A.J. tosses BP

To be kind, it was a less-than-stellar showing by A.J. Burnett in last night's 9-8 loss to the A's. Burnett, who gave up 10 hits and six earned in less than five innings of work, didn't seem to have it working for him at all. We always defer to the Mighty Hale on the location, speed and movement of pitches, but it looked like A.J. threw a lot of fastballs after Mike Sweeney hammered a hanging curve ball for a double in the first.

It's funny that Hale drops a Nuke Laloosh reference in the title of his post, because that's exactly what we thought of when watching the A's crush pitch after pitch in the five-run second.

Other than Brian Wolfe's inning and a third, none of the Jays pitchers looked especially sharp last night.

Looking for the silver lining
Credit the Jays' offense for not rolling over at any point. Aaron Hill continues to impress, going 4-4 with a homer and two RsBI, while Vernon Wells' swing looks scary good, and Frank Thomas seems to have awakened from his spring slumber. One of the many big "ifs" this season revolved around the offense's ability to return to form, but so far (acknowledging the standard caveat that these are early days in a long season), it looks like this lineup could be as potent as we had hoped.