No winning season for you!
It was a great run but after three straight seasons of 80+ wins, the Toronto Blue Jays are guaranteed to finish under .500 this year. Just to show you how often the standings change year to year in baseball, the Jays were among a few elite teams that had consistently strung together winning seasons. Unfortunately, they had nothing to show for it.
The story of last night’s game was one that we were all too familiar with; Scott Richmond running into trouble early in the game. He was long overdue for a great start and I honestly thought last night he was going to turn it around. Richmond looked great through the first two innings, and that’s when the wheels came completely off.
At this point, Richmond will ride out the remainder of the season in the starting rotation, however with each loss he is increasingly hurting his chances of making the starting rotation next year. A strong showing over the next few weeks could put him back in the good books, though.
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Once again, major props goes out to the middle relievers in the Blue Jays bullpen. On Wednesday night, it was Shawn Camp who was called upon after Brian Tallet exited the game and put up three innings of scoreless relief. Last night, it was the legendary Dirk Hayhurst who put up an impromptu clinic against the Rays for three innings.
Nobody likes to be on a losing team, but that just means the winds of change are about to sweep through this team. Hopefully things start happening sooner rather than later.
I know this whole .500 thing would have been nice, but really, I feel like I gave up on finding any silver linings for this year a good month or so ago. Game by game enjoyment is one thing, but the season itself sucked. Ah well … there's always next year.
I think I said something to the effect of this a few weeks ago, but this year will really open the eyes of upper management to show them they need to spend a lot more money to compete in the AL East. Believe it or not, this season was a good thing – a greater good for the future of this ballclub.
I'm hoping that the small crowds might scare Rogers into spending money to get the crowds back. If the Jays could make it to the playoffs it's guaranteed that the stadium would be full so that alone is a good reason to get a winning team on the field. If for no other reason than increased profits…
Mattt, you're absolutely right. Rogers can't just sit on their hands and hope for a winning team – they need to spend spend spend.
A playoff run would undoubtedly boost the attendance numbers big time. Just look at the Tigers – up until they went to the World Series in 2006. Their attendance was abysmal before that, now they clear 3 million fans a season consistently.
Exactly. And that more than pays for the payroll…