Post by John on Jun 6, 2006 19:53:39 GMT -4
That voodoo the Blue do helps Jays scare AL East
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Memo to the Yankees and Red Sox: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
You may be I've-just-won-the-Spelling-Bee happy at the way you're hanging at the front of the AL East, but deep down you've gotta be warily taking notice of the Toronto Blue Jays' pluck.
The Jays have had more things go wrong than an 11-year-old kid trying to spell "acoelous" from behind Coke-bottle glasses and tin braces, and look at them! Woke up Tuesday morning just three games back of first-place New York and only 2½ behind cruising Boston.
All this despite stud free agent A.J. Burnett making only two starts before succumbing to Carl Pavano Disease.
Despite erstwhile starter Josh Towers falling from his perch so hard that he landed in Triple-A Syracuse.
Despite employing a merry-go-round of shortstops last week that made you dizzy just watching from the side while munching on a deep-fried Snickers.
Three games out!
In many respects, this may portend a second-half run that could have all of Toronto glued to the games into September.
"We have a tendency to look at it the opposite way," Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi says. "The last four series, we've had a chance to sweep. And we haven't.
"And it was like, 'Cripes, we should have swept.'"
Aggravated as the Jays are at their inability to construct a large winning streak, though, there is a silver lining.
They've steadfastly avoided the long losing streak.
Toronto's longest winning streak this season is a convent-modest three-gamer (the Jays have had nine two-game winning streaks).
Yet the Jays lead the majors in resiliency: Their 18-5 record following a loss, through Tuesday, was a major-league best (the New York Mets were next at 15-6 and the Los Angeles Dodgers third at 17-7).
Things were so bleak last week that manager John Gibbons wrote in the name of five different shortstops over a five-game span: Russ Adams, Troy Glaus, John McDonald, Luis Figueroa and Aaron Hill.
That's like hauling your car into the shop five days running to trouble-shoot a transmission problem. But with customers seated behind first base becoming more and more endangered, the Jays had to act. They finally lost patience when Adams' error count reached 10 -- nine of them throwing errors.
Currently, Adams is with Towers (1-8, 9.00 ERA) at Syracuse, learning the nuances of playing second base. Adams will be back in Toronto soon, assuming that goes well -- and Edgardo Alfonzo will wind up as a temp.
Meanwhile, Hill, who started the season at second base -- replacing Orlando Hudson, who was traded to Arizona in the Glaus deal -- has shifted over to shortstop.
"The reason we took both of those guys is, we knew one would be a shortstop," says Ricciardi of his two first-round picks (Adams in 2002; Hill in 2003). "(Adams) will be back soon playing second base.
"It didn't go the way we wanted it to, but the contingency plan was in effect all along, too."
Things haven't gone as well as the Jays wanted them to on the mound, either. Towers was 13-12 with a 3.71 ERA in 33 starts last season before assuming he had more answers than he really did this season.
And Burnett appears to have had difficulty separating scar tissue relating to a previous surgery from a scary new injury.
Without setbacks, the Jays are hopeful that he is only two weeks away from returning. The current plan has him pitching June 21 or 22 in Atlanta, but remember: This is a guy who spent lots of time with Pavano, the Yankees' soft right-hander, in Florida. This all could be the result of a corrosive character flaw.
What has camouflaged these issues -- aside from ace Roy Halladay, rookie sensation Casey Janssen and closer B.J. Ryan, all of whom we'll get to in a moment -- is an offense that is the scourge of exhausted official scorers throughout the league.
The Jays lead the AL in batting average (.301), slugging percentage (.496), hits (584), total bases (964) and home runs (81).
They have two hitters lodged in the AL's top five: Right fielder Armando Rios (first at .358) and designated hitter Shea Hillenbrand (tied for third at .344).
Glaus and center fielder Vernon Wells, in fact, compare so favorably to other 3-4 hitters in the game that even Boston's dynamic duo of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez can't keep up.
Glaus and Wells have combined this season for a .294 batting average, 32 homers and 89 RBI.
Ortiz and Ramirez? They're at .277, 30 homers and 87 RBI.
That's all no small part of why the Jays have been so resilient this season. So, too, is Halladay, who is back in Cy Young form at 7-1 with a 2.81 ERA; Ryan, whose 13 saves in 14 opportunities is a solid follow-up to all the jawing surrounding his $48 million deal last winter; and Janssen, the poised, strike-throwing rookie who is only 4-3 in eight starts despite a 3.26 ERA and holding opponents to a .203 batting average.
"I don't know where we'd be without him," Ricciardi says of Janssen.
Oh, the Yankees have had their problems, too. It's no picnic playing without Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield, and when Derek Jeter misses a start against Boston, as he did Monday night, you know things are dicey. The Rev. Jesse Jackson skips an appointment with a TV camera more often than Jeter misses a start against the Red Sox.
What the Yankees have over Toronto so far is pitching. They rank third in the AL with a 4.28 ERA; the Jays are ninth at 4.83. The Yankees have allowed an AL-low 51 homers; the Jays have been hurt badly by the long ball -- their 85 allowed is tied with Kansas City for the worst in the AL.
What the Red Sox have over the Jays is a dependable 1-2 rotation punch -- Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett, who, until getting clubbed by the Yankees on Monday, had been terrific. The Jays answer with a great No. 1 -- Halladay -- but nobody at No. 2 (A.J. Burnett? Hellooo?). Both clubs have lights-out closers: Jonathan Papelbon for the Red Sox; Ryan for the Jays.
To Ricciardi, a large part of the rest of the season will be about whether Blue Jays starters can get deeper into games -- like working into the seventh or eighth instead of heading for the showers after five or six.
If that happens, the team won't have to lean on the bullpen so hard, and things should improve for everyone.
"You should almost go into a season with eight (starting) pitchers," Ricciardi says. "That's one thing I've found in this job. Consistency, year-to-year consistency, offensive players seem to be where they are. But pitchers, there are peaks and valleys."
He's confident things will calm down at shortstop in the near future. And though Glaus missed Monday's series opener in Baltimore because of a sore lower back suffered in a collision with Hill on Sunday, the Jays think they've escaped that scare.
But you can never be sure, and Ricciardi excused himself from the telephone because his trainer was ringing in on the other line.
Oh, and one more thing. Until the pitching and shortstop issues are solved, don't ask Ricciardi to spell "acoelous" -- "lacking a digestive system" -- let alone define it.
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
Memo to the Yankees and Red Sox: Be afraid. Be very afraid.
You may be I've-just-won-the-Spelling-Bee happy at the way you're hanging at the front of the AL East, but deep down you've gotta be warily taking notice of the Toronto Blue Jays' pluck.
The Jays have had more things go wrong than an 11-year-old kid trying to spell "acoelous" from behind Coke-bottle glasses and tin braces, and look at them! Woke up Tuesday morning just three games back of first-place New York and only 2½ behind cruising Boston.
All this despite stud free agent A.J. Burnett making only two starts before succumbing to Carl Pavano Disease.
Despite erstwhile starter Josh Towers falling from his perch so hard that he landed in Triple-A Syracuse.
Despite employing a merry-go-round of shortstops last week that made you dizzy just watching from the side while munching on a deep-fried Snickers.
Three games out!
In many respects, this may portend a second-half run that could have all of Toronto glued to the games into September.
"We have a tendency to look at it the opposite way," Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi says. "The last four series, we've had a chance to sweep. And we haven't.
"And it was like, 'Cripes, we should have swept.'"
Aggravated as the Jays are at their inability to construct a large winning streak, though, there is a silver lining.
They've steadfastly avoided the long losing streak.
Toronto's longest winning streak this season is a convent-modest three-gamer (the Jays have had nine two-game winning streaks).
Yet the Jays lead the majors in resiliency: Their 18-5 record following a loss, through Tuesday, was a major-league best (the New York Mets were next at 15-6 and the Los Angeles Dodgers third at 17-7).
Things were so bleak last week that manager John Gibbons wrote in the name of five different shortstops over a five-game span: Russ Adams, Troy Glaus, John McDonald, Luis Figueroa and Aaron Hill.
That's like hauling your car into the shop five days running to trouble-shoot a transmission problem. But with customers seated behind first base becoming more and more endangered, the Jays had to act. They finally lost patience when Adams' error count reached 10 -- nine of them throwing errors.
Currently, Adams is with Towers (1-8, 9.00 ERA) at Syracuse, learning the nuances of playing second base. Adams will be back in Toronto soon, assuming that goes well -- and Edgardo Alfonzo will wind up as a temp.
Meanwhile, Hill, who started the season at second base -- replacing Orlando Hudson, who was traded to Arizona in the Glaus deal -- has shifted over to shortstop.
"The reason we took both of those guys is, we knew one would be a shortstop," says Ricciardi of his two first-round picks (Adams in 2002; Hill in 2003). "(Adams) will be back soon playing second base.
"It didn't go the way we wanted it to, but the contingency plan was in effect all along, too."
Things haven't gone as well as the Jays wanted them to on the mound, either. Towers was 13-12 with a 3.71 ERA in 33 starts last season before assuming he had more answers than he really did this season.
And Burnett appears to have had difficulty separating scar tissue relating to a previous surgery from a scary new injury.
Without setbacks, the Jays are hopeful that he is only two weeks away from returning. The current plan has him pitching June 21 or 22 in Atlanta, but remember: This is a guy who spent lots of time with Pavano, the Yankees' soft right-hander, in Florida. This all could be the result of a corrosive character flaw.
What has camouflaged these issues -- aside from ace Roy Halladay, rookie sensation Casey Janssen and closer B.J. Ryan, all of whom we'll get to in a moment -- is an offense that is the scourge of exhausted official scorers throughout the league.
The Jays lead the AL in batting average (.301), slugging percentage (.496), hits (584), total bases (964) and home runs (81).
They have two hitters lodged in the AL's top five: Right fielder Armando Rios (first at .358) and designated hitter Shea Hillenbrand (tied for third at .344).
Glaus and center fielder Vernon Wells, in fact, compare so favorably to other 3-4 hitters in the game that even Boston's dynamic duo of David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez can't keep up.
Glaus and Wells have combined this season for a .294 batting average, 32 homers and 89 RBI.
Ortiz and Ramirez? They're at .277, 30 homers and 87 RBI.
That's all no small part of why the Jays have been so resilient this season. So, too, is Halladay, who is back in Cy Young form at 7-1 with a 2.81 ERA; Ryan, whose 13 saves in 14 opportunities is a solid follow-up to all the jawing surrounding his $48 million deal last winter; and Janssen, the poised, strike-throwing rookie who is only 4-3 in eight starts despite a 3.26 ERA and holding opponents to a .203 batting average.
"I don't know where we'd be without him," Ricciardi says of Janssen.
Oh, the Yankees have had their problems, too. It's no picnic playing without Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield, and when Derek Jeter misses a start against Boston, as he did Monday night, you know things are dicey. The Rev. Jesse Jackson skips an appointment with a TV camera more often than Jeter misses a start against the Red Sox.
What the Yankees have over Toronto so far is pitching. They rank third in the AL with a 4.28 ERA; the Jays are ninth at 4.83. The Yankees have allowed an AL-low 51 homers; the Jays have been hurt badly by the long ball -- their 85 allowed is tied with Kansas City for the worst in the AL.
What the Red Sox have over the Jays is a dependable 1-2 rotation punch -- Curt Schilling and Josh Beckett, who, until getting clubbed by the Yankees on Monday, had been terrific. The Jays answer with a great No. 1 -- Halladay -- but nobody at No. 2 (A.J. Burnett? Hellooo?). Both clubs have lights-out closers: Jonathan Papelbon for the Red Sox; Ryan for the Jays.
To Ricciardi, a large part of the rest of the season will be about whether Blue Jays starters can get deeper into games -- like working into the seventh or eighth instead of heading for the showers after five or six.
If that happens, the team won't have to lean on the bullpen so hard, and things should improve for everyone.
"You should almost go into a season with eight (starting) pitchers," Ricciardi says. "That's one thing I've found in this job. Consistency, year-to-year consistency, offensive players seem to be where they are. But pitchers, there are peaks and valleys."
He's confident things will calm down at shortstop in the near future. And though Glaus missed Monday's series opener in Baltimore because of a sore lower back suffered in a collision with Hill on Sunday, the Jays think they've escaped that scare.
But you can never be sure, and Ricciardi excused himself from the telephone because his trainer was ringing in on the other line.
Oh, and one more thing. Until the pitching and shortstop issues are solved, don't ask Ricciardi to spell "acoelous" -- "lacking a digestive system" -- let alone define it.