Toronto Blue Jays: This Is All a Bad Dream, Right?

Eight games. The last eight days have been one of the lowest points of recent history. At least the last time the Jays went on a big slide like this it got rid of Gibby. Right now there's zero positives coming as a result of dropping seven-plus straight.

Let's look at the few (only) positives of the slide: The starting pitching is still there.

Seriously, it is. Over the slide, the pitching is still there. Tallet's 0-2 with a 3.00 ERA, Halladay threw seven shutout for a no decision in Atlanta, Janssen was great in his return: 6 innings, 3 ER. Scott Richmond threw his normal solid but unspectacular game.

If we throw out sub par Romero and Ray starts and a god-awful Brett Cecil turn in against Boston, the Jays have had the support to play winning baseball five out of eight games on the streak. 

So that's it for the positives. Now let's look at just why this team is in such a horrendous slide.

1. The Bullpen

Surprisingly enough, the pen didn't give up a single run in the Boston series, which is really impressive. But over the last five games, they've given up 14 runs. Eight of those runs came in one game in Atlanta, after a solid outing by Richmond.

The pen's got to be able to keep close games close. Just look at BJ Ryan on Monday: 0.2 IP, 2 ER, 2 H, 2 BB. His season ERA is now at a lovely 8.71. Those are the kind of stats you expect from a little league coach's kid, not someone who at the start of the year was supposed to be the anchor of the pen.

Everyone else has just been kinda shaky; BJ's been a disaster.

2. The Obvious

Where is the offense? Thirteen runs in eight games with one home run, 40 strikeouts, eight GDPs, 50 LOB, and a team batting average of .251. Aaron Hill is still getting plenty of hits (now the only .300-plus avg on the team), but there's no run production coming from anywhere.

Vernon Wells is slumping, Rios is slumping, and nobody is coming through when this team needs someone to. Something has to happen to get this team back on track. We've seen what this offense can do; now they just need to actually go out there and do it.

The only thing worse than an eight-game losing streak is a nine-game losing streak. Please, let's not let it come to that. Doc is all that can save us now.