela.

The idea to have the pitchers never swing is completely ridiculous. What happens if they walk? Are they going to refuse to go to first because they might hurt themselves running the bases? One fluke injury and everybody starts overreacting. Players get hurt sometimes playing baseball.

One fluke injury and everybody starts overreacting.

Hear, hear.

I'm willing to wager that pitchers sometimes swing golf clubs. Or run while playing with their kids. Or engage in a whole bunch of similarly perilous activities.

When Downs gets hurt cliff diving or sword swallowing, the sphincter police can have their day in court.

Please note: now using their pre-season #7-11 starters (perhaps even #12 with Ray also DL'ed, #5 or 6 was Purcey before he collapsed) the Jays are 2 games out of the wild card and on a 2 game winning streak.

The Jays have had 67 starts, or 13 per starting rotation slot (plus one extra for ace and #2) in theory.  Who are the guys in those slots if we go by just ERA as a starting pitcher (ie: 14 starts by guy with best era, 14 by guy with 2nd best, etc.)
#1: Halladay - 2.53 ERA - 7 1/3 IP per start
#2: Romero (8 starts)/Richmond (6 of his starts) - 3.74 composite ERA - 6.1 IP per start
#3: Richmond (5 of his starts)/Cecil (4 starts)/Ray (4 starts) - 4.16 ERA - 6.03 IP per start
#4: Tallet (12 starts)/Janssen (1 of his starts) - 4.84 ERA - 5.8 IP per start
#5: Janssen (4 starts)/Purcey (5 starts)/Litsch (2 starts)/Burres (2 starts) - 7.78 ERA - 4.75 IP per start

So, for #1/2/3 we have very nice stats of 6+ IP per start and ERA of 2.53/3.74/4.16 (ERA+ of 172, 117, about 105).  #4 is livable (4.84 ERA = 90 ERA+ roughly) but dead in the 5 hole (roughly 55 ERA+).

What is funny is Purcey/Janssen/Litsch are all in that 5 hole (and probably will stay there at years end) and all 3 would've had shots in the rotation no matter what. The injuries have given Romero, Richmond, Cecil, and Ray more shots than they otherwise would've and they are the #2/3 starters based on their effectiveness this year so far.  Tallet has been the true swingman in results.

So imagine Halladay (2.53), Romero (3.73), Richmond (3.76), Cecil (4.38), Ray (4.44) as the rotation with Tallet (4.73) being the only other one mixed in while the 6+ ERA crowd (Janssen, Purcey, Litsch, Burres) got to enjoy Las Vegas.  Of course, given 13-14 starts I doubt they'd all do as well but still it is fun to imagine where the Jays would be without those 14 starts by pitchers having garbage results.