With the Jays’ post-season fortunes dropping like Big Brown in the Belmont, the inactivity by the front office is troubling.
With the Blue Jays’ post-season fortunes dropping like Big Brown in the Belmont, the inactivity by the front office is troubling. Just two-and-a-half weeks after winning 20 of 30 games in May, the team sits 10-plus games behind Boston in the East and with five teams between them and the Tampa Bay Rays in the wild-card race.
Have the Jays hit rock bottom or is there another level, if possible, underneath this? Their offensive woes have completely trumped the outstanding pitching that they have received to date and, suddenly, the pitchers are starting to show the wear and tear of always having to carry the load by themselves.
Out of necessity, possible suitors for A.J. Burnett are falling at J.P. Ricciardi’s feet. The Yankees lost their ace Chien-Ming Wang indefinitely when he injured his right foot -– sprained ligament and a torn tendon -– running the bases and will be lost to the club until September. And the Cubs, Burnett’s preferred team to disappoint next, received devastating news when ace Carlos Zambrano left his Wednesday start against the Rays and was sent home to Chicago to get to the bottom of his ailing right shoulder.
The fact that the Yankees are so desperate that they’ve brought in overweight, tomato can Sidney Ponson tells me that a deal can be struck with them. Not making the playoffs in their final season in Yankee Stadium is not an option and they will overpay for a pitcher like Burnett, even if he is just a .500 pitcher.
Some will say you should never trade within your division. To that I say, "poppycock." Desperate times require desperate measures and it’s not like they’d be trading Roy Halladay, or any of the young arms, to the hated Yankees. It’s only Burnett.
And the silence is also telling in regards to the fate of manager John Gibbons, who has stood by his scuffling team to a fault. "Gibby" is a professional who refuses to call out any of his charges even though, in my 16 years on this beat, I’ve never seen such a collection of talented, or so we’ve been led to believe, underachievers.
Is that the manager’s fault? Well, he hasn’t stepped into the batter’s box yet so, no. The only fault I find with the way he’s managed the team is that he hasn’t lit a fire under his charges, and he’s allowed them to continue to list aimlessly in the tide.
No, the problems of this team should be shared equally with the front office, who has allowed an air of unprofessionalism hang over this team. Whether it’s post-game shaving-cream pies (thank God that stopped), Mohawk haircuts or something as simple as only a handful of uniformed personnel standing on the top step of the dugout during the national anthems, the inmates having been running the asylum for quite some time and it just hasn’t worked.
Some will argue that the self-proclaimed "idiots" in Boston are allowed to act that way. Very true, but they back it up by winning, not sitting double-digit games in the basement of their division with the season not yet at the halfway point.
Ultimately, it appears inevitable that Gibbons will be forced to walk the plank like Buck Martinez and Carlos Tosca before him. And that will be a shame because, in the end, he did the best he could with what was at his disposal.
It’s not his fault that the Jays cornered the market on light-hitting, middle infielders. And it’s not his fault that a line-up put together to slug its way to the playoffs has shown such little power now seen in these parts since the early expansion years. With that in mind then hitting instructor Gary Denbo should also be following Gibbons out the door.
In what has turned into a continuing series of conversations, my boothmates Rance Mulliniks, Pat Tabler and Jesse Barfield, all accomplished major-league hitters in their day and who instructed hitters in the minors after their playing days ended, have been at odds with the Jays approach at the plate all season long. They all agree that working the count is a good idea, but letting 2-0 fastballs down the gut is inexcusable and one of the main reasons that the Jays have hit so poorly in the clutch this season and with little power. The fact that Rance and Jesse learned their craft as players under Cito Gaston gives a lot of weight to what they say.
I applaud veteran catcher Gregg Zaun for his comment to Sportsnet’s Jamie Campbell before Wednesday’s loss in Milwaukee when he bluntly stated that the players need a plan when they step into the box other than swinging for the fences.
Finally, someone on this team willing to show a little leadership, something that has been sorely lacking for far too long. Seven years too long, in fact.
