Scott Carson

Stats man Scott Carson is now in his 17th season as "third man in the booth" during Blue Jays telecasts. Watch for his columns regularly on Sportsnet.ca.

With Cito Gaston's return to the Jays came the rebirth of one of the team's younger players.

If the only good thing that comes out of the return of Cito Gaston -- besides finishing above .500 -- is the salvaging of Adam Lind's young career, then the 2008 season will not be a total loss.

You may remember during his first action with the team this season where he went 1-for-19 with a solitary single in six games was hardly a big enough sample to gauge if he should be the everyday left fielder.

Unfortunately, they had also committed playing time to veteran Shannon Stewart -- currently undergoing a stealth-like rehab somewhere in North America -- whose free agent signing had forced Reed Johnson into a Chicago Cubs uniform. And with the Jays struggling to keep within distance of the Boston Red Sox, New Yankees and (gulp!) the Tampa Bay Rays, John Gibbons was managing every game like it was his last, inadvertently putting loads of pressure on the 25-year old.

With the team sitting in the basement of the A.L. East at the beginning of play on May 5th, Lind was shipped back to Syracuse a day after going 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, to drop his average to an amoeba-like .053, with a .100 on-base percentage. So, while 17 losses as a team in the first 32 games tend to lead to these things, patience is usually the first thing to go for a young player.

Lind went back down to the low pressure at Triple-A where the Chiefs aren't exactly a contender. He rediscovered his stroke and confidence, and was recalled from the minors on June 21st, one day after Gaston was recalled from an 11-year forced retirement. Lind was in the line-up the next day and has done nothing but hit since. After today's game-and-a-half-header, he has 31 hits in 24 games since his recall, good for a .308 overall average with the Jays. And the team has won 14 of those games to return to .500 for the first since June 14th.

Funny what a little confidence, shown by a veteran manager with a history of success, both as a bench boss and previously a hitting coach, can do for a young player. Clearly Lind can be a successful hitter at the major league level, and if you don't believe me, the stats -- something I look at for hours and hours on end for 11 months of the year -- show exactly what I'm talkin' 'bout.

Stats Inc., a service to which all Blue Jays telecasts subscribe to for analysis and an in-depth database, has a line at the bottom of each player's career, year-by-year numbers which shows a 162-game average. After going 3-for-4 in the regularly-scheduled road trip finale in Baltimore, Lind's numbers are, quite frankly, solid.

The only thing I think he needs to do better is draw the occasional walk, but that can be said about most young hitters that are still trying to learn plate coverage and pitch recognition.

Watching Adam Lind mature as a hitter reminds us how important Cito Gaston -- as a man, manager and mentor -- is to this franchise ... again.

Third time lucky?

Toronto’s 2006 first-round pick David Purcey will make his latest start with the big club on Saturday against the Seattle Mariners. This change comes about as Jesse Litsch goes back to Triple-A to rediscover the stuff that saw him sit at 7-1, 3.18 ERA at the end of May (unlike the woeful 1-6, 6.12 ERA in nine starts since). Unable to control his two-seamer and without an off-speed pitch to keep hitters honest, left-handers were having their way with him and it was time for him to figure things out in the minors. He'll be back, not ‘when’ but ‘if’ because he's shown he can get big league hitters out.

As for Purcey, if Gaston shows the same level of confidence with him as Lind, then he might be alright in his third recall from Syracuse. So far, the 26-year old left-hander has been wild, walking seven of the 22 Detroit Tigers he faced in his major league debut on April 18th at the Rogers Centre, and four of 17 Phillies on May 16th in Philadelphia. Around those two starts, Purcey's Triple-A numbers (8-6, 2.69 ERA, .227 Opp Avg, 9.3 K's per 9 innings) show that he's pretty well got a handle on the highest level of the minors and now must translate that into MLB success. Adding a strikeout lefty to the rotation would make Toronot’s already above-average starting staff even more lethal.

Who’s next?

Outside of the return of Litsch or reliever Brian Wolfe, there's not much in Syracuse that would warrant a look by the big club. Mirroring the Blue Jays, the Chiefs have no hitter with double-digit home runs, the closest being Russ Adams, now an outfielder, with nine. But his .208 Triple-A average means his days in Toronto are pretty much over.

The same cannot be said of the prospects with the Jays' Double-A affiliate in Manchester, New Hampshire. The obvious stars on the rise are 2006 first rounder Travis Snider, whose 15 home runs at just 20-years old ties him for fifth most in the Eastern League, and catcher J.P. Arencebia, chosen in the first round just a year ago and already at AA in less than 100 minor league games. With eight home runs and 22 RBI in his first 31 games with the Fisher Cats, he appears to be ready for a look-see in Toronto by this time next season.

They also have a mid-round second baseman, New Zealand-born Scott Campbell, sporting a .341 average to lead the league, and who might become important to the big club if Aaron Hill's concussion problems prove to be long-term.

Among the pitcher's, Brett Cecil, chosen in the supplemental first round a year ago, with a tidy 2.76 ERA in 17 starts, looks like he'll be the next arm to look forward to arriving. And right when we thought he'd fallen off the depth chart, lefty Ricky Romero, chosen sixth overall in 2005, has allowed just four earned runs over his last 23 innings and might, finally, be setting a course to becoming a pitcher of significance for the organization.

And one less name to keep an eye on is a first baseman at Single-A Dunedin by the name of Brian Dopirak, who has seven home runs, 26 RBI and a .410 average over his last 10 games through Wednesday. At 25, Dopirak is quite old to be still in High-A, but he lost a couple of seasons with foot problems while in the Chicago Cubs chain, having been their 2004 Minor League Player of the Year after slamming 39 home runs with 120 RBI with Lansing of the Midwest League. His 77 RBI (23 home runs) in 92 games with Dunedin this season makes him a top-hitting prospect, despite his advanced age. Better late than never, I guess.