MVN - Most Valuable Network

Jays Walk Off Twice En Route To Sweep; Wells Hurt Again

Is the season lost or not?

The Jays just got infinitely harder to predict in the past few days. They showed some signs of life in earning two walkoff wins in a sweep of the Orioles this week. This was their first sweep since toppling the mighty Kansas City Royals from May 23-26. The two walkoff wins were their first all season and were both followed by world class mosh-pits that not only gave e goosebumps but made me feel as though these guys actually care whether they win or lose. Who knew?

Easily erasing the elation Jays fans felt after the sweep is the news that Vernon Wells is making his second trip to the DL this season and will be out 4-6 weeks. Whether or not you take JP Ricciardi’s comments to mean, “We still have a shot in ‘08″ or “See you in ‘09!” it still holds true that by the time the Wells returns, the Jays’ fate will be sealed.

They need to tread water until he comes back to even have a prayer. Ofcourse, the Blue Jays brass could see another injury to their star as a sign that this frustrating nightmare of a season is a lost cause, no matter how much we love Cito Gaston.

While Wells has not been enough of a band-aid to be officially labeled as “injury prone,” injuries to his wrist and hamstring along with a nagging injury to cause an awful season in ‘07 have all contributed to make our franchise player unreliable, at best. Nonetheless, the Jays will certainly miss the contributions Wells had made in the time that he did play this season. Since returning in early June, he has shown a power stroke and has hit just a shade under .300.

The  injury to Wells only further demonstrates the desperate need of a big bat in this lineup. Wells gets hurt too often and is not an elite hitter; Scott Rolen is adequate but not in the same league as Troy Glaus; Lyle Overbay had one good year with the Jays and has been a disappointment ever since; Matt Stairs is just a bench or platoon player; and Alex Rios is the posterboy for underachievement this season. Every guy in the lineup that the Jays depend on is not worthy of it.

The Jays may be scraping together a few wins, but any long-term, sustained success would be one major long shot.

Apparently, the Jays offered AJ Burnett for JJ Hardy to the Brewers who clearly were in the market for a starting pitcher, but Ricciardi was shot down. If he cannot get any kind of offensive help in exchange for renting out Burnett to another team, maybe it’s a good thing that Burnett wants to opt out at the end of this season.

While Burnett is living the dream and wearing any other team’s jersey, the Jays can use the money they used to pay him to go after a top-flight bat. It won’t be hard to replace AJ’s .500 record with David Purcey or John Parrish next season and maybe then the team could go a few games with out having Rod Barajas in the 5-spot.

So while the season may not be lost, it will be incredibly difficult for this team, minus Vernon Wells to compete at all. Don’t expect a complete firesale, but if this team continues to slip without JP Ricciardi doing anything, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2008 at 4:57 pm and is filed under AJ Burnett, John Parrish, JP Ricciardi, Matt Stairs, David Purcey, Adam Lind, Alex Rios, Scott Rolen, Lyle Overbay, Vernon Wells, JJ Hardy, Troy Glaus, Uncategorized. 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.