PANIC! Romero on the DL!

Via the Globe's Bobby Mac, Ricky Romero is headed to the DL with an oblique strain.

(Don't panic...don't panic...don't panic...don't panic...don't panic...don't panic...)

No word yet on who will get the call to come up, but the Jays don't have an off day until May 11, so they won't have much latitude with their rotation, and will have to get a body to fill in. None of the starters at Las Vegas are setting the world ablaze at this point, though Brad Mills (4.70 ERA, 9 Ks / 8 BBs in 15.1 innings) seems like the most likely candidate.

The Jays could go a little nutty and look to Double-A prospect Reidier Gonzalez (1.37 ERA, 9 Ks / 5 BBs in 19.1 innings at New Hampshire), or Fabio Castro or Luis Perez. Of those four pitchers, Perez is the only one on the 40-man roster, which might also contribute to the decision.

UPDATE!!! MORE PANIC!!! MLBastian tweets that B.J. Ryan is headed to the 15 Day with trap tightness.

(Actually, we're kinda relieved - pardon the pun - about this news. New closer auditions!)

What the hell are the Jays doing to their pitchers' arms?

In spite of the title of this post, we don't want to unnecessarily feed into any b.s. about how J.P. is singlehandedly wrecking the arms of the entire pitching staff. Because seriously, you know that whole argument is coming, don't you? How else are the dyspeptic Jim Kelley's of the world going to deal with Shaun Marcum's name being added to the list of fallen pitchers, alongside Dustin McGowan, Casey Janssen, and Jeremy Accardo.

When as many pitchers start to hit the 60 day DL with elbow and shoulder issues, you have to take a look at how they are utilized and whether if there is some level of unnecessary abuse that is coming into play. There's nothing that immediately comes to mind for us, and a mere recounting to the pitchcounts and innings totals for the fallen will probably not tell the whole story. Those numbers don't tell how many pitches the pitchers were throwing in the bullpen before the game, nor do they tell how many pitches they threw in their side sessions in between starts/appearances.

We'd guess that what is happening with the Jays is just part of the peril of relying on young homegrown pitching talent. Yankees fans can probably spill volumes on this after the year that their future pitching stars have had. (Or not had, as it were.)

Incidentally, there's a great interview with Jays pitching coach Brad Arnsberg that was posted at Baseball Prospectus last week. In it, he mentions that Roy Halladay has significantly cut down his side sessions to ensure that he has more left in the tank (or the arm) for his starts.

Viva Las Vegas!
The word isn't yet official, but it appears as though the Jays' Triple A activities will be run out of Las Vegas next year. Given how few options the team had, the City of Broken Dreams is probably as good a spot as any for them to stash their top minor league prospects.

Although if Travis Snider gets sent down to start 2009, we sincerely hope that he's kept away from the cheap and plentiful buffets.

The Dodgers got the hell out of Las Vegas after this past season, noting that the facilities at the cavernous and rapidly aging Cashman field were inadequate for their prospects.

As a side note, Las Vegas is changing their franchise's nickname. The new ownership group which purchased the franchise last year didn't care for the name "51s" and the associated alien/UFO/conspiracies that are tied to it.

Spinning the revolving door

After having sat through three of the worst Blue Jays games that we've seen all season, it's hard to muster up any energy to be angry or indignant or excited about the plethora of player personnel moves made over the last couple of days.

Rolen to the DL. Wells back from the DL. Litsch up, Parrish down. Shannon Stewart let loose on an ice flow floe.

Does any of this matter at this point?

The Jays had a great opportunity this weekend to make some hay and beat up on one of the weaker teams in the league in Cleveland, and they looked flat out awful at the plate the entire series. Sometime around the sixth inning of Sunday's game, we nearly pitched ourselves over the railing from the 500 section, which is reason enough for us never to sit there again.

We wish we could get jazzed about yesterday's win over the Tigers, but we're just a little too depressed to even care.

A One-Sentence Post on...Vernon Wells' absences

How is our heart supposed to grow fonder for Vernon Wells during his absences when the team is 22-15 when he is on the DL?

Hold on Hope

Maybe it's getting a little late for optimism, and maybe we should be a little less enthusiastic about the home side given that Dustin McGowan is out with some unknown shoulder troubles and Vernon Wells is gone for a month or more with (gulp) hamstring troubles.

And yet, just as we're sure that the small flicker of light is being snuffed out, the Jays pull off their second walk off win in three days to sweep the Orioles.

Of course, the hard slap of reality is that even with this week's long overdue heroics, the team still sits nine games back of the Wild Card with six teams ahead of them in the standings as they host the Yankees this weekend. And as much as we might bring up stories of the Rockies' post-All-Star surge last year, or the Astros a few years back, you've got to give yourself a shake and realize that the Jays just don't have the scary offense that those teams did that allowed them to go on a 10 or 12 or 15 game streak. (Do you see anything that Cito could pencil in that would remotely resemble a Hawpe-Holliday-Helton-Tulowitzki(2007)-Atkins lineup ?)

But how can we be so cynical after a dramatic win like last night? It brings to mind the words of the poet laureate of Dayton, Ohio, Robert Ellsworth Pollard Jr.:

Everybody's got a hold on hope
It's the last thing that's holding me

A strange thought on Vernon
You know, as much as we were disappointed to hear that Vernon Wells went down for four to six weeks, the first thing that popped into our head was: "Gee, didn't the Jays go on a wicked winning streak the last time he was out of the lineup?"

It makes you wonder what to think if they manage to go on another run with him on the DL.

Vernon Wells would like you to sign his cast

Vernon Wells is gone for six to eight weeks with a broken wrist. Jeremy Accardo's on the DL. All the ugliness is available at Globesports.ca.

John Gibbons could build a complex of townhouses with the bricks he must be shitting right now.

Nobody panic. Everything is going to be just fine, now that we have Kevin Mench.

O Cruel Fate!

We were in transit from the gym to the Tao's heavily-fortified Fortress of Solitude when we heard that Scrappy Doo was taken out of the lineup due to some nebulous injury which hampered his grittitude.

So we thought to ourselves: "Isn't this a great opportunity for Johnny Mac to steal the job away from the little blonde moppet?" And certainly, when McDonald stroked a solid base hit, we had this great notion that this would be a turning point in his season.

Alas, it was only too true.

There's nothing quite as sickening as seeing a look of panicked pain like the one on McDonald's face after he caught a cleat on the Rogers Centre turf in the sixth. That look pretty much foretold of a long stay on the DL. Groan.

As Wilner said to open the JaysTalk, welcome to the Jorge Velandia era.

The word from the Jays' PR shop (via Wilner) isthat they are waiting for the swelling to go down, and having been there before ourselves, we're guessing that means ligament damage. Ouch.

Thou shalt not lust after other teams' shortstops
Not that we think that we have this sort of power, but we'd been thinking all day about Rafael Furcal. Thinking about how he might be available for the right price at some point this season. Or about how he might be available to the highest bidder next year.

We thought longingly about his .448 OBP and his 1.045 OPS, and the fact that if anyone is this mythical "prototypical lead-off hitter" that people talk about endlessly, it is him. (Eckstein and Reed Johnson couldn't hold his jock in this respect.) Furcal is a plus fielder to boot, and would be an upgrade over Scrappy Doo if nothing else.

But wait! Are we being punished by God for our covetousness? Have the heavens rained down calamities on our middle infielders because we yearned lustily for the middle infielders of others? Cripes...Guess this means it's back to the self-flagellation for the rest of the night.

If anyone is having second thoughts about Eric Hinske after watching him hit that bomb...
Remember that if the Jays hadn't sent him packing, and if he didn't realize that he was at the very end of his career rope, then he'd be here in Toronto as a fat, cheese-eating dead weight with a stupid goatee and a stupid flattop taking up more than his share of the bench. And he probably wouldn't have taken the, er, "necessary steps" to get himself game ready for this year. (And for Tampa fans: there's still plenty of time for him to discover all of the fine waffle houses that Florida has to offer.)

There's no such thing as "minor" surgery

As nauseating as it was to hear the details about Scott Rolen's broken, ripped and torn up finger, we're having an even harder time keeping down our morning coffee with the news that he had surgery on the digit yesterday.

The estimates for Rolen's return are around three weeks, which sounds promising. But the notion that someone has opened up the finger and screwed into the bone with the intention of going back in to pull the screw back out in a couple weeks, and then everything is going to be just hunky-dory afterwards seems a bit overly optimistic to us.

We'd assume that Rolen won't be taking ground balls for three weeks, and won't face live pitching for at least as long. So what's his game going to look like when he gets back? How strong and accurate are those cross-diamond throws going to be? How is the hurt finger going to affect his swing?

We've got plenty of worry about how this is going to affect Rolen's offense. The injured finger is on Rolen's top hand on the bat, which is where power is generated. Rolen keeps both hands on the bat in his follow through, so there will be a lot of energy and torque exerted in that area. In the Cathal Kelly Star article, J.P. notes that how Rolen performs subsequently will depend on "pain tolerance". While we think that Rolen is a big burly manly man, we also see it as likely that he'll ease up or twitch through his swing, and his mechanics will go all pear-shaped for at least the first few weeks back.

We had really hoped and prayed that this year wouldn't feature another long series of bizarre and absurd injuries. It looks like those prayers aren't yet being answered.

Another fallen soldier

Sweet Jumpin' Jeebus on a Pogo Stick!

In addition to the multitudes who had already bailed early on the season (Glaus, Wells, likely Overbay, Thomas) and those who were never healthy (Ryan, Romero, Chacin), we now have word that Shaun Marcum is toast for the final week of the season (knee surgery), and that A.J. Burnett had to be scratched for today's 1:05 matchup with the Yanks for personal reasons.

We probably shouldn't really care at this point in the season, given that the playoffs are a faint memory tucked far back in our soul somewhere with all of our other hopes and dreams that have been crushed. But we'd still really like to see this team on the plus side of .500, and doing that with a glorified Syracuse Chiefs roster is going to be a bit of a challenge.

UPDATE, 12:55 - Frank Thomas is in the lineup, though possibly not at his usual full speed lightning-quick first-to-third pace. Also, Curtis Thigpen gets another start at first. We kinda wanted to see John-Ford Griffin get some time at either first of the outfield, if only to get a last look before he scampers off to be stuck at AAA in someone else's system.

Take me down to the infirmary

Just when we figured that the Jays would at least have a healthy batting order to start the second half, the news comes that Aaron Hill will hit the DL, retroactive to July 8.

No word yet on whether J.P. has labeled Hill a "wimp", a "panty-waisted nancy-boy", or a "choking cry-baby wussy-girl" for not playing through the pain.

Or maybe not: As noted in the comments, Sportsnet is now reporting that Hill will play. Because he wants to prove that he can limp around as uselessly as Troy Glaus.

Bring out your dead!

Let's get caught up, shall we?

On the Jays' 40 Man roster, there are currently nine players on the DL, and that's not counting Ol' Gimpy Glaus. Glaus limped off the field tonight, and was brought directly to the rendering plant where he's being melted down into glue as we speak.

Davis Romero. John Thomson. League. Johnson. Ryan. Chacin. Zaun. Zambrano. Halladay.

Maybe we should all look at the positive: if this season is shot anyway, why not unload a couple of salaries, and rebuild as best as you can on the run?

As far as possible replacements for the pitching staff, look for either Josh Banks (4-0, 3.57 ERA, 15 Ks/4 BBs, 1.02 WHIP) or Ty Taubenheim (2-2, 5.34 ERA, 22/12, 1.56) to move up from AAA, as they are already on the 40 man.

Our guess is that Taubenheim gets the call, if only to keep Banks' service time at zero for a little longer.

Oy vey.

REPENT BLUE JAYS FANS! THE END IS NIGH!

If you thought it had all pretty much hit rock bottom yesterday, then you'll really enjoy this:

Roy Halladay is gone for 4-6 weeks. Appendi-fucking-citis.

Where's that goddamned bourbon! Daddy's drinkin' tonight!

BJ Ryan - Way too much belly itching

So Bo Junior Ryan is on his way to the DL.

Not only that, but he is ominously his way to see Dr. James Andrews to determine whether or not if he'll need surgery to recover from whatever is ailing and causing him to devolve from an All-Star closer to a Jim Acker-level chuck-and-ducker.

Ryan spent the better part of spring training suffering from "the flu", "backaches", and whatever else he could think of to explain his poor performance. What are the chances that all of these were a smokescreen for what was really bothering him?

In the meantime, the Jays will trot out Jason Frasor (18 career saves) to hold down the fort.

And we will spend the next few days with a rosary and a giant pack of Alka-Seltzer.