The Blue Blogger: From the Outside Looking In

I’m not going to lie and say that I know a lot about baseball, or say even when I watched that I did it regularly. But when I did watch “America's pastime” or whatever they were calling it, the Blue Jays pitching rotation consisted of Roy Halladay, Ted Lilly, Gustavo Chacin, A.J. Burnett, and someone else that slips my mind.

Even when I watched, knowing the little that I did at the time, when we lost Lilly, I felt that we never replaced him with a solid arm. Halladay, like always, was a tank. Chacin was more interested in selling his cologne,  Burnett was a question mark, and the Jays really didn’t have a guy to take the No. 2 spot.

So, when I look at the pitching rotation this year, I’m not surprised to see no stars, with the exception of Halladay.

Of course, I watched Marcum, Litsch, League, McGowan, Ryan, etc., too. But I’m wondering who is going to complete this year’s pitching lineup. Because when I watched the guys I just mentioned, they were all relievers. Maybe their proven starters now and I just don’t know it, but it looks like it is going to be a long season.

I’m glad to see they still have Overbay and Wells, and that Rios looks to be finally coming into his own (bet they are glad they didn’t trade him), and Hill looks to be developing nicely. I would still like to see Hinske in the lineup, who at the time played multiple positions, but at least he could make our outfield a bit better, over even Matt Stairs.

Our infield seems to be solid enough with Hill, McDonald, Overbay, and Rolen, and I can’t see very many errors between them.

But where is our power bat? Where is the Carlos Delgado, Troy Glaus, or Frank Thomas in the lineup? Perhaps we can forget about Glaus and Thomas, seeing how they always seemed to be injured, but they were still the type of guys that pitchers needed to calculate how they would play them.

The AL East was, and is, a tough place to play, but Toronto would always make a play for the second spot (even though they usually never got it). But it just seems now that New York is going to be a powerhouse, because they got the money (which is one of the things I don’t like about baseball). Tampa finished first in '08, so you gotta figure they will still be good, and Boston always gives Toronto a run for their money.

So to me, from the outside looking in, it looks like wins will be rare for the Toronto Blue Jays.

But the Jays season starts today against the Tigers, and with a new season comes new (or renewed) hopes that this year your team will play better (or the same) as last year.

The "Doc" is on the mound, so that alone should draw some fans to the stadium, and give onlookers the hope that the Jays can get a win.

Join in the discussion on this and other topics in the NEW Sports Jabber Forums!