Sunday, April 22, 2007

Yeesh.

That's five in a row.

The Jays vaunted offense (which, to be fair, is without Glaus and Johnson) has on seven occasions this year scored three or fewer runs. Moreover, their approach seems willy-nilly at the plate, chasing lousy pitches for weak pop-ups, and letting good pitches in hitters' counts go by without so much as the wave of a bat.

And the Jays failures on offense put the pitchers in a bad spot, because they are forced to pitch perfectly and cautiously to keep their team in the game. Meanwhile, the bullpen is without the two pitchers who were supposed to hold tight onto the back end of games. (But is there anyone aside from J.P. Ricciardi who really thought that Brandon League looked ready to assume the set-up role this year? Regardless of what sort of idiotic off-season routine he put himself through?)

John Gibbons has jerked his players up and down and all around the lineup at this point, and seems to be managing to make friends with the scrubs on his bench.

There's also lots of talk of how Frank Thomas is hitting the ball solidly, but making outs on "at 'em balls". Well, that's as may be, but remember that when power hitters start to get old, the bat speed slows and homers turn into warning track outs, and doubles turn into lazy fly outs. (Thomas hit .190 last April as well, so maybe the warm weather will help. It had better.)

It's only the first few weeks of the season, but with the Jays headed to Fenway and Yankee Stadium this week looking lost at the plate and weak in the bullpen, it's going to get late awful early out there.

So yeah, the sky is falling.

As an aside, what's Ken Macha up to these days?

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