What’s wrong with Towers?

That’s the question that Jays manager John Gibbons is surely hearing the most these days as Josh Towers slides down to an 0-7 record – one of the worst in major league baseball.

His losses are not like the other losses that the Jays have had this year – like when Chacin lost his first game, for example, when he got little offensive support. Instead, they’ve been huge losses, where the other team manages to score early and often (indeed, his loss against the Athletics on May 9th was the first time that he had less then 4 runs scored against him all season and the first time in 3 starts he had less then 7 runs scored against him). His stats are the worst among all Jays pitchers with a 10.09 ERA, a 2.18 WHIP, 34 runs allowed (almost twice as much as the nearest Jay), etc, etc.

When you compare his stats to the other Jays starters – Halladay, Chacin, Lilly and Janssen – his bad numbers stand out even more. It’s not quite a case of a bad defence behind him (otherwise you’d see another pitcher with stats something like his) or of no runs being scored by the Jays, but one of something else. Perhaps it’s a mechanical thing – but Towers has not said anything about being injured, unlike other Jays starters AJ Burnett and Doc Halladay who went on the DL at the first sign of trouble. It’s strange, almost scary for fans and it’s fast becoming a worry for the Jays that there seems to be no clear cause anymore for the trouble with his pitching.

And now it’s getting close to no longer being just a slump; these seven games are more then the difference between first place (held by the Red Sox, three games ahead) and where the Jays are now. So maybe it’s time to let him enter the bullpen – or even to send him down to AAA. But as it is now, this is a losing steak that the Jays don’t need in a division as close as the AL East. When AJ comes back off the DL, which is hopefully sooner rather then later, there shouldn’t be enough room on the rotation for Towers; rookie pitcher Casey “Scarlet” Janssen has earned his place with consecutive quality starts while the other three pitchers are showing they belong on the mound. Towers hasn’t yet and shows almost no signs of doing so any time soon.