TIGERS-JAYS: SOME JUNK SCIENCE TO EXPLAIN TOWERS' TURNAROUND

Game 4, Sunday -- Jays 2, Tigers 1: Have to wonder how much the setting helped Josh Towers shut down the Tigers (three hits, no earned runs over 7 2/3 innings).

If someone else wants to do the exhaustive statistical analysis to confirm or debunk this, by all means please do so. It always seems like the ball doesn't carry well at Rogers Centre when the roof is closed, it's cold outside and there's a modest crowd like today's 25,983. When the roof's open, the crowd is bigger and the warm sun is beating down on the FieldTurf, the ball just seems to have more life in it.

That played right into Towers' hands vs. the Tigers, who were eager to get after him and ended up looking like they were hitting a waterlogged ball. At one point, Magglio Ordonez drilled a ball to dead centre and Vernon Wells easily ran it down.

If you're looking for a loose connection to explain Towers' success, his last major-league win on May 14, 2006 came against the Devil Rays, in a dome and in front of a crowd of 12,224.

So Towers perhaps had help from the ballpark, but he has had 10 strikeouts to just one base on balls in his two starts. That is a positive.

One more thing: It is halfway hilarious the winning run scored today since Royce Clayton ran through Brian Butterfield's stop sign at third base. How do you explain major-league ballplayers being unable to score from second base on a two-out hit?

JAYS CAN'T GET A GOOD...

This very well could be for real: The Star's Cathal Kelly is reporting that Jays closer B.J. Ryan is out indefinitely with elbow trouble, pending a MRI scan tomorrow with Dr. James Andrews.

(When you hear a ballplayer's name in the same sentence with that of Dr. James Andrews, it's almost never good.)

Silver lining, silver lining ... some Seamheads do advocate the closer-by-committee approach, so the Jays might be able to ride out Ryan's absence by going with the hot hand or making do with Jason Frasor, whom everyone says is closer material. OK, so this isn't much to go on.

Oh, and after today, seven of the next 10 games are against either of the Evil Empires.

It's a long season, though. It's only April 15, 12 games gone out of 162 -- barely 7% of a season. Things have a way of evening out over the Long Season.

Game 3, Saturday -- Tigers 10, Jays 7: Thanks to the meds and a personal vow not to start freaking out over losses until June 1 at the earliest, no inanimate objects were thrown, kicked or torn into 64 pieces in reaction to the latest A.J. (and B.J., but he gets a free pass now) debacle.

The post-game spin will be that A.J. Burnett couldn't handle the prosperity of an early four-run lead, but several of Detroit's good hitters came in with some sickly stat lines that were due for a correction. Did anyone really think Brandon Inge, who singled and scored in the third and hit a no-doubt two-run homer off A-Joke an inning later to get Detroit back in the game, was going to keep hitting .097 (with matching .194 on-base and slugging percentages) all year? Gary Sheffield came into today hitting .139/.267/.235, but walked and scored three times. They were due. Burnett and Ryan, who walked the bases full in the ninth to blow the save, weren't sharp, and that was that. Give the Tigers some credit.

Game 2, Friday -- Jays 2, Tigers 1 (10 innings): The Jays came in as the fragile team, thanks to Johnson going on the DL and Glaus being held out of the lineup with his feel problem, but funny how it worked out: The Tigers ended up raising more red flags.

Halladay (pictured) averaged less than 11 pitches per inning, going all 10 for the win. The Tigers hitters didn't earn a single walk all night. Not be repetitive, but that's a pretty glaring lack of plate discipline on Detroit's part. It's no wonder John Gibbons let Doc come out for the 10th inning in just his third start of the season.

By the way, this was the first time since April '04 that Halladay had a chance to make two starts in a short span vs. Detroit. In in the second matchup that time, he pitched a complete-game shutout.

Johnson's offence at the top of the order can be replaced. Most fans consider Johnson a good defender -- and know that old Matt Stairs and young Adam Lind are not -- but have no idea how good. The Win Shares system saw him as the best left-fielder in the whole AL last season.

Game 1, Thursday -- Tigers 5, Jays 4: Consider this an evenout in light of the way the Royals bobbled the ball around the infield on Wednesday night.

• You're not with us, leather: The Jays' 10 errors are tied for the most in the majors. Eep.
• Tomo Ohka... There's reason to feel a bit more optimistic about him, although the smart-aleck's reflex would be to wonder if his name is Japanese for Josh Towers -- he pitched half-decently but the fielding let him down.
• About Glaus' heel problems, which have kept him out of the lineup off and on over the past few weeks: When you check his baseball-reference.com page, most of the players whose numbers are most similar to Glaus were mostly players who were productive hitters, but lacked longevity -- Kevin Mitchell, Bob Horner, Al Rosen, Jesse Barfield. Glaus is still just 30, but playing third base with that big body could be catching him up to him.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.