I actually don't know if bringing up either Marcum or McGowan would be beneficial at this point, and that is part of the Jays problem.  They don't seem to have anyone to bring up to replace Towers.

While Marcum is striking out many more batters than usual (a K/9 of 10.7), he has been very succeptible to the home run (a HR/9 of 1.14).  In addition, he only has 4 starts at AAA this year.  McGowan has been pitching better as of late, but as Gerry mentioned last week, he missed his turn in the rotation last week, so something might be up with him.  Also, command is still a large issue, with a BB/9 of 4.06, and a K/BB of only 2.7.  Those numbers simply aren't good enough yet.

If the Jays are to do anything, they will need to acquire another pitcher, or hope Gustavo comes back early and in great shape (which doesn't seem likely).  if one assume Janssen will remain in the rotation, he is a fine #5 starter, but the team will have a hard time contending with him and Towers at the back of the rotation.

The game wasn't on TV, radio, like failure, is not an option, and I'm 111 km away from the stadium.

Rob, Gameday Audio allows you to choose either team's broadcast of the game.  You could have been listening to Ed Coleman, Tom McCarthy, and Howie Rose on WFAN.    Only $14.95 for the year for every Jays game, guaranteed 99.99% Sauukiuu-free.

Why do the Jays insist on impersonating my favourite NFL team, the Detroit Lions, by losing every Sunday? :(

They are now 2-and-10 on the season on Sundays with the only W's coming on Janssen's masterpiece against the Halos and Towers only win of the season in Tampa Bay the following week back in May.   

After a great game Saturday, it sucks they end the week-end on a down note.  The most disappointing part is they seemed to pretty much concede this game by sitting Rios and Glaus.  Towers needs all the help he can get these days.  I could understand one of them getting the day off but not both.  Maybe nagging injuries figured into the equation here.    

Off topic here but did anyone catch the ESPN Sunday nighter?  The White Sox battle back from 9-2 down against Houston thanks to Tad Iguchi's 3 run and 4 run homers in the 8th and 9th only to lose in 13.  The fans went absolutely bananas on the grand slam and I thought for sure they were going to win it but give the Astros credit for bouncing back.  I'm sure the 'Stros and Brad Lidge especially are happy to never have to see the White Sox again for the regular season anyway. 

Even though Clemens is on that team, I'm hope they stay in contention.  After reading a recent article in USA Today Sports Weekly, Clemens will probably ask to go to New York, Boston, or Texas at the deadline if the Astros are out of it.  Gee, it wouldn't be like the Rocket to bail out on a team, would it?

Well what can really be said about Towers that hasn't already?  The Jays signed him to a two year deal hoping they had a guy who could give them consistent innings though not necessarily a great performance.  I'm not sure what they based that hope on as last year was unlike any other year in his career and his stuff screams fringe starter.  This year maybe 90% of his starts could arguably be called absolute disasters.  He has undone any advantage there is to having an awesome #1 starter and an awesome closer as well as an unexpectedly good offence and has kept the Jays on pace to finish their usual third place.

What the Jays needed was their star players to be stars and the rest of their guys to be at least average.  Casey Janssen is struggling but at least he gave the team a stretch where he kept them in games.  The Mets are a very tough lineup but for the Jays who are still above .500 to have a starter who is already in double digit losses is just crazy to think about.  Towers is on pace to challenge the single season record in losses on a team that is arguably in contention for a playoff spot.

The thing is they didn't need Towers to be a .600 pitcher.  If he was even a .400 pitcher they would be alright or at least in it.  As it stands they are 6 losses back of the division leader and nowhere near the wild card.  I don't think they can afford to experiment with Towers in the rotation anymore.  He's proven to be so consistently below the bar this season that they really have to start rolling the dice with ANYONE else.  Minor leaguers, waiver wire pickups, heck even the Red Sox are rolling the dice on guys like Jason Johnson.

I know Towers was recalled because Chacin was injured and there weren't any other obvious options.  I know the market for starters absolutely sucks.  This is where you have to think outside the box a little bit.  Maybe McGowan comes up and you hope he can be a .500 pitcher for you.  And furthermore allow your team to get some use out of carrying 12 pitchers.  Designate two "long men" as your fifth starter, guys like Downs, Rosario, League, Tallet, Marcum, etc.

Maybe Rosario pitches 3-4 innings followed by Downs for 3-4 innings.  Reserve two pitchers for those first 6 innings or so and then treat it like a normal game thereafter.  Maybe use them each in one other game before their next 'tandem' start to get some work in between.

I disagree with the notion that that seems to be gaining steam that the Yankees and Red Sox have had everything go right, the Jays are getting career years from everyone, yet the Jays languish in 3rd place as usual.

I don't think any of the 3 teams stand out as being especially unlucky or having a bunch of guys having career years or down years compared to most other teams.

For the Yankees, few expected much out of Pavano or Wright.  Mussina has been much better than was expected.  Johnson has pitched about in line with expectations.  Sheffield is almost 40.  If a team with a $200 million payroll has no depth behind an aging outfield, that's poor planning, not bad luck.  Matsui had gone many years without getting injured.  The law of averages finally caught up to him.  I think it has been Craig who has repeatedly said that the core of this Yankees team is old, injuries are going to be part of the equation.  It's not bad luck.

The Red Sox have received way, way better production out of Mike Lowell than most Sox fans prayed for.  Curt Schilling, another near-40 year old who missed most of last year and was ineffective in his limited playing has been very good.  Jonathan Papelbon has been the 2nd coming of Mo Rivera after Boston entered the season with a big question mark in the bullpen with Keith Foulke.  If you start the season with David Wells in your rotation and don't expect him to miss at least half of his starts at this point in his career, you're simply not paying attention.

For the Jays, no one expected this horror show out of Josh Towers.  Most expected a return to mediocrity, not one of the least effective three months of starting pitching in major league baseball history.  Everyone knew AJ Burnett's injury history, but after a ~ 200 inning season in 2005, the amount of missed time and contribution of basically zero to the team til practically the All-Star Break has been very unfortunate.  Many predicted Chacin would regress, but months without a league average pitcher is a tough break.  How many at the beginning of the season predicted that Jason Frasor and Vinnie Chulk would both be demoted to Syracuse?  How many thought Justin Speier would allow more than half of his inherited runners to score to this point in the season?  It's easy to point to the offensive heroics of the Jays but the pitching staff has been much worse than many thought.

Last year, the offense was poor as Koskie was injured, Rios regressed, etc.  This year, it's the pitching.  The notion that the stars have aligned perfectly for the Jays, yet they continue to fall short is wrong.  Quite the contrary.  Every year there are injuries, players outperforming expectations, and players underperforming.  Most pegged the Yankees and Red Sox as better than Toronto going into the season, and so far that has been true.  Realistically, the stars need to align for the Jays to break through this year and it has categorically not happened to this point.  How can a season that has seen Ty Taubenheim in the rotation for a month be considered a waste of good fortune?

The HR/game statistic for the pitchers is very deceptive because the Rogers Centre has played as a home run paradise this year.  The Jays' offence and pitching staff both lead the league in HR/fly.  The figures at home are ridiculous while on the road, they're just modestly above normal.

Mike G, this is interesting, but why does it matter to the discussion at hand?  Either the HR paradise will continue, in which case the staff's flyball tendencies will continue to pose a problem, or it won't, in which case one should analyze the roster through the lens of a projected decrease in home run allowed rate when figuring out how to prevent runs going forward.  But in both cases, it's not like the solution is "therefore, the run-prevention problem lies in balls that are beyond Glaus's grasp but within Corey Koskie's."  Toronto's balls-in-play hits against are not high enough to draw that conclusion.  Oakland has been far better at preventing runs, and Toronto's only yielded five more hits in the same number of games.

In any event, as you note, there is less offensive difference (and, in terms of Win Shares, also less defensive difference) between Koskie/Hudson and Glaus/Adams-or-Hill than is popularly believed this year.  I do, however, think that the Jays duo is likely to out-hit the ex-Jays duo for the rest of this year and for the rest of Glaus's contract.  But Koskie's certainly hit well and Hudson's bat is coming around.  O-Dog also plays in a great hitter's park.

Regarding the point about defensive slumps and off-years, Craig and others have really opened my eyes to the somewhat counter-intuitive idea that defensive performance from game to game and even year to year can vary as much as hitting.  It's mind-blowing, but it's true.  It's one of the many recent insights to change the way I think of the game.

Mike G, I think we're talking past each other.  I'm certainly not saying that infield defence doesn't matter -- I'm just saying that the delta between the pre-Arizona-trade infield and the post-Arizona-trade infield (which has actually, as you suggest, been OK) hasn't been the reason for Toronto's weaker overall pitching numbers in light of the fact that so much of the damage has come via the home run.  If you want to say that the staff's HR woes are temporary and owing largely to ballparkiness, that's fine, but that doesn't mean that Toronto's run prevention issues are attributable to the Hudson and Koskie trades.   If anything, it's a call for patience with the current pitching staff.  I'm not sure I agree with that call, but maybe the balls will stop flying out.

Meanwhile, old friend Mark Hendrickson was traded, along with Toby Hall, to the Dodgers for Jae Seo and Dioner Navarro.

That's pretty much my reaction as well.

It's interesting that Navarro has already been in 4 organizations. 

Hall is a pretty useful player, and Navarro is currently injured.  I don't know what the Dodgers are going to do with Hall, presumably flip him to someone else; Sandy Alomar is playing very well for them as Russell Martin's backup (Martin's a Rookie of the Year candidate, by the way) and I can't see the Dodgers carrying three catchers when they are hurting at so many positions.

If the Dodgers are able to plug Hendrickson into their rotation and get a good 5th starter performance out of him, the deal doesn't look awful for them provided they can flip Hall for something tasty.  They better do it quick though, as they are nominally in contention and need a lot more than Mark Hendrickson to make that stick.

This may mean that Kevin Cash gets one more shot at redemption, right?  (Until Navarro comes back from whatever is ailing him).   Or maybe the Rays are going to try Shawn Riggans.

On offense, an important factor that can't be overlooked, especially with Koskie, is playing time. A good OPS is only worth runs when in the lineup. Koskie has shown a long history of being injury prone. Glaus has already played an extra 5 games this year, counting the SS adventures. Glaus is now at .887, Koskie at .848, with Glaus coming off his worst 2 weeks of the year (except for tonight). Offensively, Glaus is worth 10-15 runs a year extra, even assuming Koskie stays healthy, and at career best hitting levels and Glaus stays where he is.

Excellent analysis, AWeb.  I agree completely.