Say hello to Blow Jay Frasor

Last year it was Blow Jay Ryan. This year, because Ryan is no longer on the team, a new Toronto pitcher has surfaced to steal his moniker. Say hello to Blow Jay Frasor. After a scintillating season in '09, he was supposed to be phenomenal this year as the teams closer, or set up man, or at least in some useful role. The problem is, Blow Jay Frasor has been completely useless thus far in 2010.

In 10 appearances in April, Frasor is sporting a hideous 9.35 ERA, blown two saves, ruined potential come backs with melt downs (most recently allowing 4 to score in the 8th Sunday with the team down 2 runs) and has only pitched one clean inning. In the remaining 9 outings, he has surrendered at least one base runner, making it impossible to feel confident in his ability with the game on the line. So what happened? Last campaign he had a sparking 2.50 ERA with 11 saves. This year, not so much. He can't seem to deal with expectation very well, so essentially he is as shell shocked as this guy when he comes in to pitch.

Frasor has also lost velocity on his fast ball, which pitching coach Bruce Walton has pointed to as a reason for his poor production. Though he's been pathetic, there is no way Blow Jay Frasor is this bad. My guess? He's nursing some kind of injury that will either put him on a DL stint, or we'll find out after the season that he played through the pain but was hampered all along.