The Blue Jays Thread.

[ricoFlame]

well burnett was steady tonight

[CrusaderPi]

Whose the person who benefits the most because of these injuries? The GM of course. This way he has a dozen or so injury related excuses for the season to go down the crapper. Truthfully we are seeing who the Jays are. And over hyped, injury prone teams that's full of holes with no depth (and no minor league support).

I'd put the over / under for Jays wins this season at 59.5 now.

[CaramonLS]

Marcum has the best start of his career, goes 6 IP with 0 hits, 3 Walks, 7ks... then gets pulled in favor of frasor to start the 7th inning.

Seriously... %!%@^%#!

[RedHot25]

he had a no-hitter going and got pulled?

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by RedHot25

he had a no-hitter going and got pulled?

Yes. 78 pitches and he was fine physically too.

He hadn't started in a while, so that was the "excuse". Still a load of steaming BS if I've ever heard. You don't pull a pitcher who is throwing a no hitter unless

a) you are going to lose the game because he is going to walk someone in or
b) he tells you to pull him
c) his arm is falling off.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Yes. 78 pitches and he was fine physically too.

He hadn't started in a while, so that was the "excuse". Still a load of steaming BS if I've ever heard. You don't pull a pitcher who is throwing a no hitter unless

In general I think MLB managers baby their starters too much...but apart from that I don't see it as an excuse. If he hadn't started in a while they were probably worried about yet another starter getting hurt. Will be interesting to hear Gibbon's comments after though.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

In general I think MLB managers baby their starters too much...but apart from that I don't see it as an excuse. If he hadn't started in a while they were probably worried about yet another starter getting hurt. Will be interesting to hear Gibbon's comments after though.

He has been a starter his whole career apart from this year, giving him say a chance to throw at most 40 more pitches, I think the risk if anything is minimal.

I mean, this isn't Dusty Baker allowing Prior/Wood to toss 140/150 pitches. You gotta let the kid have enough rope to hang himself, especially when he is on the verge of something doing really special.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

Yes. 78 pitches and he was fine physically too.

He hadn't started in a while, so that was the "excuse". Still a load of steaming BS if I've ever heard. You don't pull a pitcher who is throwing a no hitter unless

a) you are going to lose the game because he is going to walk someone in or
b) he tells you to pull him
c) his arm is falling off.

It's hardly BS.

You don't go from throwing 30 pitches an outing max to pitching 95+ pitches. It's as simple as that. Sprinters don't start to run marathons overnight.

The Jays pitching staff is already littered with injuries. It's a pretty easy decision to not stretch Marcum out and put him at major risk for an injury for a personal goal.

If Marcum goes another inning or two and gets hurt Gibbons gets shredded for not taking him out. He's in a no win situation with Jays fans. If there's any decision Gibbons should be criticized for it's pinch-hitting McDonald instead of Rios.

Regardless, if Tallet decides to hustle out that groundball to Overbay the game goes into extras. Even if he did get a bad break on the cover to first he ran at half speed the whole way there.

[Clever_Iggy]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

In general I think MLB managers baby their starters too much...but apart from that I don't see it as an excuse. If he hadn't started in a while they were probably worried about yet another starter getting hurt. Will be interesting to hear Gibbon's comments after though.

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

He has been a starter his whole career apart from this year, giving him say a chance to throw at most 40 more pitches, I think the risk if anything is minimal.

I mean, this isn't Dusty Baker allowing Prior/Wood to toss 140/150 pitches. You gotta let the kid have enough rope to hang himself, especially when he is on the verge of something doing really special.

There's a very interesting Sports Illustrated article about Dice-K. His method of taking care of his arm is on par with Japanese methods. Apparently they dont baby their arms as much and they last just as long... interesting conflict of pitching theories.

[CrusaderPi]

The general rule of thumb is take your age and multiply by 10. That's how many innings you can pitch a year. It becomes kind of moot after age 23. But until then, it works pretty well.

In regards to whatever nameless starter that was going today, why bother saving his arm? Does that guy really feature that heavily in your future plans? If he isn't pencilled in to be the #2 starter behind Roy, I'm on the DL once or twice every year, Halliday in 2009 then use him up.

Isn't like throwing an extra 30 pitches (or how ever many it would have taken him to give up a hit) would be compared to Dusty's handling of Woods and Prior. This is some nameless, futureless, cannon fodder pitcher who had the chance to spark the team and give the suffering fans a warm fuzzy.

Good news though, now we get to see years and years of dude dominating the opposition. That's why they saved his arm after all. Right?

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Clever_Iggy

There's a very interesting Sports Illustrated article about Dice-K. His method of taking care of his arm is on par with Japanese methods. Apparently they dont baby their arms as much and they last just as long... interesting conflict of pitching theories.

Yeah I read that piece too - definately causes one to question whether or not the NA style of managing pitchers is the right one. Great article.

[bluejays]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

Yeah I read that piece too - definately causes one to question whether or not the NA style of managing pitchers is the right one. Great article.

I read that article too and am no medical expert at all, but I agree a ton with the Japanese style simply because this is the human body we're refering to. It's like jogging, if you continually take runs on a consistant basis, your body becomes more endurant, you do it once a month, you don't improve your endurance at all. The human body heals real well too, so if you train in a consistant basis to do something your body heals to match what your environment is demanding of it. Doing minimal isn't doing much for the conditioning of your arm which really is something at North Americans should be looking at changing.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

In regards to whatever nameless starter that was going today, why bother saving his arm? Does that guy really feature that heavily in your future plans? If he isn't pencilled in to be the #2 starter behind Roy, I'm on the DL once or twice every year, Halliday in 2009 then use him up.

Isn't like throwing an extra 30 pitches (or how ever many it would have taken him to give up a hit) would be compared to Dusty's handling of Woods and Prior. This is some nameless, futureless, cannon fodder pitcher who had the chance to spark the team and give the suffering fans a warm fuzzy.

Good news though, now we get to see years and years of dude dominating the opposition. That's why they saved his arm after all. Right?

This would probably be a valid argument if the Jays pitching staff wasn't already decimated by injuries. Halladay, Ryan, League, Zambrano and Chacin (with the first three being arguably the Jay's three best pitchers) are all out for at least another month.

The Jays already have guys like McGowan in their rotation. The Jays have already shown they don't have much faith in Josh Towers so if Marcum goes down who's left to start? Ty Taubenheim?

The Jays already have enough problems with injuries to risk another one for a personal goal. It's not Gibbon's fault that Frasor hasn't been able to get anyone out all year (although he's been good in the past in coming into games at the start of an inning) and that Tallet didn't hustle to cover up on first.

[CrusaderPi]

Besides personal goal, what do the Jays have to play for?

Even if McGowan goes down, is his AA replacement any worse? Does it have any impact on the season? Probably not.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

Besides personal goal, what do the Jays have to play for?

Even if McGowan goes down, is his AA replacement any worse? Does it have any impact on the season? Probably not.

You can't approach the rest of the season with a "what do the Jays have to play for" attitude if you're the coach. Far too early to give up on the season even if the chances are slim.

[CrusaderPi]

Originally Posted by JiriHrdina

You can't approach the rest of the season with a "what do the Jays have to play for" attitude if you're the coach. Far too early to give up on the season even if the chances are slim.

True, but only to a point. And I think that point is a no hitter through 6 at home.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by CrusaderPi

True, but only to a point. And I think that point is a no hitter through 6 at home.

It's also the managar's responsibility to protect his pitchers from injury.

Edit: Quotes from Gibbons' re. the decision.
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/sports/070513/s051349A.html
Marcum, who struck out seven and had his slider working to near perfection, was on a pitch limit of about 70. When the gassed Marcum hit 78 pitches after six, there was no chance he would return for the seventh.
"I can't do that, you can't," said Jays manager John Gibbons. "He's definitely not going to be able to go nine. That would be abuse (to keep Marcum in the game). Many guys come up lame that way. He gave us everything we needed and more."

Edit: another snippet from another CBC article says Marcum confirmed he was tired:

Marcum confirmed that he was gassed, but the decision to pull him left the 25,453 in attendance at sun-drenched Rogers Centre to wonder what might have been.

If the pitcher himself admits he was done, I don't think there is anyway to 2nd guess the decision.

[rockstar]

With the bats the Jays possess - even with their injuries - they should have been in fine shape after Marcum was pulled. They should have cruised to victory yesterday with a pitching outing like that.

I think that's the more important issue here.

[JayP]

Originally Posted by rockstar

With the bats the Jays possess - even with their injuries - they should have been in fine shape after Marcum was pulled. They should have cruised to victory yesterday with a pitching outing like that.

I think that's the more important issue here.

Great point.

Just look at the ninth inning - down by one with no outs after Stairs' homer and Wells, Overbay, Thomas all go out in order to end the game. Arguably the three guys you'd want up in that situation and not one of them can at least get on base.

[habernac]

Frank Thomas. The only team the "Big Hurt" is hurting are the Blue Jays.