David Purcey update

How far has David Purcey fallen in the past month? After a fantastic spring training, he was pencilled in to be the number two starter in the Blue Jays rotation. With 5 mostly miserable starts that saw him go 0-2, posting a bloated 7.01 ERA, the big lefty was sent down to AAA Las Vegas to work on his release point and fix his control problems.

Just one problem; Purcey has been even worse in a pair of starts in the minor leagues! His last outing yielded a horrific 30.86 ERA! Purcey was bashed around for 8 earned runs, 8 hits, and walked 3, before exiting after just 2.1 innings. This is not how the career arc of the Jays 2004 1st round pick was supposed to go.

Barring a rash of injuries to the big club, it might be quite a while before Purcey steps foot on a major league mound again. With the unexpected brilliance of Brett Cecil, the decent performance by Robert Ray, not to mention the wonderful job Brian Tallet has done to go along with expected return of Ricky Romero, Casey Janssen, and Jesse Litsch in the coming weeks, it's easy to see how Purcey will be buried on the depth chart. If he doesn't pick up his game for Las Vegas, he faces a serious uphill battle to make any long term impact with the Blue Birds. His opportunity might have come and gone.

Brett Cecil stating case to stay with big club

Toronto's best pitching prospect is turning heads with his remarkable start to his major league career, so much so that the club will face a tough decision on what to do with Brett Cecil when the regular starters come back from injury.

Cecil has been dynamite in two starts, most notably yesterday against Oakland. He silenced the A's bats, holding them to just 5 hits over 8 innings, without giving up any runs, and for the 2nd consecutive start, Cecil whiffed 6 batters.. Against Cleveland in his big league debut, the 2007 first round pick gave up just 1 run in 6 innings. In two starts, his ERA is a minuscule 0.64!

If Cecil continues his scorching play, it will be a very difficult decision on what to do with Ricky Romero, Casey Janssen and Jesse Litsch when they come off the disabled list. Could the rotation conceivably have Roy Halladay, Romero, Scott Richmond, Brian Tallet, Cecil as the starting five? Or does Cecil get sent down along with Robert Ray to AAA, and Tallet move back to the bullpen in favour of Romero, Janssen and Litsch? Either way, the Jays will be facing a good problem with their starting five, something that couldn't be said a month ago.

Scott Downs (shockingly) nearly blows it

Scott Downs entered the ball game Saturday in the 9th inning with a sizable 5 run cushion. Completely out of character, Downsy almost blew the game. Who saw that one coming?

Perhaps due to the fact he hadn't worked in a few days, or maybe entering in a non save situation got to him, but the impenetrable Downs looked mighty human against the A's. He gave up a 2 run home run to Jason Giambi which cut the lead to 3, and then promptly loaded the bags before allowing another tally. It was only after inducing a foul out with the bases juiced to Landon Powell that the Jays could breathe a sigh of relief. Imagine how demoralizing it would've been to the club had he botched this contest?

Everyone is entitled to a rough day at work, so I'm in no way blaming him for his poor outing, and I certainly don't expect perfection (though it's hard not to with how amazing he is.) I'm just hoping that this isn't a precursor to an injury for the valuable lefty. Remember, two years ago closer B.J. Ryan had a really brutal effort against Detroit, and shortly thereafter went to the disabled list, undergoing Tommy John Surgery and missing the remainder of the season.

Let's cross our fingers that this was merely a blip on the radar, a bad outing by a solid veteran, a tough day at the office, and nothing else, because if it's revealed Downs is injured, suddenly a great bullpen will be hit very hard in his absence. Suddenly, everyone will hold their breath.

Lyle Overbay decides to show up

Thanks for coming out Lyle Overbay, finally you did something other than ground into a double play or pop out on Saturday. These precious moments are so rare that they are a sight to behold. Remember this day Blue Jays fans, it might not come around for another month or so.

Overbay homered, driving in 3 runs in the second contest of a three game set against the A's. The 1st basemen now has 2 long balls and 7 RBI in the last 4 games. Overall, he's put up respectable numbers, with 5 dingers and 18 RBI, with a so so .256 average.

So why then does Overbay appear to suck? Is it just me or does he inspire ZERO confidence when he's at the plate? It's not like he's the worst player to ever grace a Jays uniform, but what is it that makes him such a disrespected figure in Toronto? Even though he's done well recently, I can't bring myself to say nice things about him, and instead resort to backhanded compliments such as "well, at least you weren't awful like usual", and "Good job Overbay, for once"

Maybe I should give him his due. Or maybe he's still garbage.

Hill returns to where it all ended in '08

Blue Jays 2nd basemen Aaron Hill has said that Toronto's first game in Oakland is "just another game", but that simply isn't the case. His disastrous injury, leading to the untimely end of his 2008 season undoubtedly must be in the back of his head.

On May 29th, Hill collided with teammate David Eckstein, leaving the game with a concussion. The team initially diagnosed the injury as being "day to day." Those days turned into a week, and then another. That turned into a month to month proposition, and before time, he was shut down for the entire season with concussion like symptoms.

There's no telling how much success the club could have had in 2008 (They were 18-9 in May before Hill went down) had the freak injury not occurred, but one thing is certain, his 2009 numbers prove his great value to the team; 8 long balls, 28 RBI, a hefty .357 batting average, ranking first in MLB with 51 hits. His importance to the squad was never more clear after that fateful day in May last year.

Richmond's brutal inning leads to first loss

The Blue Jays gave Scott Richmond a 3 run edge in the 2nd frame of the opener against the Athletics, courtesy of a Kevin Millar RBI single and a Rod Barajas 2 run home run. It didn't take long for the 29 year old rookie to throw away the lead, and it cost him his first loss of the campaign.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again; My number one pet peeve with pitchers is when they immediately cough up an advantage that was handed to them the following inning. Richmond did just that, surrendering 5 runs as soon as Toronto put up a 3 spot. That demoralized the club, and their bats fell silent the rest of the contest.

Let's give Richmond the benefit of the doubt. Aside from getting lit up in the 2nd inning, he allowed just 1 hit in the other 7 innings, leading to his first career complete game. I have to give him credit for bouncing back, he definitely showed a lot of resolve.

Just no more of this Richmond, or else you'll be in the doghouse.

Robert Ray decent in 2 big league starts

Rookie Robert Ray has done an admirable job filling in for a patch work Jays starting rotation. The 2005 7th round pick has been pretty solid in both of his outings, Saturday against Baltimore and Thursday versus Los Angeles.

If you just look at his stat line, the start tonight against the Halos makes it seem like he was rather poor; 6.1 innings, 5 earned runs, 10 hits, 4 strikeouts, with 0 walks. However, the 25 year old looked the part, staying around the strike zone, very rarely working himself into jams.

Ray doesn't have overpowering stuff, but he knows how to change locations and mix speeds rather effectively. He's certainly done pretty well in both contests, giving the Jays a chance to win. J.P. Ricciardi has said Ray shouldn't even be pitching yet in the major leagues, playing due to necessity with all the injuries to the pitching staff. The big righty has been fine and projects to potentially be a back end member of the starting rotation within a few years with the Jays.