What, me under-achive?

For all that has been said about the disappointing results of the Jays offense this year, and for all his Alfred E. Rios space cadet moments, Alex Rios seems to have been the one guy who really really liked the idea of Cito Gaston as his manager. Including yesterdays outburst against the Red Sox, Rios has a very nice result for the part of the season (50 games now) that Gaston has been at the helm.

Observe:

200 AB, 20 Doubles, 4 Triples, 6 HR, 27 RBI, 15 SB
.315 - .346 - .545 - .891

Now, let's pro-rate that to 162 games:
65 doubles, 13 triples, 19 HR, 87 RBI, 49 SB

That'd be a pretty decent year, eh?

On a less encouraging note, while looking up those stats I stumbled across something very grim about Scott Rolen. I have resolutely defended him by saying he had one horrible month which wrecked an otherwise good season. But what I discovered is that outside of a nine game hot streak in late June (in which he was incredibly hot) he was a very bad hitter from May 31 on until they shut him down. Over that period - with those nine games set aside, Rolen hit

.180/.275/.255/.530 in 161 at bats.

That means that for all practical purposes, he came off the DL in April and had 34 good games before he started struggling. That means, and I'm man enough to admit it, that the Pessimists who warned that Rolen might still have difficulty because of his shoulder are vindicated. It's inexplicable to me that everyone who is supposed to know, from Rolen to the medical people could say "everything is healthy and pain free" and yet he could still not be able to hit well for reasons that can't even be quantified and addressed. But there it is. And unless he gets it back as mysteriously as he lost it - or retires - the Jays are going to have to have big question marks regarding 3B for next year. I don't like saying it but I'll be damned if I can be accused of ducking the fact that my optimism was not born out.

~WillRain