Hi all, back in town. Fun wedding, good to be back.
Brett Cecil pitches today for the Jays and because his first start was a weekday afternoon game not widely televised, it'll be the first chance that many of us will have to see him pitch for the Jays. Very exciting. Today's game gives the Jays a chance to go either 2-3 or 3-2 on their west coast swing - neither would be too bad but the latter sounds a lot better to me.
So, Jeremy Accardo seems ready to step back in for the big club. Accardo has been closing for the 51s and has done an admirable job, with a 1.32 ERA over 13 2/3 innings. Pretty impressive for the PCL. He has 11 Ks in those 13 2/3 innings, although he has walked 6. Lately he has really been piling up the Ks, and he's also doing a good job inducing grounders. Accardo would be useful to the Jays pen because he has good stuff, throws hard, and is very effective against both lefties and righties (actually this season he has been very good against righties but has utterly dominated lefties). With B.J. Ryan still out, Scott Downs moved into the closer role, Brian Tallet starting, and the Jays' bullpen experiencing a couple of problems recently, the Jays could really use a late-inning reliever who can get tough lefties out. Bill Murphy has done absolutely nothing to lose his job, but he has generally gone in low-leverage situations and I'd say it's time to get Accardo back with the big team. If the Jays don't want to demote Murphy when he's pitching well, I'd also prefer Accardo over Shawn Camp, who has given up runs in 3 of his last 4 appearances and has a 7/7 K/BB ratio and 1.64 Whip this season. Camp isn't bad as the last man out of the pen, but he's a little overstretched as a late-inning reliever and has a poor record against lefties. Time for a change, I think.
In the other category, David Purcey has not pitched well for Las Vegas. Most recently, Purcey had a disastrous start for Las Vegas, giving up 8 hits and 3 walks in 2 1/3 innings en route to 8 runs. Purcey threw only about half of his pitches for strikes and with starts like that, I'm glad we demoted him when we did. Purcey has walked more batters than he has struck out for Las Vegas, and he'll never get back to the bigs that way. My guess is that Purcey just needs to put together 2 decent starts in a row and the Jays will bring him back, but it doesn't seem as though he's ready to do so right now.
Although Ricky Romero had a rough outing for Dunedin, I'm not concerned about him. Romero gave up 6 runs over 4 innings, including 2 home runs. However, he did strike out 5 and walk just 1 and was probably just a bit rusty after a few weeks on the shelf. As for Casey Janssen, he's really looked sharp - he now has given up just 1 run in 12 innings, with 9 strikeouts and just 2 walks (including 5 Ks and no walks over his last, 5 inning, start) and tonnes of groundouts. I'd say he's ready to go, though I wouldn't mind him getting one rehab start in at New Hampshire first. Janssen could help out in either the bullpen or the starting rotation, though I've made no secret of my preference for having him in the starting rotation, as long as his arm can handle it.
As for B.J. Ryan, if you weren't wearing your contacts you might've thought that it was him on the mound for the Jays yesterday, but no. Ryan blanked the opposition for his first outing with Dunedin, but gave up a run his last time out. Ryan got the first batter to pop out, then walked the next. A double and a sacrifice fly plated the run.