Blue Jays hand Halladay a loss...? (That just doesn't sound right)

Former Blue Jay, now Philadelphia Philly, Roy Hallady had an uncharacteristically short outing today against his former club going just 3 innings, while surrendering 5 hits and 4 earned runs - all in the first inning. The Blue Jays jumped all over their former ace early with 3 extra-base hits in a row to start off the game. Halladay looked great in his second inning of work striking out the side in order, but he struggled with his command in the first inning. He threw a lot more curveballs than Blue Jay fans were used to see last year. The curveball visibly fooled right handed batters like Jose Bautista, Vernon Wells and Edwin Encarnacion who all turned away from the pitch thinking it was coming well inside to them.

The Blue Jays starting pitcher, Brett Cecil looked good in what should be his last outing of the spring. Cecil went 6 innings giving up no walks, and just 2 earned runs (2 solo home runs). A solid performance from Cecil today should be enough to win him a spot in the Jays' rotation after it was announced today that the bruised middle finger that Marc Rzepczynski sustained in Tuesday's game against the Yankees is actually a broken or fractured middle finger which will keep him out of the lineup for 4-6 weeks. Once again, this changes the look of the Jays pitching staff. As opposed to speculating who is going to be in the rotation and who is going to be in the bullpen (the wildcards of Tallet & Eveland make that argument too complicated) I think one can easily say that the following 11 pitchers are locks to break camp with the club in some form:

-Shaun Marcum
-Ricky Romero
-Brandon Morrow
-Brett Cecil
-Brian Tallet
-Dana Eveland
-Jason Frasor
-Kevin Gregg
-Scott Downs
-Casey Janssen
-Shawn Camp

The final spot could go to:
-Merkin Valdez
-Jeremy Accardo
-Josh Roenicke

One would think Valdez has the option because he is out of options and would need to be placed on waivers if they Jays wanted to send him down to Las Vegas, and he has quite arguably pitched better than Accardo and Roenicke.


Today Raul Chavez was reassigned to Triple-A Las Vegas to serve as the backup to the Jays' top catching prospect - J.P. Arencibia, which means that Jose Molina will serve as the Blue Jays backup catcher.


Reasonable and rational comments are always welcome.