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.

The Jays' playoff hopes are over, but they fought the good fight.

It's probably just as well that the Blue Jays are just about ready to put the car away for the winter. With the gas prices hovering around $1.40 due to a hurricane that took place in another country, the Jays sputtered out of Boston having lost three of four, basically putting away their playoff aspirations for a 15th straight season, but knowing, at least, that they fought the good fight.

In the end, the team looked very tired as they fell to the Red Sox in the series finale. Ace right-hander Roy Halladay, pitching on three days as A.J. Burnett and Jesse Litsch did a day before, battled as hard as he could against a playoff-ready team and a home plate umpire who must not have read Doc's Cy Young resume. He was also done in by his own team's defence who made an uncharacteristic 12 errors over the soggy eight-game road trip, although I have to give them three mulligans for Friday as the game was played in a steady rain. And they also looked pretty tired as they didn't have a single call go their way in Boston by an umpiring crew that seemed intimidated by the rabid Fenway throng. Sorry for the whine, are you going to finish that cheese?

So, pride is all that is left to play for as the Jays play out their remaining dozen games starting with the Orioles on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre. With neither team in the playoff picture, it's time to give their worn-out starting rotation a bit of a powder, perhaps giving Scott Richmond another start to see why it was imperative that he didn't go to Beijing with the Canadian Olympic team. Outside of Halladay and Burnett trying to become the first Blue Jays teammates to win 20 games in the same season, there's little else to play for other than a 90-win carrot that will require them winning 10 of the final 12.

Let's face it, at the start of the year I thought the Jays were an 85-87 win team and that appears the range that they will finish in. Funny how it all comes out in the wash, eh? All that despite the horrible start where they lost 17 of their first 28 games to put themselves in a big hole early. The managerial and coaching changes in the third week of June turned around the offence and gave fans a glimpse of what the team really was. Tapping into the talent and aggressive nature at the plate, which had been held back until Cito Gaston and his 'Space Cowboys' magically appeared in Pittsburgh on June 20th, the three keys to the middle of the line-up - Alex Rios, Vernon Wells and Lyle Overbay - all started hitting like we expected. In fact, when you pro-rate the stats of those three over a 162-game schedule, based on what they've done under Cito and Gene Tenace, who wouldn't have taken these numbers? And it probably would have made up the difference in the win/loss columns:

The only number out of this bunch that could need some improving is Rios' home run total. Clearly, he has the skills to be a 30-30 player, under the new/old bench crew that is well within his grasp.

For the Blue Jays to get to the next level, Aaron Hill and Scott Rolen are needed to get back to health. Nothing against Joe Inglett or Marco Scutaro, but they aren't Aaron Hill at the plate, and certainly not in the field. For Rolen, this was a frustratingly lost season for the Gold Glove third baseman, starting with the broken finger in March and ending with the resurfacing of the left shoulder woes that have plagued him for three of his last four seasons.

They are also going to need to find a back-up catcher to spell Rod Barajas, who wore down due to overuse over the last month. Adam Lind has shown, thanks to the confidence of his manager, that's he's an everyday Major Leaguer. And 20-year old Travis Snider more than showed what all the fuss was about, not once in his first three weeks in 'The Show' that he doesn't belong. During his meteoric rise, Snider hit at all levels and it was no different with the parent club.

In the end, what did the Jays in was getting too far behind too early, a staple of the team over the last seven seasons. I'm thinking, based upon how they responded to Cito et al over the last 76 games, that's not likely to happen in April 2009. While I've never been a proponent of standing pat in the off-season, outside of the aforementioned catcher, a full-time slugging DH, and a starter to replace the massive hole that Burnett's opt-out departure will leave, the team that pushed the Red Sox, White Sox, Yankees and Twins over the last three weeks is what you'll see in 2009.

Will that be good enough? Don't ask me, my name's Carson, not Kreskin.

HERE'S TO THE FANS

I just want to give a shout out to all you Blue Jays fans that made road trips this season to see the team in enemy territory. I tip my retro cap to all of you. You have been kind and gracious - and sometimes over-served - when you've approached me and I've enjoyed the conversations. It happened again on Sunday night as Sam Cosentino and I waited for yet another delayed Air Canada flight at Logan Airport in Boston. A couple of brothers from the Maritimes came up to us and we all gabbed for 15-20 minutes. (Sorry if I can't remember your names, but after 150 games, my brain is basically pablum and I'm lucky if I can remember where I've parked my car at the airport.) Anyway, it's been nice to see Jays' fans in every road stadium, something that we haven't witnessed in many seasons, and you've not been shy about sporting the Jays' colours, which can be daunting when visiting Boston or New York. It tells me that this team still turns a lot of you on. Good on you!