Danny Haren must have redeemed himself in front of the gods of run support recently.  After starting off 0-2 with an ERA of about a buck, he is now 3-2  after yesterday's 12-5 laugher over the D-Rays.  Haren pitched pretty well, but not as well as when he was losing.

The rotation flips again.  It sure would be nice to separate Halladay and Burnett.

According to Arnsberg, he's hoping Zambrano will be able to throw 50-65 pitches in his start vs. the Indians next Wednesday. It looks like the Jays bullpen will have to toss 5-6 innings in that game. I have yet to hear or read a comment from Josh Towers. You have to know your days are numbered with the Jays when they decide Victor Zambrano is a better option in the rotation.

Here is Tower's comment to the Toronot Star.

"I thought I pitched well, but ... we weren't winning when I was pitching," said Towers, who was 1-3 in four starts. "If it helps the team, I'm cool with it."

I find it to be a very mixed comment. It sounds like he doesn't agree with the move, but is trying to remain agreeable in view of the visions of long bus trips.

I hope this move shakes the team up a little bit. Ohka turned in a beauty today.

the gods of run support

Speaking of... from today's game notes (updated to include this afternoon's contest)

PITCHER    GS  R R/GS QS
Burnett     5 35  7.0  3
Ohka        5 27  5.4  1
Halladay    5 26  5.2  5
Chacin      5 25  5.0  2
Towers      4 10  2.5  1

Other random notes...

Adam Lind still has the outfield's only BaseRunner Kill...

The Jays have hit 57 doubles, and allowed just 27... they're batting .273 and slugging .441, while the other team's hitters are batting .239 and slugging .387... the team ERA is 4.06, the other team's ERA is 4.78. They've outscored the opposition 116-102.  And all this was before today's game.

According to Arnsberg, he's hoping Zambrano will be able to throw 50-65 pitches in his start vs. the Indians next Wednesday.

Very interesting. Perhaps Casey Janssen and/or Shaun Marcum (and/or Josh Towers) will throw 50 to 65 pitches in that game too.

I'm surprised that the Jays have pulled Towers from the rotation so quickly. He hasn't been doing that badly.

My guess is that the plan all along was to put Zambrano in the rotation. They would have opened the season with Victor as the #5, but they found it hard to believe that his arm wasn't about to fall off, given that pitchers aren't supposed to recover from Tommy John surgery that fast. (Or perhaps "J.P." now stands for "Just Panicking".)

I assume Chacin ranks ahead of Towers because Gus is a lefty - there's no evidence in the record to support taking Josh out and leaving Gus in.

Other thoughts, while I'm here:
- Frank Thomas spent much of the month struggling, and still has an OBP of .373. I think this is going to work out.
- I don't think the Jays can expect more from Ohka than they've gotten. If he was any better, he'd be on the first year of a 4-year, $40 million contract right now.
- We now know something we didn't know before: Aaron Hill belongs at second base and nowhere else.
- Who would have predicted that, at nearly the end of April, Matt Stairs would have more stolen bases than RBI?
- I feel tremendously sorry for both Reed Johnson and Gregg Zaun. After years of struggle, they'd both finally won starting jobs, and now they're both hurt. How cruel.

A fun tidbit from SI.com's Gennaro Filice

" Bobby Cox's historic chase: While Barry Bonds pursues a record that is just over 30 years old, Bobby Cox is closing in on a mark that has stood since the Great Depression -- career managerial ejections. Cox was tossed on Sunday for the 127th time, leaving him four short of John McGraw's career record. Cox's ejections aren't flashy like Lou Piniella's. That's not his style. Just like his Braves, Cox's prominence lies in the body of work."

I assume Chacin ranks ahead of Towers because Gus is a lefty - there's no evidence in the record to support taking Josh out and leaving Gus in.

Chacin has had 3 of 5 game scores at 45 or higher - Towers has had 1 in 4.  The main difference in pitching between the two is that Towers has had one really good game and three pretty bad games whereas Chacin has had one good start, two starts about average, and two pretty bad starts. That gives Cachin the edge to me.

Also, Chacin was as good as Towers in 2005 (a difference of 1 in ERA+ and a difference of 3 innings) and was nowhere near as bad as Josh last year.  Josh Towers has had only 1 season in his career where he has pitchd this well as a full-time starter and right now he isn't pitching that well.  Thus, there is more reason to believe that Chacin will bounce back from this bad start than Towers. I would say that is ample evidence to support taking Josh out and leaving Gus in.

Why is it that 1 good start makes everyone think that Towers is now one of the better starters on this team when the other pitchers have not been demonstrably worse to start this season.

ChicagoJaysFan, I think the point that's trying to be made is that there's not much difference between the three, and therefore why mess with it. If one of them had demonstrably shown that he didn't belong compared with the other two, I'd be more comfortable with it, but so far I don't see any separation between them. It is especially maddening, when you give the spot to a pitcher who is not stretched out, has shown zero pitch economy throughout his career and therefore given a 50-65 pitch count, probably won't make it through the 3rd and definitely won't make it through the 4th thus placing more strain on the bullpen. Why not wait for a suitable replacement to be ready or until the separation between the #3,4, and 5 starters is more visible?

So they will let Zambrano pitch a few innings and then theoretically let Towers go long relief.  And that is different from Towers starting how? Bah. 

The change in batting rotation got me thinking...(Ya that scares me too...)

I suggest...

Hill: 312/360/538, Lind: 271/357/438, Wells: 298/368/543, Thomas: 247/364/416, Glaus: 310/487/552, Overbay: 239/320/409, Rios: 277/315/475, Phillips: 313, 353,313, Clayton: 288/314/394

To me Rios is not a leadoff guy at the moment- especially with a 315 OBP. This would give us a scary one through seven. N'est pas? (For those of you challenged by that dreaded English disease: monolingualism, that's French for, "this is the pen of my Aunt." or something similar.)

actionjackson, I think the reason to mess with the rotation is that the current 3-4-5 starters are not good enough for a playoff caliber team.  Given last year's performance and what he's done so far, Towers has given no indication that he's anything beyond a 6th starter at this point in time.  Zambrano may be more than that, so management has decided to give him a shot.  It's not guaranteed to work out, but I think it's unlikely that after the next two times through the rotation, we'll say that the rotation is any worse than it is currently as a result of this move, nor will we say the bullpen is any worse than it is currently.

I think the concern about his pitch count the next outing is overblowing the situation.  The rotation switch is being made with the rest of the season in mind, not a single game and also, Towers has an arm that is pretty long right now and he'll be in the bullpen that day, so I don't see the issue.

Finally, when you say they should wait for a suitable replacement to be ready, I think this move is an attempt to see if they have a suitable replacement already.  Other than Zambrano's injury-shortened season last year, he has had an ERA+ at 100 or slightly above for 3 consecutive years averaging around 6 innings per start.  If we can get that player in our rotation, that is an improvement over the way that any of the 3 are pitching right now.

I believe that it is a matter of run support as Towers was only given 2.3 runs to work with BEFORE the game vs Texas where he gave up a 5-0 lead then got pulled. Chacin on the other hand gets a ton of run support, and look at his W-L columns....

"Hill: 312/360/538, Lind: 271/357/438, Wells: 298/368/543, Thomas: 247/364/416, Glaus: 310/487/552, Overbay: 239/320/409, Rios: 277/315/475, Phillips: 313, 353,313, Clayton: 288/314/394"

hill to the top of the order to me seemed like a move that should have been made before the season. why try overbay up there when u have a bona fide .300 hitter who would fit the perfect mold in the #2 hole. and now that reed is out, for sure hill should be up in the top 2 to provide some quality at bats at the top of the order early in the game. i like mylegacy's order, and perhaps if people think rios at #7 is too low, u can swap him n lind and still have a real nice looking lineup. i also hate to see someone like stairs or zaun batting in front of hill in the 6 hole while hill bats 7. neither are better hitters, and shouldnt be hitting ahead of him. and hill's spot in the order is just an obvious error, one of many in the gibbons bank. i cant wait for the "FIRE GIBBONS" chants to begin

on the towers issue - while im one who thought he was pitching real well (at least as well as ohka had been going, prior to today), u still need to look at it the other way. if u believe towers didnt deserve to be moved, then this move will do a lot to strengthen what has been the teams weakest link so far this season - the bullpen. maybe towers can have some effective janssen-like outings out in the pen. and he can take solace in the fact that brett myers got moved to the pen too!

"Hill: 312/360/538, Lind: 271/357/438, Wells: 298/368/543, Thomas: 247/364/416, Glaus: 310/487/552, Overbay: 239/320/409, Rios: 277/315/475, Phillips: 313, 353,313, Clayton: 288/314/394"

hill to the top of the order to me seemed like a move that should have been made before the season. why try overbay up there when u have a bona fide .300 hitter who would fit the perfect mold in the #2 hole. and now that reed is out, for sure hill should be up in the top 2 to provide some quality at bats at the top of the order early in the game. i like mylegacy's order, and perhaps if people think rios at #7 is too low, u can swap him n lind and still have a real nice looking lineup. i also hate to see someone like stairs or zaun batting in front of hill in the 6 hole while hill bats 7. neither are better hitters, and shouldnt be hitting ahead of him. and hill's spot in the order is just an obvious error, one of many in the gibbons bank. i cant wait for the "FIRE GIBBONS" chants to begin

on the towers issue - while im one who thought he was pitching real well (at least as well as ohka had been going, prior to today), u still need to look at it the other way. if u believe towers didnt deserve to be moved, then this move will do a lot to strengthen what has been the teams weakest link so far this season - the bullpen. maybe towers can have some effective janssen-like outings out in the pen. and he can take solace in the fact that brett myers got moved to the pen too!

I'm concerned about Zambrano not being stretched out enough and being slightly less than 12 months removed from TJ. That could prove to be a mistake. I'm also still having trouble separating the last three pitchers. If there were a clear cut winner (or in this case loser) in the "Banish Me to the Bullpen Sweepstakes", I'd be more comfortable, but I'm not sure I see it yet. I do like Ohka's veteran mound presence though. He seems completely unflappable, almost bored by it all. That is certainly one thing Towers doesn't have, and Chacin appears quite laid-back too. But, I need some cold, hard data and for me it's not there yet. Ultimately, time may have proven me wrong and this move may save some wins, but it could backfire horribly too, as in finish Zambrano's career. I just hope they know what they're doing because he does have a tremendous arm even if its guidance systems are sometimes, well uh, lacking. We shall see.

Today Todd Helton went 1-1 with 5 yes FIVE BBs... That line must make Billy Beane mess himself.

Helton got on base 6 times for a team that scored 9 runs, in the middle of the lineup, and only scored one run. That actually seems typical of his year...he's on pace for 215 hits, 160 walks, and 74 runs scored. He also sports an OBP higher than his slugging, which I don't recall ever seeing this late in the year for a guy slugging over .500.

Speaking of frustrating years, as mentioned above, Toronto is 6th in ERA, 2nd in runs scored, and 12-12. This is beginning to look a lot like last year. At least they're in second place so far, 1.5 out of the wild card.

BigTimeRoyalsFan, you say the team's weakest link is the bullpen. Is that the bullpen that not including today's game has allowed the opposing hitters a .220/.307/.320 line? Is that the bullpen that not including today's game has played a large role in opposing hitters putting up a putrid .195/.267/.314 line between the 7th and the 9th innings? Maybe you're talking about the bullpen that before today's game had helped contribute in late and close situations where opposing hitters are hitting .200/.284/.319. The real issue for this pitching staff has been the 3rd and 4th innings so far and that points directly to the starting pitchers, not the bullpen. Opposing hitters are hitting at a .323/.393/.616 clip in the 3rd inning and it doesn't get much better in the 4th (.319/.381/.553). Having back to back innings like that on average is a real back breaker. What might be causing that? Well, generally the 3rd and 4th innings are the innings when the order is coming up for a second time in the game, making adjustments to the starting pitcher, based on what they saw their first time up. Evidently the Jays' opponents are adjusting extremely well between the first and second at bats. Whether this is an issue that Arnsberg has to deal with or poor pitch selection/pitching patterns being selected by the pitchers and catchers I don't know, but I do know this, if the team wants to crank it up, that is one area that must change.

18 of the first 24 games have been decided by 3 runs or less. It seems to me that the reason for the failings of the bullpen has more to do with the very tiny margin for error that these guys have faced every time they've come in. I don't know if the Jays bullpen leads the league in Leverage Index, but I do know that they're right up there. Ryan, Frasor, and Tallet (?) are all over 2.10 on the Leverage Index. This has been a tough stretch and I think they've come through it OK. It appears Gibbons has settled on a bullpen rotation for now of: Frasor, Accardo, Downs, Janssen, Marcum, Tallet, Towers. He appears to have freed Jeremy Accardo and thus helped the team immensely and met one of Leigh's demands all at once. If/when B.J. and Brandon League return, you can probably bump everybody down two spots and give the team an amazing array of bullpen arms, or maybe they'll want to work League in slowly at first. That's OK, Frasor, Downs, and Accardo can shoulder the load while he works back up to being the eighth inning guy.

Whether switching Zambrano in for Towers will solve this second time through the orderitis or not remains to be seen, but I think it's a positive that the Jays brain trust have recognized that in terms of the pitching, it's the starters that need to be given a boost and not the other way around. Had I not seen these numbers I definitely would've thought otherwise based on the aggravation of losing those 5 or so games late, but these numbers suggest to me that these games were not necessarily lost by the relievers, but perhaps by the team effort before the relievers got there. It's kind of like blaming somebody's death from whatever emergency situation on the paramedics. Maybe we should look beyond the paramedics and realize they're doing the best they can. Maybe we shouldn't lean on them so heavily in the first place.

"i cant wait for the "FIRE GIBBONS" chants to begin"

I, for one have always been a Gibbons fan.  I like the way he carries himself and he seems to be a hit in the club house.  That said, a change may be in order.  Gibbons may have been great at managing the Jays to this point but a new face may be required to take our boys to the next level.  I may be jumping the gun but I have certainly seen some strange things going on.  I didn't get a chance to watch the Towers early hook game, but just reading the box and seeing that he had 6 K's, was sitting on a mid-70's pitch count, and had recovered from the bad inning I coudln't believe that he got the hook.  Perhaps this game was just a little too much like Towers 2006 for Prof Gibbons taste and he needed to see no more, but I found it odd.

Maybe this is a good time to give ol' Cito another shot.  I heard he had some success with some team in the early 90's.

pjfreshphil, you can't go back. As much as I love that man for what he helped this team accomplish, that ship has sailed. That man was rode out of here on a rail. The media and the fans were just as vicious with him as they have been with any manager in this town. His supporters will tell you they loved him because "He let them play." His detractors will tell you "He had very little to do with those championships, it was all the players. He just sat there on the bench and watched." For me, he was the Joe Torre of his day, the calm at the centre of the storm, but remember he took over with no managing experience at any level and he didn't even want the job. As much as I love him, I would see that as a step backwards.

While we're on the topic of managers, I don't want to hear anymore of this "We need an experienced big league manager" blah blah blah crap. Only two of the ten managers in Blue Jay history had big league experience before working here and one of the eight that didn't led the team to all but one of it's five division titles. Experience is not the only thing that counts. That seems like a pretty tight clubhouse they've got going there and while Gibby's detractors might not want to admit to it, one of his strengths might be team building. What about Bush, Shea, and Lilly they'll ask? If you've never had a fight or three in your family then your family has a lot more problems than the Blue Jays have had at any time during Gibbons' tenure. Let's see where he is when this year is over. There's no need to break out the guillotine yet. He's had to learn on the fly this year with all the injuries and very quickly he's reconfigured the bullpen in a much more sensible rotation that is starting to emphasize Accardo and de-emphasize Janssen and Marcum in the tight spots, which is a good move. Am I happy with .500 baseball? Of course not, but I recognize the shell game he's had to play and I think for the most part he's played it well in spite of everything falling down all around him. We'll see how he does over this next two months. Don't underestimate him though, he's pretty cagey.

Hear hear. It's nuts that fans of a team that's managed to go .500 despite a deluge of injuries are calling for the manager's head, especially when as best I can tell there's no question that the players are playing hard for him and there's no hint of clubhouse dissention. Gibbons has made a few moves to the bullpen that I might not have, but all in all he's done a pretty good job thus far. Calling for his head is panicky, and won't solve any problems anyway.

Regarding discussions of the lineup, and the idea of putting Hill at the top of the order and Rios lower down, I think that Gibbons is currently playing his cards the right way.

I agree that Rios doesn't make much sense as a leadoff hitter.  "Us" bauxites (I surround 'us' in quotations because this is my first post, though I have lurked for longer than I'd like to admit) are stat heads, so we all agree that nothing more than a quick glance at Rios' OBP, both this season and for his career, should make him a questionable choice at the top of the order.  What's more, he's been a better rally capper than rally starter for the past couple of years, doing great work in those mystical 'clutch' situations that we can assume a man like Gibbons'  puts great stock in.  But there are arguments, somewhat less 'facty' but possibly more 'truthy' (as Stephen Colbert will tell you, 'truthiness' comes from the gut, and is therefore a type of wisdom that has particular currency in oldschool baseball circles), for putting Rios up top.  I think there is a perception that Rios is more relaxed out of the leadoff spot.  He came up as a leadoff hitter and might see it as his natural spot in the order.  People have been putting pressure on him to hit more home runs throughout his pro career, and leaving him in the 6 or 7 spot sort of designates him as a power hitter, rather than letting his power develop on a natural course.  Now, the stats I have glanced at are kind of ambiguous on that point: Rios is doing a little bit worse this year ever since he's been moved to leadoff, and last year he was a better hitter when he was near the top of the order, but alot of that probably has to do with coming back from the Staph Infection, struggling, and therefore sitting near the bottom of the order.  But there are better reasons to keep Rios at the top. 

One has been pointed out often enough - it frees up his legs, so that he can go from 1st to home when Lind or Wells doubles, instead of overrunning Thomas and Glaus on doubles of his own.  The other is that there is no other good leadoff option with Reed out.  Obviously, Gibbons tried Lind today and that went okay, but the Jays aren't going to like that long term because we want Lind to be a power hitter, and Adam Dunn experiments aside, a slow-footed, poor-fielding, power hitter is going to be confused by his role if you slot him into the leadoff spot, expecting a quick sabermetric explanation to clarify why he suddenly feels like he is supposed to be Otis Nixon.  At least that is my opinion. 

So the other option, and the subject of this discussion, is Aaron Hill.  I count myself a huge supporter of Hill (although Robbie made me permanently partial to all Blue Jay second basemen, including the one named "Owen" who regularly appears in my dreams).  Hill might be able to get the job done hitting 1st.  But why continue to give Hill such a hard time getting settled in the majors? I think the Blue Jays are very conscious of the fact that we need a good, stable situation at 2nd base and that Hill could be the longterm answer at that position.  The next Damaso Garcia, if not Roberto Alomar (er, or Orlando Hudson, but we know JP never saw O-dog as a longterm Jay). I always thought that one of the reasons that the Jays stuck with Russ at shortstop so long wasn't in order to nurse Russ along, but to nurse Hill along.  And while Hill has always seemed to pass the many tests thrown his way with flying colours, there is no doubt that he has had trouble adjusting at times.  Before this year, his hitting has always been its worst when he has been playing second base, as the pressure of learning a new position and putting in the extra time with Butterfield seems to have affected him at the plate.  This year it seems like him and Brantley have been able to put in time working on his swing (he mentioned that in the postgame comments tonight, I believe) and he has got the bat and the glove going at the same time, as witnessed by today's tour de force in both aspects of his game.  But we have all noticed general inconsistencies in Hill's game this year - sometimes the glovework just isn't there, while other times pitchers make him look awful at the plate - like during a 3-25 stretch, and another 2-18 mini-slump. In his own words "Some days you have it, some days you don't" (in reference to today's success, when he "saw the ball good").  Still, he has obviously made a ton of progress.  I expect he has been helped in getting to this point in his game by hitting in the bottom third of the order with very little pressure on him to do much with the bat other than learn at his own pace.

Admittedly, that is just longwinded speculation, and perhaps not the finest entry that one has ever made into the Batter's Box fray.  But the conclusion is that you know what you are getting when you put Rios at the top of the order.  If you stick Hill into the leadoff spot, you force a guy who has had to make adjustment after adjustment after adjustment to once again tinker with his approach, at the very moment when his hard work is finally paying off.

Brilliant

Owen...welcome aboard, excellent post.

You say..."But the conclusion is that you know what you are getting when you put Rios at the top of the order." I agree...you are getting the second lowest OBP on the team and are using that guy leading off. Clayton, the worse OPB guy on the team, is only one point lower in OBP than Rios. Now that Sparky's gone...the first two batters have to be chosen from: Rios, Lind, Overbay and Hill. I say Hill and Lind given their OBP's, their youth, etc. ALSO, Rios really should be in an RBI position so he can be encouraged to develop and use his man-strength...i.e. somewhere 5th through 7th in the order.