Requiem for a Gas Can

It's old news by now that the Jays, after five seasons worth of service, have kicked the Gas Can to the curb.

We decided to keep our distance from this story in part because we were preoccupied by the avalanche of Mitchell Report related news. Mostly though, we did it because we wanted to allow the Drunk Jays Fans' Bergkamp an opportunity to mourn the loss of his favorite Blue Jay, and to eulogize him appropriately.

And now that that's done, allow us one last kick at the Can.

It's almost hard to believe the steep decline that Towers' reputation took after a perfectly respectable 2005 season (13-12, 3.71 ERA). Towers promptly cashed in with a two-year deal, and then proceeded to have one of the worst seven-game stretches ever seen by a Blue Jays starter. Dude just flat out blew: 10.09 ERA, with batters putting up a Bonds-esque 1.084 OPS against him. A WHIP over 2.17. The era of the Gas Can had begun.

Or maybe the point was that he always the Gas Can. Maybe his prolonged stints in Rochester and Syracuse weren't just a matter of old-school baseball types working against him because he wasn't a big strapping strikeout pitcher, but rather, that they recognized the fact that one day, teams were going to stop letting him throw that BP junk over the plate, and start to hammer him into oblivion.

Of course, Towers was one of the last to recognize this trend, even as his head was being wrenched off his neck, checking to see just how high and how far his last pitch had been cranked by some marginal fourth outfielder. As Jeff Blair noted in his G&M blog, Towers "spoke like a 20-game winner but couldn't back it up on the mound in the past two years".

We'd tend to agree with Blair's notion that Towers will end up somewhere in the NL, where the level of play is just that much lower, and the ball parks are just that much bigger. Who knows: one season in San Diego, and Towers might be able to spew insolent I-Told-You-So's back at T.O..

If nothing else, we'll miss him because without him around, the Gas Can label of our blog will go silent next year.

He may be a Gas Can, but he's our Gas Can

Perhaps we should leave it to Bergkamp at the DJF - the one person left amongst us who still believes in Josh Towers - to discuss the recent news that the Jays are looking at offering arbitration to the Gas Can.

We're just puzzled.

Stop dragging my heart around

If the past two games had us yelling at the TV screen and pulling our hair out, can you imagine what they would have been like if the Jays were playing for something more than pride?

Last night's 5-4 14 inning marathon sent us into conniption fits, especially when Aaron Hill flubbed the ninth inning game that would have sealed the deal.

In today's 12-11 extra inning loss to the Yanks, it was Matt Stairs getting called out on a close play at the plate that sent us into hysterics. We're actually pretty sure that he was out, but our fandom and wishful thinking had us convinced that he beat the tag.

We can only imagine how physically ill we'd be right now if this team were on the brink of a playoff spot and lost like that.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

The Return of the Gas Can: The Jays did a good job of hiding away the Gas Can for sixteen days, but Josh Towers managed to get out of the bullpen, see his shadow, give up the winning run, and then scamper back to the security of the clubhouse, where he can tell himself what an amazing control pitcher he is, and what a chump Tony Pena is.

Three more to the sick bay: We're wondering just who the hell the Jays are going to run out there in the final week, given that Shaun Marcum, Frank Thomas and Scott Downs all left the game with injuries today. We guess we're going to have to get used to the John-Ford Griffins and Joe Ingletts of the world for the next couple of series.

Of comebacks and givebacks

There might not be anything more frustrating than seeing a monumental comeback go for naught in the space of a few minutes.

An eight-run sixth inning for the Jays put them back into a game that had begun to disintegrate into a laugher, but the Red Sox lit up Gas Can Towers for three of their own in the bottom of the inning to pretty much dust this one off, as the BoSox would go on to win 13-10.

We probably don't need to pile on Towers at this point, given the fact that the Jays release him from his hermeticaly sealed trunk once every two weeks. He's kind of a non-factor at this point, so to pick on his lousy performance is likely a bit cheap.

Kennedy compounds Jays early woes
We actually thought that Joe Kennedy was a pretty smart signing, so we were thoroughly disappointed to see him drive the Jays directly off a bridge in his first outing. We thought Kennedy was being squeezed a bit, but his short outing (23 pitches, 12 strikes) didn't auger well for the next few weeks.

Down with the sickness

We're not sure what we've got...maybe it's just a general malaise, or maybe it's a rockin' pneumonia, or maybe our will to get out of bed in the morning is just slip-sliding away. Whatever the case, we don't think we can pin all of our nausea and vertigo on the Jays' performance lately.

In our weakened state, we bailed on last night's 6-4 loss to the A's in the 5th. Generally speaking, if you're watching a game where Jason Frasor is on the mound, and Gas Can Towers is warming up in the bullpen, it's probably time to go through your mental list of household chores that you've been putting off for too long. (Or you can do as we did, and pull the covers over your head to really make the most of your fever dreams. Trippy!)

What we missed, though, was Dusty Lambchops coming into the game as a pinch runner in the eighth, and coming around to score. How cool is that?

The Gas Can on the block

Josh Towers has cleared waivers, and Ken Rosenthal claims that the Colorado Rockies are looking to trade for him (here's the link, but you'll have to scroll down to find the reference. Trust us...it's there.)

We'll now pause for a moment, as you consider Josh Towers pitching in Coors Canaveral. The mind boggles.

Towers, a week removed from drilling A-Rod and throwing down verbally on Tony Pena, has already been demoted to the bullpen in favour of Lil' Litschy. We'll actually kinda miss him if he goes.

We enjoyed that 9-2 loss a little too much

Matt Stairs would have given A-Rod a right good tunin', given half the chance. He's instantly become our pick to replace Gibby next year.

Of course, all that glaring from the third base dugout didn't do a lick of good on the scoreboard, as the Jays promptly went to sleep at the plate for the rest of the night. (Except for Frank Thomas, whose swing looks remarkably quicker over the past week.)

Throw a little more gas on that fire, Gas Can
We haven't seen the quotes printed yet, but in the post game interviews with Josh Towers, he called out Yankees first base coach Tony Pena as a "quitter" for his vaguely graceless exit from the Royals a few years back. Nice. Then again, Towers will also be looking at a graceless exit himself in a few weeks, if not days, given his five inning, five earned run outing tonight.

Rios is the Jays' biggest star, and he's about to cost them
We noted with interest that Clemens plunked Rios in the seventh, which we'll take as proof positive that other teams now consider him the biggest star on the Jays. (Okay, we admit that it's a little specious, but go with us here.) With today's signing of Eric Byrnes to a three-year, $30 million contract, the bar has been set for the deal that the Jays will need to cough up to keep Rios this offseason.

Success success success...it doesn't matter

So much good news...and yet, what does it all mean?

With another fine performance by Dustin McGowan, the Jays roll to a 4-1 win over the Rangers to seal the series sweep, and now find themselves five games out of the Wild Card. Moreover, they have won eight in a row at home, two short of the club record.

But for all of the good news, the Jays now find themselves headed into a series with the surging Yankees with a Tuesday pitching matchup featuring the Gas Can versus Roger Clemens. We shudder to think. This afternoon, it's Lil' Litschy versus Andy Pettitte (we like our chances against the aging lefty), while Wednesday, it's Doc versus Chin Ming Wang.

Rainy Days and Mondays and A.J.
We'll be braving the elements to get a look at A.J. in his rehab start for Syracuse in Ottawa this afternoon. With the Jays luck with injuries, A.J. will probably get struck by lightning in the first inning.

Josh Towers is a uniter, not a divider

And he's on the hill this afternoon.

If it's a simulated game, who gets the shaving cream pie in the face? A.J. Burnett threw four simulated innings. Much as we used to do against our garage door with a tennis ball, lo, so many years ago. A.J. says he's "ready to go", which we're guessing means he'll be good until about Mid-September. (We kid! Because we love!)

Gas Can Impresses in Win

After the two lousy years that Josh Towers has strung together, who knew that he still had a performance like yesterday's still in him? Towers threw 6.2 innings of shutout ball yesterday to cover up for the Jays' anemic offense.

With Towers about to become a free agent, he needs to string together some games like that for his own future. After a solid 2005 season (13-12, 112 Ks/29 BBs, 3.71 ERA), JP Riccardi gave Towers a two year $5.2 million deal. At the time it appeared that the underestimated Towers had finally come into his own. Instead, 2005 was one of those free agency year flukes. 2006 was dismal for Towers and even worse for the Jays. When Towers imploded, there was nobody ready to step up. The only positive that came out of it was that the team discovered that Casey Janssen had the guts to pitch in the majors.

So it's do or die time for Gas Can. Hopefully the Jays can benefit from his predicament.

And it don't stop

The Jays will welcome back Miguel Batista tonight, who between innings will write angry poems about how Toronto management treated him, as well as a detective story on how a football general manager named P.J. Dirraddi gets killed by a vengeful, scorned former player.

Batista isn't a superstar by any stretch of the imagination, but he probably deserved better treatment that he received in T.O.. Batista was run out of town on a rail as a closer, in spite of the fact that he was always much more valuable as an inning-eating starter. He was allegedly pouty and difficult, but we'd take that in a player who takes the ball every five or six days over the jovial Nerf-dart shooting, shaving cream-pie dispensing, chili pepper racing life of the party who ends up in the infirmary three times per season. (This is all very unfair, we know. But we don't have time for fair.)

At 53-39, the Mariners are for reals, with an offence that is flat out rolling right now. And all of this success comes with a rotation that includes Jeff Weaver, who in tomorrow's monumental matchup for the ages, Weaver takes on the Gas Can in the Battle of the Combustibles!
(Five bucks says that by the third inning, the managers just bring a tee out to the plate, and let the players have at it.)

Jays Wuss Out. Lose.

(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Despite the pre-game speculation, not even a hair was mussed on A-Rod's head by the mild mannered Jays. Instead, he helped the Yankees to crush the team with his 2-run shot in his second at bat off of a batting practice toss from Gas Can. Now, we think that it would have been stupid to throw at the guy. The best way to get back at him was to shut him down and beat his team. But apparently that was too much to ask of a team that seems afraid to win more than one game every two days. Weak.

Towers Performs Mind Meld on Marcum? Jays Win 1-0.

Using pin-point control, Josh Towers fulfilled his "potential" today with a stellar 8 inning shutout performance. With Paul Byrd matching him pitch for pitch, Towers left the game with a no decision. But the fact that we wrote a whole entry without calling him Gas Can should be victory enough for Josh.

In case you care, Accardo picked up the win on a walk-off RBI single by All-Star Alex Rios.

Twins suffer the wrath of Zaun

The Gas Can is pitching and the Jays boot the ball four times. What good could come of all this?

It's pretty amazing that the Jays managed to pull off a 5-4 win. Which we complete attribute the Gregg Zaun's homer and yet another amazing tag play at home.

(We've got a longer piece in the works about how Zaun is the Jays' MVP, but it'll have to wait.)

In other news: Shea Hillenbrand got DFAed. We did a little dance of joy with our Cousin Balky. Neate has the details (on Shea, not on our dance) over at Out of Left Field.

There Is A Growing Consenus

We've been suggesting for a while that Josh Towers' pitching can have an explosive impact on a game. Hence the nickname Gas Can. Apparently our descriptor has caught on. We typed "gas can" into Google today and, after four listings for sites that sell gas cans, is the Yahoo! Sports player profile for Mr. Towers. It will soon be ranked number one if the Jays don't cut him loose.

We Hate The Smell of Gas On A Sunday Afternoon

OK. So we can't entirely blame the Jays' loss to the Nationals on Josh Towers. The offense wasn't there. But we can blame him for giving up the go ahead run to the first batter in the next inning. And we will.

Injury Update: AJ Burnett's shoulder is still sore so he won't make his next start either. Look for him to end up on the 15 day DL. Gibbons suggests that we will know more on Tuesday.

Jays Spank Nationals

Back for the second game in their three game series against Washington, the Jays did their best to look like a team that could put together a winning streak. Strong pitching (Sean Marcum was tremendous with 11 Ks over 7 innings) and timely hitting (more like 'about time' hitting from Vernon Wells with his first HR in 88 at bats) carried our heroes to a 7-3 victory for their third straight victory bringing the Jays to within a game of .500. Nothing can stop them now! Wait...do you smell gasoline?

"He almost has to start. Do You Believe In Miracles?"

These words from manager John Gibbons after announcing that Josh Towers will take over the "mildly" inured AJ Burnett's next start. Priceless.

San Fran Shock Horror

What a surprise. Gas Can (aka Josh Towers) was given a humanitarian of the month award by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce after last night's game for breaking Barry Bonds out of his slump. Rumor has it that Bonds will offer Towers a job as batting practice pitcher following his inevitable release by the Jays.

The Wolfe-Man cometh

The Jays recalled Brian Wolfe from Syracuse last night, sending Ryan Roberts back to the Chiefs.

Wolfe (21.1 IP, 0.84 ERA, 20Ks, 4 BBs) is third pitcher from our very hand and obviously helpful Armchair GM post last month to get the call. (Unfortunately, Matt Roney will not likely see any action for the Jays.)

We’re hopeful that Wolfe can provide some added depth to the bullpen, and will help preserve the Janssen-Downs-Accardo troika that has performed so well lately.

But with this move, the Jays will now be carrying 13(!) pitchers, two of whom (Gas Can Towers and Jamie Vermilyea) have contributed less than the bat boys over the past two weeks.

Vermilyea hasn’t pitched since tossing three innings on May 10 against the BoSox, while Towers' last two appearances were on May 9 (3 IPs and 3ERs vs. Boston) and May 19 (1 IP, 0 ERs vs. Philly.)

Maybe those pitchers don't necessarily deserve any real-time access to a Major League pitching mound, but if J.P. shortens the bench to this extent, ostensibly because he can't figure out what to do with those two pitchers, it demonstrates just how shallow the Jays are in MLB-calibre position players.

But hey, we hear Shea Hillenbrand might be available!