With three weeks remaining in spring training, the Blue Jays still haven't figured out who will fill out their starting rotation, but manager Cito Gaston says the regular-season crew will begin to materialize this week.
Gaston says he won't even agonize over which pitchers will claim the final thee starting spots behind Roy Halladay and Jesse Litsch. He says they will go to the guys who perform over the next three weeks and the pitchers will make the decision with their performances. "Guys make the club or they don't make the club. They do it themselves," Gaston said after yesterday's 5-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds. "We go with the best guys we can go with and people will weed themselves out."
The team has already decided southpaws Brett Cecil and Mike Maroth are not candidates and yesterday morning they were both assigned to minor-league camp.
After a season away from the majors, the 31-year-old Maroth had hoped to revive his career with the Jays, while Cecil, 22, is considered one of the most promising prospects in all of Baseball. A recent issue of Baseball America lists Cecil as one of the top 25 rookies in major-league Baseball this season.
Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi doesn't dismiss the possibility of Cecil playing in the majors, but says Cecil won't be ready to do it by April.
He also said the development of left-hander Brad Mills, who pitched four innings yesterday, forced the club to send one prospect to the minors and nudge the other a little closer to the starting rotation.
"We like (Cecil) a lot (and) he'll be with us at some point," Ricciardi said. "You have to make decisions based on where guys are at and (Mills) is a little bit ahead of the other guys at this point."
Mills describes himself as a "left-handed strike-thrower" and heading into yesterday's game had walked only one batter in 52/3 innings, while striking out four and accumulating a 3.18 ERA.
Against the Reds, however, he struggled with control. And though he only surrendered two runs, he walked five batters, including three in the fourth inning.
"It could have been a lot worse, but it was kind of ugly out there," said Mills, who pitched in Double A last season. "I'm just getting myself ready for the season. Obviously you don't want to walk five guys like that, (but you) take it in stride. In another five days I'll get the ball again, hopefully."
Other pitchers can't rely on regular game action.
With Mills, Scott Richmond, Casey Janssen and Matt Clement all competing for spots, playing time with the main club has become scarce. Clement, for example, will pitch in today's minor-league game not because the team has written off his big-league chances but simply because there are still too many arms and too few available innings.
"We need to have guys have innings," Gaston said. "And we just can't provide enough right now."
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