Ok, NOW I'm worried . . .

So, Vernon Wells is apparently out until, most likely, the All Star Break. And, by the way, Jeremy Accordo joins him on the DL today too. That's four players shipped to the DL in 3 days if you are keeping score at home.

Even the "irrational" optimist that I was on opening day, I knew this team had one of the smaller margins for error in the league. While I was convinced (and still am) that our frontline players were collectively as good as anyone's, there's only so much talent you can put on the shelf and still make that claim. Having Vernon Wells' bat replaced in the lineup by Brad Wilkerson's is a pretty massive blow.

The Jays called up "ShuttleBug" Inglett a day after sending him down, along with Armando Benitez to fill out the roster . . .

(I pause briefly to again consider the plight of Brandon League)

. . . and this forces me to conclude that the Jays saw something in Lind when he was up here that they think needs addressing with every day work in the minors - either that or Shannon Stewart has incriminating photos of JP in bed with a dead girl or a live boy.

So, what are we looking at for the next six to eight weeks? A Stewart - Rios - Wilkerson OF every single night that's what. (ugh!)

Mike Wilner suggests that perhaps Wilkerson gets the leadoff duties for a while with the need for Rios to take up some of Vernon's slack (not to mention his massive suckage since he started leading off which may or may not be a coincidence) but I'm wondering if the Jays are not going to presume that Stewart isn't going to hit well anywhere but leadoff . . . So not to dispute the oracle but so maybe you see something like this:

1. Stewart
2. Wilkerson
3. Rios
4. Rolen
5. Stairs/Mench
6. Overbay
7. Hill
8. Zaun
9. (SS)

Am I the only one who trembles in fear at having our two potentially weakest hitters in the one and two hole? Oh well, it's not like our run production can possibly get WORSE and hopefully either they will somehow manage to hit, or one of them will eventually get ditched for Lind or for a player acquired via trade.
The challenge is for the 3-8 hitters above to wake up and produce enough runs to keep us competitive until the hoped for cavalry arrives.

All that said, even I am beginning to have my doubts. It's one thing to have a Stewart or a Wilkerson or a Benitez as a role player on your team, but if they become important players, you need to be getting some breaks and right now, we just are not getting any breaks at all. The freakish hitting slump continues, and it's gotten to the point where I have to ask if there's some sort of bad karma thing going on here? Is it really SO wrong to hate the Yankees?

~WillRain