The return of the sideburn

With 7.1 innings of shutout ball from our boy Dustin McGowan in last night's 7-0 drubbing of the Twins, the Jays are all squared up at .500 and sit eight games back of the Wild Card leading Clevelanders. (We're having a harder time lately referring to them as the Indians. It offends our delicate sensibilities.)

With this performance, McGowan has pushed his numbers up to a point where he is almost evenly matched with putative number two starter A.J. Burnett (with the notable differences that Burnett strikes out a lot more batters, but also has given up more than twice as many homers.)

We don't want to get ahead of ourselves and write off A.J., if only to avoid incurring the wrath of Joanna at Hum and Chuck. But our point here is that McGowan, who had been written off by some at the beginning of the season, is putting up respectable numbers at the discount price that you can only receive by drafting high-ceiling pitching prospects. And that, as Martha would say, is a good thing.