I live in Toronto, and have spent the first six weeks of the season watching the Blue Jays sink into Lake Ontario. As a fan of the team, it's not pretty to see; but as a baseball fan it's fascinating to watch. The thing is, I didn't think the Blue Jays were a bad team before the season, and I still think they are much better than, say, Baltimore.

I won't write at length about the Blue Jays, but one recent story caught my attention. On May 9, the Jays played a horrific game in Seattle, losing 8-7 in extra innings. The game was almost five hours long, and Toronto pitchers walked 16 batters. Toronto had a 7-4 lead entering the ninth inning, but erstwhile closer Kelvim Escobar gave up three runs, capped by a two-out, two-strike, RBI single from (who else?) Ichiro Suzuki.

Escobar had entered the game in the eighth inning. Toronto's setup man, Bob File, is hurt, and manager Buck Martinez doesn't really trust anyone else. After the game, Escobar complained about his role. Some quotes from Escobar that appeared in the May 11 edition of the Toronto Star:

"I'm suppose to be the closer. I'm supposed to get three guys out."

"I have to get more than three guys out every other time. I did it in all of April and now, through May."

"I was very happy this year to come into the season as the closer. Now, I have to get five outs, six outs every day to get a save? What kind of (crap) is that?"

Escobar also said that he wasn't making excuses, and that he was just protecting his future. Martinez' response: "It's been made obvious that we can't let him go more than one inning." Mission accomplished?

A few observations about Escobar's comments:

1) Escobar is no stranger to heavy workloads. He was a starter from 1998-2001, and threw a career-high 180 innings in 2000.

2) The closer is, presumably, the best pitcher in the bullpen. It makes no sense to have the best pitcher throwing the least amount of innings. If a team is in danger of giving up the lead in the eighth inning, why would you bring your second-best pitcher into the game? How could you justify that? How can you justify paying millions of dollars to a pitcher who can't get more than three outs?

It was once common for closers to pitch more than one inning in a game; most closers from the 1970's threw more than 100 innings a year, and Mike Marshall had over 200 in 1974. Gradually, other roles in the bullpen became specialized (setup man, left-handed reliever), leaving the closer to pitch the ninth inning only.

3) The Jays traded a competent closer, Billy Koch, so that Escobar could have the role. The Jays have also suffered some injuries to their pitching staff, notably File, and have been forced to use a lot of rookies. It is time for the veterans to step up and assume greater responsibility - yet Escobar has decided that he doesn't want the extra work. The manager has agreed to limit him to three outs per game; Escobar has effectively reduced himself into a bit player in the Jays' season.

Escobar was right about one thing: the Blue Jays have done everything in their power over the years to screw up his career. At age 21, they rushed him to the majors and made him the closer. Then they signed Randy Myers, and made Escobar the setup man. Then they decided to make him a starter. Then they decided to make him a setup man again; now, six years later, we're back to where we started. It's an appalling example of organizational incompetence.

For three years now, I've felt that the Jays should trade Escobar. It's not that he's a bad pitcher; he just needs a fresh start. His history in Toronto is so filled with mishaps and false starts that it is impossible to imagine him fulfilling his potential here. Time to let him go, like they did with David Wells in 1993. (Peter Gammons wrote today that the Athletics wanted Escobar, not Koch. Hey, can we still make that swap?)