FU JT

A.J. Burnett seems to be on his way to his return, throwing 61 pitches in a four-inning simulated game in Tropicana Field before the game on Wednesday. A pre-scheduled Minor League rehab assignment was cancelled due to rain. Pitching coach Brad Arnsberg had this to say about the pitcher's performance:

"It was unbelievable, really, his stuff was outstanding. His sinker to both sides of the plate looked really, really good. His four-seamer had power to it and late life, and his curveball was the curveball that everybody knows."

Gibbs said that Burnett should have start one Minor League game before returning to the rotation, but it is possible that Burnett would go straight to the Major League club-- the only problem is who's he going to replace?

Today Josh Towers threw 5.1 innings of crap-ball to take the loss against the D-Rays to raise his ERA to 5.17, the worst ERA of all the pitchers on the active roster. Naturally, when a player is returning to the pitching staff, the worst pitcher is demoted. The worst player in this case is JT, by far.

There are two options for JT at this point, he could go to the minors and be a backup starter for when somebody lands on the DL or he could move to the bullpen and be used for long relief. In the bullpen this year he has been horrible, allowing at least one run in almost every relief appearance-- unacceptable. Sending him to the Minor Leagues, however, would basically mean he's being paid millions of dollars for nothing... "Ya shoulda traded 'im J.P..." "Yeah... yeah, I probably should've..."