Litsch In Doghouse Early

So after last nights debacle, Gibbons went off on Litsch. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him [expletive] before…

“You [expletive] watch it – every [expletive] night, you know,” Gibbons, the Blue Jays’ manager, said after the Tampa Bay Rays handed Toronto a 6-4 loss at Disney’s Champion Stadium and Litsch lasted a season-low 31/3 innings in the first game of a nine-game, 10-day trip.

“You watch it. [Expletive] strike zone. Hit your spots – boom, boom – that’s the kind of pitcher he is. You got to do it.”

I can’t say I’m particularly impressed by this. Litsch is a very young kid who doesn’t have great stuff. Any talent evaluator or stat analyst screamed that he was going to have serious problems going forward, but Gibby even went to far as to prefer him over Janssen as a fifth starter because of what he’d “proved” in half a season last year. And now he’s a [expletive] loser?

As I pointed out last year, his pitches were totally inconsistent from one start to the next, and the changeup that catapulted him to the big leagues seems to have totally disappeared. That’s what we saw last night. He should almost certainly be ironing out the kinks in AAA if short term results and ERA were taken as seriously as they should be.

In other news, Zaun doesn’t want to talk about the most burning question that everyone would really like some insight into what the players are thinking about on his blog.

I’m sure everyone knows the Jays let Frank Thomas go. I didn’t really want to talk about it, but I suppose I should at least mention that no one ever wants to see a teammate released. The sad truth is, it happens to most of us at some point. It’s been done to me twice. It doesn’t feel good; it amounts to being fired. The organization wanted to make a change and they did. Chapter closed.

Sigh. I get that there’s not much that he could or really wants to say, but it kind of defeats the purpose of an insider blog if you’re going to fill it with things like “Catch a game and then go see Mickey Mouse.” At least Curt Schilling talks about random shit he’s interested in and what it’s like to be on the field instead of making it sound like a press release…