Guess who's back?

According to bluejays.com, Litsch is back in the Jays starting rotation, Richmond is in the pen, and Parrish was optioned to AAA.

The move to call up Richmond was a mistake from the start, and this series of moves still doesn't fix that mistake. As I pointed out earlier, there were (and are) several options that could have been used to let Richmond play in the Olympics, and at the same time made the Jays a better team. The Jays could have used any of Brian Wolfe, Davis Romero, or even Jesse Litsch, instead of calling up Richmond.

Now Litsch is back in the rotation. I don't like him that much going forwards, but a 4.46 ERA from a 5th starter is not that bad. He wasn't pitching well, but considering his replacement, as well as the other options available, he really didn't deserve a demotion.

So at least he's back with the Jays now. Course, it might be worth looking into his service time, to see if keeping him down for a few weeks may have changed his arbitration/free agency years, but I doubt that's the reason. Hell, I doubt it was even affected much, but I just thought I'd throw it out there.

As for Richmond - he's not going to be used that much, if at all. He'll probably eat some innings when the team is out of it, but beyond that it's pretty obvious he isn't pitching any meaningful innings. I don't know why the team called him up, because he wasn't very good. It'll be interesting to see who gets used in a game first - Frasor or Richmond.

Parrish gets jerked around once again - he has a 109 ERA+, so he's been average at worst. He didn't deserve to get demoted, but he has to be the fall guy since the Jays can't demote Richmond without pissing off the Canadian Olympic team.

I guess I'm sort of happy Litsch is back, if only because Richmond's out of the rotation. But I don't know what inspired them to decide they wanted to see if Richmond could make it as a major leaguer. And in all honesty, would it have killed them to give him a spot start in Sept if they really wanted to see him pitch?

Twitchy.

On the Road again...

Be thankful that's not a pic of Willie Nelson.

A couple of player movement issues of which to make note. The Ginger Flash takes his slumping abilities to Syracuse to see if he can work out the bugs that have led him to give up 15 runs in his last 12 2/3 IP and a 6.12 ERA since the first of June.

Promoted into his slot is the much anticipated David Purcey, who JP says they are going to take an "extended look at." It's a move that system watchers have been longing for and excitement 'round these parts is high.

Some may ask "Why not Parrish?"

Several reasons - First: to send down Parrish now is to put him through waivers, which is unwise until we know the status of McGowan and Burnett; Second, Litsch gets a pressure free environment to work out the kinks (maybe with the help of Mel Queen?) and third, we need to know if Parrish can pitch at this level too. Looking at the schedule, I hope that the Jays bump Parrish from Friday to Saturday, in so doing they can assure that he, not Purcey, falls on the off-day July 31.

In another bit of happy news, the Manchester correspondent over at Batters' Box reports that after tonight's game Brian Jeroloman got the word to pack his gear for a promotion to the "Trips". No word yet on the corresponding demotion, but my guess is that it's Eric Kratz. This is exceedingly good news because it lets JPA catch every day (which a guy with a middling defensive game needs) and it lets Jeroloman test his hot bat and marvelous batting eye against AAA pitching.

This effectively signals the end of the Thigpen era as a Jays catching prospect, he'll be traded, moved to another position, or become an organizational soldier until he's a six year minor league FA. It also is a clue that Robinson Diaz is probably not ready to go back behind the plate regularly and won't be for a while. Alternately, maybe JP knows he's got a deal cooking for a major league catcher and Diaz is going to come straight to the bigs when that happens.

In either case, Robby better recognize he's on the clock. His window of opportunity to establish himself before Jeroloman and Arencibia are ready for the majors grows increasingly more narrow.

Finally, not a player movement note but still of interest - Ricky Romero put his seventh consecutive good start and now has a sub 4 ERA in that span. Could it be he's turned the corner? We can certainly hope.

~WillRain

The Roundup

BA Barajas: Man on Fire

Let's hope the Royals, Astros and Padres all got the memo: wait Joba out and let him run out of gas. I don't think I've been prouder of the Jays that I was during Joba's 2 1/3 innings last night: patient, selective and totally in the driver's seat. Piling it on in the 7th was nice, too, but still, it was early display of chutzpah that impressed me most of all. Many in Yankeeland feel that the Joba transition hasn't been as well-planned out as it should've been, and assessment I'm in full agreement with.

Tonight young Jesse Litsch takes on ancient shitballer Mike Mussina, who now dials his fastball up into the mid-80s. A win for Litsch would tie him for the AL lead, which, frankly, would probably be the single most shocking early season development for yours truly. The ESPN Supercomputer (wrong last night, but right all through the LAA series) lists the Yankees as heavy-ish favourites (57% chance of victory) even though the Jays slapped Mousse around on April 2.

The Yankees have not seen Litsch this year and will have to swing the bats if they want to beat him: this Ginger has walked a mere 9 batters in 65 IP. He's only had one Yankee Stadium start and it was a Jim Dandy. Jorge Posada might be in the lineup for the Yanks today or tomorrow, but even if he is he'll have more rust that a 1979 Chevelle.

FYI, the amateur draft will be broadcast live at mlb.com tomorrow, starting at 2 p.m. EST. I passed along some draft commentary on Monday if you'd like to get up to speed. Here's a good Jerry Crasnick piece on some late-rounders who turned out to be gems. (Russ Martin, this year's winner of the Tip O'Neil Award for best Canadian player in baseball, went in the 17th round back in 2002).

A short draft update: the verbally-challenged Bob Elliot of the Sun (seriously, did any of you hear that rambling Prime Time Sports appearance yesterday?), doesn't figure Canuck Brett Lawrie will fall to the Jays, who pick 17th. He expects the Astros, Brewers, Twins or Reds to snap him up early. We shall see.

I know a guy who used to party with this drug-addicted ex-Jay guy back in the early '90s when he was trying to restablish himself as a minor league coach here in London. He never could overcome those demons and spent 14 years in the clink because of it.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

Must... resisit... temptation... to... shit... on... Royals...

We've got a getaway day game this afternoon at 12:30-ish on your Rogers Cable box at channel 399 or you can go all pre-war and listen to it on the radio (if you live in Toronto).

Four-game sweeps fascinate me; they're a rough equivilant to the bases loaded 3-run double, which is undoubtedly the classiest hit in baseball. There are two schools of thought on today's game. First, it takes a great deal of crappiness and bad luck to lose an entire four game series, thus the baseball gods will take pity on the hitherto hapless Royals and let them leave town with one solitary win. This makes especially good sense considering that they're throwing their worst starter (Brett Tomko) against our best (Shaun Marcum). The second perspective is that the Royals just plain suck and have no business even attempting to beat a top tier starter on the road with their pop gun offense and wacky base-running.

It would be facetious of me to say that the Jays are about to enter a soft and mushy part of the schedule starting in June, but were getting to the point in the season where it's time to make traction and catch up with the big boys. Next month we've got alot of weak opposition: BAL (3), SEA (3 + another road series starting June 30), MIL (3), PIT (3), and CIN (3). On the other side of the ledger, we've got one against the Angels to wrap up a series that starts this weekend, the Yankees in New York (3), and the Cubs (3) and Braves (3) at home. If ever there was a time for a 17-9 month, this is it. And the best part is that there are off days, 3 of them!

I could've done this earlier, but in any event felicitations to Lyle Overbay for breaking Tony Fernandez's team record by reaching base in 12 consecutive plate appearances. McLeod notes that L.overbay's OBP now stands at a robust .453, 4th best in the AL. I'm starting to wonder if I can actually start wearing my powder blue Overbay t-shirt again and, more importantly, if he has fantasy value. (I'm officially putting a voodoo curse on Lance Berkman, Jay. You knew it had to come down to this.)

Several years ago I took some time off from my studies to guzzle Zywiec, party in Krakow and teach English in a Londony-ish city in Southern Poland. I had no family ties there and spoke no Polish, but the run-down former industrial heartland of an old Eastern Bloc country soon felt like home for this transplanted Sarnian. And the country isn't half as grey as German tourist board officials would want you to believe...

In any event, whenever I started teaching a new class, the first lesson had to begin with the inevitable "getting to know you" bit where everyone shares some biographical info. I had a line for hobbies on my little one-page questionaire and had to do my utmost not to burst out laughing when one comely young lass wrote "eating hot dogs". Well, it's because of people like her that the Jays brass have come up with this hackneyed promotion. Some people just really enjoy processed cow and pig parts. I would think that pulling out all the stops to get a winning team on the field is probably the best means of filling your stadium, but I'm just some random guy and don't have a marketing degree or nothing.

No blogaggeness from The Oracle? Sadness! Wilner has been 2 for 2 calling bullshit on those who said Overbay was done and that Reeder (haha, that one annoyed him so damn much) was a better player than Shannon Stewart, but his triumphalism on Jesse Litsch is somewhat... irksome? Not to take anything away from what he did on Saturday (and now taking everything away from what he did Saturday...), but the Royals aren't a real Major League offense and I asterisk that shutout. And I said the same last week when Jon Lester no-hit them.

Fine, Litsch might not be Gustavo Chacin 2.0. He's probably better described as a Chacin-Towers hybrid, combining the best of both and getting by well because of it. But did someone seriously leave a comment on Wilner's blog asking if Litsch would win 20 games and finish the season a Cy Young front runner? Say he could become the next Paul Byrd if you must, but this? Fucking hell! I'm just waiting for someone to say they're glad Janssen got hurt so Litsch got a shot at the rotation this year. Yeah, he's chugging along very nicely for a 5th starter and I'll take that to the money bank, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves people.

ELSEWHERE:

* It's hard to say what I want to say about this without coming off the wrong way. Jon Lester has confronted some serious challenges in life with a certain quiet dignity that has earned him a great deal of respect across partisan lines. I too admire his humility in the face of adversity. That said, they way the Boston press twists every detail of his personal life and absorbs it into some meta-narrative about how the Red Sox can take any comer makes me want to fucking wretch. God, you're so fucking self-absorbed, Bosox fans; do we really need this? Please, just let the man go about his business without the agonizing constant health updates on his family members.

* CM Wang says there's nothing wrong with his calf and his wildness yesterday was totally unrelated to any health issues.

* Oh, him? Guess who had game-winning RsBI in extra innings in consecutive games on the weekend? That Jason Bay guy, who's "not exactly tearing it up" according to JP.

-- Johnny Was

The Roundup

As far as polish goes, Doc's birthday outing last night was more punk rock than jazz band, but he was good enough to win in the end and that's all that really matters.. You don't take too many games from the Twins on defensive miscues and poor base-running on their part, so savour the not unpleasant odour that rare flower.

And what's this, 3-hour games now? I'll take it if they're winning.

Dustin McGowan takes on lefty Glen Perkins in a getaway day game that begins at 1 this afternoon. It feels like the Jays have been involved in an inordinately high number of sweeps this early into the season, so it wouldn't be shocking to see them come away with a W here. No jinx!

Some rando Italian at the Sun checks in on our injured shortstops and it appears that Eckstein will be ready to play before J-Mac. Scutaro is getting on base at a good enough clip now that both can afford to take their sweet time.

You've got to admire Jesse Litsch's "youthful exuberance" in offering to start Friday night's game on 2 days rest (his last outing was only 70 pitches), but please, don't cockblock Dave Purcey, kiddo.

The Oracle summarizes Wednesday's with JP, which I was unable to listen to because AM 980 here in London was playing hockey and the Fan was playing a repeat of Prime Time Sports. Why is hockey still being played? And I deliberately skip PTS the first go around, so thanks for the double dose.

Dick Griffin's new mailbag is up. As always, please skip if your mental health is fragile.

Ok, I can't resist. Why even print a question this flamboyant?

Q-Dear Richard,

What are the chances of the Blue Jays being contracted from Major League Baseball? Doing so seems like the only way for me to break my obsession with this pathetic team and organization. This season really has me at the end of my rope. If not, is there some form of sports fan rehab available?

James Riswick, Los Angeles

Sneak preview: the answer is only slightly less retarded than the question.

ELSEWHERE:

* The Rays continue to lock up their core long-term. Scott Kazmir extends for 3 years at $28.5 million. Next move? Eric Hinske, 5 years,$22 million? I flicked back and forth between the Jays-Twins and Yankees-Rays last night and I can tell you that fans at Trop were considerably more raucus than the staid Metrodome crowd on a Wednesday night. They're gaining self-esteem in Raysland and that can't be good.

* The Bosox are a bit banged up. JD Drew did the Vernon Wells sliding catch/broken wrist catch the other day, Julio Lugo has a concussion and Coco Crisp is suffering from naseau. I told him to stay away from the bouillabase, but he wouldn't listen. Clay Bucholz joins their ranks with a broken nail on his right middle finger.

* The Yankees too are feeling a bit uncomfortable with their early season performance. Hank Steinbrenner remains a cartoonish villan.

* Well, this ought to solve the PED problems plaguing the sport.

-- Johnny Was

Dave Purcey, un bon mec

Coming off his most dominant start of the year, Big Dave Purcey was pretty good but not great against the Pawtuckets in Syracuse this afternoon. As a Bosox affiliate, one assumes that the Patriots or whatever they actually call Pawtucket players have been drilled in the art of driving up pitch counts because it was mission accomplished in that department. One suspects that this sort of patient lineup will give the walk-prone Big D more trouble than most through his pro career.

It looked a little somethin' like this:

Syracuse
Player	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
Purcey (L, 3-2)	6.0	5	2	2	3	6	1	1.85
Nelson, B	0.1	1	2	2	1	0	0	5.40
Gosling	0.2	4	2	2	1	0	0	2.82
MacDonald	2.0	3	0	0	1	2	0	6.39

In taking the loss, Purcey allowed 5 hits, 3 walks and 2 Earned Runs over 6 innings. He threw 63 of 107 pitches for strikes, a definite step back from his last start, but did once again induce more groundouts (7) than flyouts (5), which is his key to succeeding as a major leaguer in a hitter friendly park like the Rogers Centre. He also uncorked a wild pitch and surrendered a solo home run to AAAAer Jeff Bailey.

The Syracuses ultimately lost this one, 6-2.

Jesse "the Body" Litsch seems to have taken that stern tongue-lashing from his skipper to heart and has put up back to back quality starts. His job is secure, which is good, but there's no reason not to root for for both young men because injury replacement starts are an inevitability and you will see Purcey in a Jays uni again at some point this summer.

Incidentally, what could happen with four ace starters, an acceptable 5th, a lockdown bullpen and a middling offense?

-- Johnny Was

Injuries to Starting Pitchers are Strictly Prohibited by Law!

Casey Janssen? Why, God? Why?

Hrm, well, hopefully somebody cleaned up on his 2008 Jays injury pool because it was unexpected to the extreme that he'd be the first victim of the "I" word.

Before we jump to any conclusions, it must be noted that we really don't know if this is anything serious or not just yet. Janssen smartly took the extreme precaution of raising the alarm at the the earliest possible instance, which is commendable since he did get himself temporarily in JP's dog house for concealing back woes in 2006. He's gone in for an MRI, which may well show that there's really nothing the matter with his throwing shoulder and this was all just normal aches and pains.

What we do know, however, is that this pretty much kills any hope of Janssen heading North as our fifth starter.

Since Janssen is a valued contributor to the club (unlike Victor Zambrano), this injury will have to be handled with kid gloves (unlike it was last year with Victor Zambrano). Even if he is pitching again before the end of spring training, there just won't be enough time for him to stretch out for starting duties by the end of the month. If he's healthy, he'll be back in the bully with the rest of BJ's Men, which means somebody like Wolfe or Tallet undeservedly gets bumped. That being the case, newly acquired shit-disturber Armando Benitez doesn't have a taco's chance of making the roster.

The upshot is that the starting job Janssen was highly likely to win has now pretty much been thrown into Jesse Litsch's lap. Gustavo Chacin threw two hot, stinky innings against the Yankees today and I think it's time for the final member of the Chacin Man Booster Club to turn off the lights on his way out. This is a one man race from here on out, provided there are no further injuries to the staff.

Don't get me wrong, I don't dislike Litsch or anything, I just liked Janssen better. Waaaaay better. From the club's perspective it would've been preferable to hold Jesse back at Syracuse so he could gain experience; he has a mere two AAA starts under his belt and his major league peripherals show that he danced with the devil in 2007. It would also have been nice to have him ready as the first in line to come up as an injury replacement and, selfishly, to keep his service clock from ticking.

I think we all accept that everything has to go perfectly this year for the Jays to get a deep whiff of a playoff berth. If Janssen's not starting this year we're pretty much pooched when one of Doc/AJ/McG/Marcum gets hurt with Litsch already in the rotation unless everything comes together beautifully for big lefty Dave Purcey. Or less probably, Ricky Romero. I'm really pulling for Purcey. You can probably abandon all hope if Gus Chacin gets more than a handful of starts this year and you know we're dusted if you see any of Josh Banks before September.

Please don't throw tomatoes at me, but I think it might be a good idea to get something done with Kyle Lohse. He could be stashed in the pen if he's not needed as a starter. His ERA+ has been on the right side of 100 (just barely) two years out of rhe last three and a fair chunk of those innings came in hitters' parks in Cincy and Philly. And if everything turns out rosy by mid-season, it's pretty likely you could find someone to take his contract off the books and chuck in a low-value prospect. Apparently the Orioles expressed some interest last week, but that's been about it.

On a brighter note, we were quite pleased to receive shout outs from a couple of the big swingin' dicks of the Jays blogosphere, DJF and The Tao of Steib. We just take it one game at a time, always give 110% and try to get our uniforms dirty...

-- Johnny Was

Morning Roundup

Even though I'm pretty much openly rooting against Jesse Litsch to win the fifth spot in the rotation this spring, I can still admit that it's kind of cute to see that he's trying so hard. We were all so caught up with JP's left field shenanigans that this one sort of fell to the back burner.

Gibby more or less threw down the gauntlet for both Litschy and Janssen yesterday in the tone of a man who was on his last can of Diet Coke and needed to get to the supermarket to buy more RIGHT AWAY:

"We know what the veterans can do," Gibbons said shortly after the Blue Jays' arrival at the Bright House Field for yesterday's game against the Philadelphia Phillies...

"Now it's time for these young kids to start showing what they've got," Gibbons said yesterday. "Now it's time — they've got everything working.

"Veterans you can count on, they have track records. The young kids, they don't. They've got to perform."

Litsch did perform well yesterday against the Phillies, surrendering only one run and two hits over four innings. With six Ks! Jesse Litsch? Yep, six Ks. Ryan Howard did go deep, as he is prone to do from time to time.

Still, as well as Litsch pitches over the next three weeks the fact remains that this should be Casey Janssen's job to lose.

Some credit must go to Alan Ryan for extracting some comments that allow Litsch's inner Einstein to shine through:

"You can't be anybody different than who you are," said the philosopher. "I just go out and be the same dude.

"You go out with the same mentality and let things happen. You go out there with pressure on your back ... well, that's where bad stuff happens."

Ok, so far so good.

"You've also got to come out wanting it," he said, elaborating on his mental approach. "You know, wanting it every day.

"You've got to want things. If you go out wanting things, they come easier than just putting them on a shelf."

The things I want, come easier, shelving? It's not quite "you can stuff your sorries in a sack!" but you get the idea. Generally.

Wilner agrees that Casey Janssen is the better candidate for fifth starter because Litsch still has much to learn (and was really crappy against lefties last year). He also expresses a hearty skepticism of walk machine John Parrish. My head hurts from nodding in agreement so much.

Also, Gibby is planning on holding Dustin McGowan back from his next scheduled start against the Yankees in favour of Gustavo Chacin. He wants New York to see as little of his young ace-in-the-making as possible now, so he's opted for someone who has no chance of throwing serious innings for the club this year. B'dum tish!

Zaunnie thinks AJ Burnett is making the best of a bad situation regarding his nail by learning to pitch to contact and getting hitters out with a fastball-sinker-changeup combo. And apparently the dude is working on a slider, too. Zaunnie in his own words:

"The fact he's not throwing curves all spring is actually going to save some wear and tear on the arm. More than that, it's going to make him a better pitcher because he's leaning on the other pitches right now, polishing those up, so that when he does start throwing his breaking ball he'll be able to get some quick outs on sinkers and changeups and not have to go three, four, five pitches deep in the count and strike everybody out to get his outs. He'll be able to do it quickly."

Blair weighs in on Barry Bonds. He calls the Rays a young, exciting, Expo-ish club (not sure that that's a compliment, but still) that'll make some noise in '09. But they're not ready now and their offseason has been all about clearing out the bad apples, so BB doesn't make sense. Not so the Mets, Chisox and Cubs, one of whom he figures will bite on the Sultan of Steroids. Ok, fair enough.

ELSEWHERE:

The Bosox are cautiously optimistic that bbq pork enthusiast Josh Beckett isn't in serious trouble after his recent bout of back spasms. For you medical buffs:

According to Francona, the Sox have deemed Beckett’s injury “muscular” in nature, meaning the club has ruled out much bigger problems, like ruptured or herniated disks.

Nevertheless, the club is to depart for its season-opening series in Japan in just nine days and it's unclear if Beckett will be able to make the 17-hour flight. Seriously, flying to Asia sucks. It's pretty far away... So, probably no Beckett or Matsuzaka for their season opener. I feel for those Japanese fans who are paying 4 billion yen for tickets to a game Tim Wakefield is starting.

-- Johnny Was