Shit

Alright so before I go to work, a moment of shear panic. Shaun Marcum left Wednesday's 2-0 stinker loss to the Orioles in the second inning with an elbow injury. Today he flies to Alabama to see Dr. James Andrews. According to the Globe, the Jays expect Andrews to confirm the worst case scenario: Marcum needs Tommy John surgery. Such an injury would basically count Marcum out for not only the rest of this season but probably all of the next. With McGowan out until at least May (and who knows how he'll throw when he returns from a shoulder injury), this would leave a Burnettless Jays with a starting rotation of Halladay-Litsch and three players to be named later. The logical next step is for J.P. to fall on his sword and throw some of that fat-cash at A.J., but what does that mean for the offense next year? If we're throwing 20 million at Burnett, you can kiss getting a top DH goodbye without any further investment from uncle Ted. We're basically going to need Travis Snider to put up ROTY numbers in 2009 to make up for that. So in an ideal scenario, Travis hits 20 jacks while batting around .300, Burnett takes our DH money and manages to not spend half of 2009 on the DL and David Purcey can hold down the fort with some other acquisition (Pedro?) until McGowan can return to the team and to form. Fuck, the season is more than 5 months away and we're still betting on a bunch of ifs.