From yesterday. Just didn’t have time to get them up on the site.
In case you missed it, Lawrie is down for a couple of weeks with a rib cage strain, he’ll be heading home and foregoing the WBC. Russel Martin has not, despite popular opinion, submitted his bid to play third…
Santos has been backed off a few days.
McGowan is still proceeding according to plan, which, apparently is for him to be in the fight for a bullpen job—although Gibby has candidly admitted it will be a longer shot than some of the other candidates. That’s not because McGowan’s arm isn’t electric when full health. In fact, his arm’s upside is why he’s even being talked about at all after missing a year. What’s holding him back is that he has, in fact, missed a whole friggin’ year and there might be a little more rust than the most rabid pro McGowan backers may want to admit.
Casey Janssen is progressing, but there are still questions marks to whether he’ll be ready for the season. The good news is that the Jays have other power arms in the pen that can close if need be. The bad news is that not many of those power arms have the mental conditioning that Janssen or Santos does (this is assuming the “Back Off” of Santos is anything more then that). I’m hesitant to endorse a replacement at this point even though I feel there are those that will rise to the challenge, not because they’re aren’t arms that project as possible closer stand-ins, but because there is not much experience outside of Darren Oliver, who would be wasted in the closer role. While stats say that having one man close isn’t much better than having a rotating mix close, it does take a certain personality type to go out there and win or lose the game with no safety net. Developing the arm for a closer is one thing, developing the mental fortitude to bounce back after handing 9 innings of work away is another.
These little setbacks in health are par for the course for most teams during the spring. However, because the Jays were plagued by injuries last year, I don’t blame fans for getting a little gun shy. All in all, I think the season will start with all the proper pieces for victory healthy and ready to go. Of course, I say that now…
