Blue Jays get their wings clipped

A year ago at this time, the Toronto Blue Jays boasted the best starting pitchers in baseball, statistically speaking of course.

On Opening Day 2008, the starting rotation for the Jays was established as ace Roy Halladay, A.J. Burnett, Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch.

Of these five, all but Burnett came into the majors through the Jays’ system, and all but Burnett are currently still with the Jays.

All but Burnett are injured.

Over the course of a season, it is pretty much impossible for all of a team’s initial starting rotation to maintain their stamina, health or effectiveness, but even so, it’s not too often that you see a team go five-for-five in losing their rotation in such a short amount of time.

The old adage says that you can never have too much pitching, and the mere fact that Toronto has had almost a dozen pitchers fall to injuries in the past two seasons proves it.

For the Jays’ 2008 starters, the current injuries consist of Halladay’s pulled groin, McGowan’s frayed labrum, Marcum having Tommy John Surgery last year and Litsch to have the same in the near future. That just leaves a healthy A.J. Burnett.

The problem for the Blue Jays is the well-documented fact that Burnett no longer pitches for them.

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The irony of this is that A.J. Burnett is almost definitely not the one that you would expect to be healthy as he has been plagued by injuries throughout his career. Burnett has landed on the disabled list no less than 10 times over the last 11 seasons, yet he’s the only one of the former five that is currently throwing in the Major Leagues.

The Jays have compensated with more than a handful of fresh young pitchers, all with little or no Major League experience prior to 2009, and to date have gotten along rather well, despite recent struggles. The Blue Jays do still have one of the better records in the American League. This has every bit as much to do with the re-vamped starting rotation as with the equally strong bullpen and newly-awakened offense that has seemed to evade the Jays in previous seasons.

Also, the injury to Roy Halladay’s groin isn’t nearly as serious as the rest… well, depending on how you look at it.

Halladay has been among the best pitchers in baseball for the last few seasons, and 2009 has been shaping up to be one of his best ever. With a 10-1 record and a 2.53 ERA, Halladay is making a strong case to win his second Cy Young Award as we near the halfway point of 2009, but during the fourth inning of last Friday’s contest against the Florida Marlins, Halladay had to make his earliest exit of the season (by three full innings) and is currently listed as day-to-day.

While he won’t pitch tonight against Philadelphia, he could be back as early as Saturday to face the Washington Nationals. If Halladay ends up having to miss an extended amount of time, fans and media in Toronto can be expected to write-off the team that wasn’t given a chance at the beginning of the season. That is, before they shot out of the gates into first place, a position they held until May 24.

If Halladay does make his return soon, the Blue Jays will still be in the precarious position of finding solid replacements for the other four positions. While the new kids have held their own for the most part, all of these second-string starters surely can’t be expected to keep up the pace for the entire season.

And while the Jays do have even more arms ready down (and a little west) in Triple-A Las Vegas, trading guys back and forth from the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League to the always-tough American League East won’t give anybody a confidence boost.

So it’s true, you can never have too much pitching. The 2009 Blue Jays are showing you exactly why.

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