How long do you want to let this go on? What's the alternative?

Switch him and Downs. Bush is coming back up in July, so you only have to cover 2 or 3 starts. Let Gaudin work out of the bullpen and let Downs have his next 2 starts, see how those go.

At 4.46 runs per game, they're basically tied with Kansas City for ninth in the league. Any suggestions?

Trade for Adam Dunn. :)

I was at the game tonight (well, at least the first 4 innings before the brutally irritating and stupid people in my section and the insane hunidity of the RC drove me out. Oh, that and Gaudin's pitching)
I had no idea he had a .453 BA against him but the way he threw tonight I am not surprised. I think the Jays have no choice but to try Walker. I am not sure why they haven't done it yet but something has to give here in regards to their pitching. We all knew that the true test of this "improved" staff would come in the summer. The results of the test aren't good so far. Maybe Pat Hentgen wants to make a comeback?
;)
As for the hitting, the batters could work the count more than they have been; at least that way they could wear down the opposing pitcher and wait for more mistakes. This is a small step in working your way out of a slump.

There's no point in firing another batting coach. How feasible is it to parade a number of minor leaguers up to see if anyone can hit? Do you lose too many options? It looks like it's time to try Walker or Downs, tho one has no high hopes. What would Bill Veeck or Charlie Finley do? Didn't Nuxhall pitch in the majors when he was 16? It was wartime I suppose.

I've got two options as to what to do next. The first is what I think will happen, is to move Walker in to the rotation. I don't expect his numbers out of the pen to translate well into the rotation, but I think he can keep the team in games for 5 innings and quite frankly he's earned the carrot for his work to begin the year. Bush will be back around the All Star break and can take over from there. What I would like to see happen is Gaudin gets optioned to Syracuse and Francisco Rosario is recalled. The knock on him is that he has been inconsistent. He's overall numbers in AAA are quite impressive. In 75 innings pitched, he's allowed 64 hits, walked 26, and K'd 59, with opponents only hitting .231 against him.

As for Gaudin, he's not a major league starter and as JP has said they envision him as a reliever at the big league level. I think he was starting in Syracuse to get consistent innings and work on a third pitch to complement his ordinary fastball and deadly slider. When I see him pitch the player that comes to mind is Vinny Chulk when he first came up from Syracuse as a starter a couple of years ago. I think if they convert Gaudin to middle relief, he can be very good. His slider is outstanding and I imagine his fastball will amp up a few miles per hour if he can just come in for an inning or two and air it out.

As a side note, did anyone see the footage of Dave Bush getting blindsided by some Richmond player???

http://news.nbc12.com/

Me Grimlock have never seen a fight start after a guy got walked!!

Bill Veeck would probably get a midget. Does Frank Menechino count?

Anyone know how the the number of ex-Jays in the majors stacks up against other teams' ex-players? It seems as though there are quite a few thriving former Jays in the majors right now--Carpenter, Escobar, Delgado, Michael Young, Cesar Izturis, Felipe Lopez, Kielty, Werth, to name a few recent departures. Hey, even Brent Abernathy got called up by the Twins recently (and has an OPS of .852)!

greenfrog, take a look at last year's All My Exes Played for Texas Hall of Names entry in which a number of Bauxites seemed to conclude the two best organizations for ex-players out there succeeding are the Rangers and Expos.

I'm pretty sure Baseball Primer picked up this thread and ran with it on their own, but don't have a link. It may be linked in one of the comments in the Exes thread linked above.

Don't forget about player of the week Shawn Green...

An All-ex Jays team, based on performance this year:

C Greene
1B Green
2B Young
SS Lopez
3B Kent
LF Stewart
CF Freel
RF Kielty
DH Delgado

Bench:
Olerud, Izturis, Borders

SP Clemens
SP Carpenter
SP Escobar
SP Wells
SP Davis

I can't think of much of a bullpen, to be honest...

I don't know that Gaudin's problem is his pitches as much as it is his command. This was a hot humid night against the best team in baseball and outside of two bombs he didn't pitch all that terribly. He's 22. His control should get better.

His fastball is of questionable calibre though. Despite being reasonably quick and with apparently decent sink the Cardinals were right on that pitch all night like they knew when it was coming. I wonder if Gaudin was doing something to tip pitches. Though he did get 4 strikeouts that was among a ton of runners reaching base by hit.

Right now Rosario or Marcum seem like the best options. Rosario is already on the 40-man but Marcum will be after the season anyway. I have concerns about Rosario just from listening to the games and knowing how often he gets into deep counts against AAA hitters and gives up a lot of homeruns. He does have the best tools at the level though. Marcum could be better than Towers but how much is up in the air.

Either way, I don't think there's an obvious solution at the moment. Though Downs and Walker have been so solid in long relief on most nights that I wonder if you could get one starter's worth of innings from them if you assigned the 4th or 5th spot to them as a pair. You could free up Gaudin to pitch long relief on the remaining nights.

I was at the game too. I didn't see the sign that apparently fueled Carpenter (Thanks For Four Years Of Frustration and Mediocrity or something) but I did see the bizarre one out in left that said something about pants getting tighter in the 9th inning.

I think Gaudin was just plain bad. Many of the outs were sinking liners that just stayed up enough to be caught. I've said all along that he should be a reliever. If they're going to make him into a starter, be honest about it and give him a year and a half in AAA to work on a third/fourth pitch. He has a change and a curve, they're just a bit stinky. Work on that or make him a reliever. His fastball is decent and his slider is killer. That seems like a reliever to me.

Carpenter was ridiculous last night. His game score of 94 was the best in MLB all year, just edging out Doc's game from 5/29 against the Twins.

We could add Abraham Nunez to the All-Jays team. He was signed by the Jays in 1994 and sent to Pittsburgh in the Plesac trade in Dec 1996

Delgado can't DH now, he's in the NL

When Gaudin hit Pujols in the first last night, he awoke a sleeping giant.

You're right, he did awake a sleeping giant...the big fat guy behind me who constantly talked about his kids and last year's cottage rental.

Whether starting or in relief, it seems pretty clear that Gaudin's not ready for the big leagues right now. The D-Rays rushed him two years ago, and I'm disappointed the Jays have made the same mistake. He's a young 22, and he was doing fine consolidating his game at Syracuse -- this was the first success he'd had at Triple-A. He should go back there now and try to get back in the groove. The bullpen might well be in his future, but I'd leave him in the Skychiefs rotation for the moment and try to forget this promotion ever happened.

As a short-term replacement, either Downs or Walker would do fine. Neither of them are world-beaters, but they'd hold the fort for the time being and might even post a quality start or two. The pitcher they need to bring back, of course, is Bush, who should spend no more than two more weeks in the International League, tops. As I've said before, he can't learn how to retire big-league hitters in Syracuse.

As usual, of course, the pitching isn't the problem (though Batista's now given up homers in back-to-back appearances; take that for what it's worth). The Jays' offence is such that mediocre pitchers can stifle them and good starters lke Carpenter can shut them down completely. Since there's little help on the way from the minors and nothing but wishful thinking surrounding the likes of Adam Dunn, all the Jays can do is wait for Koskie to come back and give as much playing time as possible to Adams and Hill. The Jays are on the rise, but at this stage it's a rocky climb.

Just read that Richmond's Esix Snead has been suspended indefinitely for his part in the brawl on Monday that injured David Bush. Finally -- a league president with guts!

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but it appears J.P. might have some interest in Austin Kearns. What would it take to get him here?

http://fantasybaseball.rotoworld.com/content/playerpages/player_main.asp?sport=MLB&lastline=148605&id=6851

It would probably take someone like Brandon League to get Kearns as there will be competing offers. On the surface, it seems a bit much, but considering the depth of Jays pitching prospects and the dearth of power hitting prospects, it might be a good move.

The risk with Kearns is that he cannot lower his high strikeout rate. Cincy would say the risk with League is that he cannot obtain sufficient command to be effective in the bigs. Similar upside and similar risks even though they play differing positions. Worth looking into but I'm not sure if I'd do it.

Any chance Cincy would go for Reed Johnson and a lesser pitching prospect?

Waiting for Koskie looks like it's going into an extended run. The latest news is that he's going to be out till the end of July, which would make it a ten-week absence. This might make the Jays less willing to deal Shea Hillenbrand at the deadline; they like Aaron Hill, but I seriously doubt they're going to start two rookies on the left side of the infield, one still learning the position on the fly.

Kearns was discussed at some length yesterday; the consensus seems to be that he's interesting, but his production has fallen off a cliff and that the Jays shouldn't be offering too much of real value to get him.

I sat about five rows behind the guy with the sign. I've rarely had a sign summarise my feelings so well for an individual player. I don't hold Carpenter's decision against him, and JP probably made the right move at the time. However, it doesn't make that performance any less-frustrating to watch. I've never seen a no-hitter and I'd love to see one in person, but not at the hands of Chris Carpenter.

It was funny watching the exchanges between sign-man and Cards fans. Most got a kick out of it and understood what he was getting at. A few brought out their digital cameras and snapped pictures. One guy kept up to him after the game and saying, "Put the sign down. He pitched a great game." Sign Guy would reply, "I know he did. That's what's so frustrating." And Cards fan was like, "No, no, no, put it down." And Sign Guy goes, "This is exactly the point of the sign." It was quite amusing.

As for the Jays hitting: they can't win many games if they get one hit per game. Do the jays have anyone who can hit without too many strikeouts in their system? Gross? Cannon? For a really bizarre option, they could bring up fledgling hitters and see if they can play for awhile in the majors. Instead of playing their way up, they could play their way down to what they can handle. This is trying to catch lightning in a bottle, but trading for high K hitters and waiting for Koskie to return are going to get frustrating. Low minor hitters would be excited and motivated.

Check out the poll results!

As of right now, 99% of Bauxites oppose Gaudin getting the ball the next time around. Pretty striking.

As of right now, 99% of Bauxites oppose Gaudin getting the ball the next time around. Pretty striking.

Not really with the way the question is phrased. That's not to say that Bauxites support Gaudin.

i was the one with the sign. it said "thanks 4 the frustrating years of mediocrity carpenter". did they show it on tv or talk about it on the radio? i saw carpenter's post game interview and he refered to it. that was exciting. all the game reports that i've read quote the sign as saying "thanks for 4 years of frustrating mediocrity". that's not nearly as funny or accurate (because he was mediocre for 6 years).