2 early positive signs...

Chip Cannon tripled in his first at-bat.

David Purcey has six up and six down, five by strikeout

With a 9/1 K/BB ratio to start the year, do we dare to dream that Purcey has found sustainable control? He is apparently bound and determined to get back to AAA ASAP.

I am endeavouring to; none to successfully mind you; not get too giddy over the the early season developments of Misters Purcey and McGowan.......oh what a boon that would be!

Purcey had a pretty hot start at AAA last year before becoming unhinged, so this may or may not mean anything. Everything I've read about him suggests he has problems keeping his mechanics consistent, so he may alternate good & bad for a couple years.

 Still, it's a nice start.

Good point - I had forgotten his control was still pretty poor. Though I could live with some wildness if he could hold batters to a 156/313/247 line.

(which, obviously, he couldn't, since even AA hitters soon realized he couldn't hit the plate without a laser-targeting system)

I am keeping my fingers crossed that this is the year where it all comes together for both of them... especially for Dusty since this is his last chance with the Jays... I'm hoping that these "semi-young" pitchers are like young d-men in hockey and they take that extra time before they ready

McGowan and Purcey back on the "prospect" radar would just add even more excitement for the 2007 year and beyond!

it's encouraging.

It is, but the weather is SO BAD that I'm going to hold off on this being a huge step forward until it actually stops raining and breaks 40 degress F.

That is tremendous news about Purcey: Having him turn the corner would be great news for the organization. But in particular is would be a nice feather in the cap of JP and his scouting department. Plus it would make it a lot more fun to follow the minors this year!

Any who gents, I don’t get a chance to post often these days, so I’d like to thank you all (for the hundredth time) for you hard work and thoughtful comments! I don’t know many people who can name many Jays prospects, let alone converse about the virtues of our young pitching: you guys supplement nicely, my lack of meaningful social interaction concerning minor league ball!

From our September 2006 interview with Dick Scott..........

From injuries we moved on to discuss some specific players who have, or have had, question marks about their performance.  Number one on that list is David Purcey who has a great arm but problems with his delivery and consistency.  Purcey has struggled for two seasons now and Dick was asked if it was time to redo Purcey's delivery?  Purcey is headed for the instructional league to get some extra work in.  We are not trying to remake his delivery, just smooth it out a little.  He is a bit mechanical at times, he is a big guy, sometimes he goes too quick to the plate and his arm doesn't catch up, other times he is just worried too much about his mechanics.  We told him you have good enough stuff you just have to get it over the plate.  When he gets it over the plate guys don't have good swings against him.  He has a plus fastball even though it's not 95, more 91-93 but it has good movement and a lot of life on it.  His curveball is a plus curveball, his change is a little below average right now but he will be fine, he is just a little slower developing than most guys.

I have seen Purcey pitch and he has nasty stuff, a good moving fastball and a big breaking ball.  His command was his problem.  Hopefully those tweaks that Dick Scott and his team worked on ware now paying off.

McGowan versus Hughes is scoreless after two.

McGowan continues to be hard to hit while struggling to throw a high number of strikes.  He has a walk in this game but only 17 of his 35 pitches were for strikes (less than 50%).

Hughes has given up a single but is much more consistent in the strike zone, 21 of 29 pitches for strikes and no walks.  He also has 3 strikeouts to McGowan's 2.

Well it's certainly easier to throw two strikes out of three if your first pitch is a strike at least some of the time.  By no means a terrible start for McGowan but illustrative of what he still has to work on because command problems will be magnified against veteran big league hitters.  Three walks in 5 innings and McGowan has regularly been at 90-100 pitches through 5 innings in each of his starts when he should be more around 75 pitches.

If this trend continues the Jays may want to consider putting him into long relief to make sure he doesn't overly tax that repaired elbow.

Nice to see Purcey successful in his first two starts. 

Despite McGowan's control problems today, he's been good in two starts, and ok in his third start, based on the end result.  5 IP and 2 ER isn't the end of the world, and he still had 5 K's despite his 3 BB.  It seems like he's making progress, but there is a sense of urgency with him because if he's not starting for the Jays by the end of the year there's a strong possibility that he never will.  I'll continue to cross my fingers and hope for the best with him.  If he could come around this year, and I still think that he will, it would be a huge boost.  Everyone has off days, and I'm hoping that today was one of them for McGowan.  When he pitches 7 innings for three straight starts, then I'll really start to get excited.

Finally, 52% of first pitch strikes doesn't seem bad to me after you've excluded balls in play.  I imagine that most of those balls in play were strikes and should be included in the statistics.

"If this trend continues the Jays may want to consider putting him into long relief to make sure he doesn't overly tax that repaired elbow."

I don't think his elbow should be of any concern, at least not any more concern than normal. He has had 2+ years to rehabilitate and has shown no lasting effects. What he needs are innings and the work, while not always perfect is beneficial none the less. That said, I am not overly concerned with yesterday's start. He has changed his approach, and when he was missing, the majority of the time it was down in the zone assuming of course that Gameday can be trusted.

For what it is worth, there seemed to be some insinuation that had the Chiefs actually played a CF yesterday the results of that 4th inning might have been much different (Chad Mottola in CF?).

Not to nitpick, Jim, but the boxscore today said that it was 45 with the wind blowing out for today's game in Connecticut.

It was 45 yesterday?  Didn't feel anything like it.  It's the worst April weather of my life.  It's been so windy it's unreal, and half the state of Connecticut is currently underwater.  Maybe it's real improvement, but it's quite a small sample, and I can't even fathom being outside for three hours in a row, nevermind trying to hit in this weather.