MVN - Most Valuable Network

Another no-decision for Marcum

This has been the Toronto Blue Jays’ story all season long.

Get a great outing from their starter, but don’t score any runs and end up losing.

For Jays right-hander Shaun Marcum on Wednesday afternoon, it’s the same old story once again.

Marcum, tied with Cliff Lee of the Indians with the AL’s lowest ERA (2.52) heading into Wednesday’s action, had yet another solid outing.

Seven innings, one run, nine strikeouts, 62 strikes on 97 pitches.

In fact, Marcum carried a shutout into the seventh inning for the second straight outing, but had the slimest of margin, only a 1-0 lead.

Marcum’s ERA now sits at 2.43.

Yet, Marcum endured his third straight no-decision and the hard-luck pitcher has only one victory in his last seven starts (one of which was a rain-delayed outing where he pitched just an inning).

If he were on any other AL team, Marcum would be vying for his tenth win by now, given the way he’s been pitching. But for the Blue Jays, tied for last in the AL East, Marcum is only a .500 pitcher at 5-3.

Oh, by the way, the Blue Jays lost again, this time 2-1 to the Seattle Mariners, when B.J. Ryan allowed a run in the ninth inning.

Of course, even after Seattle closer J.J. Putz left in the bottom half with an injury, Brandon Morrow was able to shut the door on the Jays.

It was Morrow’s first major-league save, but not before Lyle Overbay gave the M’s a scare with a drive to left that was caught by Raul Ibanez at the wall.

Ryan, meanwhile, is 0-3 in his last five appearances and was ejected in this one. So I ask again, is Ryan hurt?

The shocker though, was the Jays lost yet another home series to a last-place club.

Having lost two of three to the Baltimore Orioles last weekend, including a Marcum start in which the bullpen blew a 4-0, eighth-inning lead, Toronto proceeded to lose two of three to the lowly Mariners.

As predicted, all three games with Seattle were close, low-scoring affairs, but for Toronto to lose two of three when 1) their starters pitched well enough and 2) they’re playing at Rogers Centre, was totally unacceptable.

The Jays, still seven games out in the AL East at 34-34, will now entertain the majors’ best team, the Chicago Cubs, at Rogers Centre. Their three-game set starts on Friday.

The good news for Toronto is that superstar leftfielder Alfonso Soriano will not see any action in the series.

Soriano, hitting .283 with 15 homers, is gone for perhaps six weeks after suffering a broken hand when he was hit by a pitch Wednesday against the Atlanta Braves.

Of course, another big story for the Jays this season has been the fact they haven’t been able to take advantage of the opportunities handed to them.

The Jays, for instance, had a break when baseball’s worst team (the Mariners) came into town. As we’d seen the last three days though, Toronto couldn’t capitalize.

The Jays caught another break when Mariners closer Putz was gone in the ninth inning Wednesday, but couldn’t capitalize.

Will the absence of Soriano mean anything for the Blue Jays?

Probably not, but we’ll see starting on Friday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 1:03 am and is filed under Shaun Marcum, BJ Ryan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.