The White Sox’s pitching staff was knocked around in more ways than one tonight when Jose Contreras left the game with a ruptured left Achilles’ tendon. Contreras suffered the injury while trying to cover first base on a ground ball. The injury spells the end of the season for Contreras and may even put his career in jeopardy. Contreras, 7-6 with a 4.50 ERA, had just returned from the disabled list with tendinitis in his elbow.

With Contreras on the shelf, Chicago moved quickly to add another arm to their staff. The White Sox traded outfielder Paulo Orlando to the Kansas City Royals for left-handed pitcher Horacio Ramirez.

Orlando, 22, is a 6-foot-3, 185-pound center fielder from Sao Paulo, Brazil. The right-handed hitter and thrower has spent the entire 2008 season with High Class A Winston-Salem in the Carolina League, hitting .264 (118-for-447) with 15 doubles, 12 triples, nine home runs, 42 RBI and 73 runs scored. He has stolen 28 bases in 37 attempts.

Since signing with the White Sox as a non-drafted free agent on Jan. 21, 2005, Orlando has stolen 77 bases in a little over two and a half seasons of professional baseball. He entered the 2008 season ranked by Baseball America as the Fastest Baserunner and Best Defensive Outfielder in the White Sox organization.

Ramirez was signed by the Royals as a minor league free agent on May 21. He was 1-1 with a 2.59 ERA in 15 relief appearances.

The Houston Astros announced tonight that the club has placed outfielder Carlos Lee on the 15-day Disabled List with a fractured distal left fifth finger, suffered when he was hit by a pitch in Saturday night’s Astros win at Cincinnati.

Lee is scheduled for surgery on Monday in Houston, and the expected recovery time for the injury is 6-8 weeks. That gives Lee a shot to return in mid to late September I suppose.

Lee has hit .314 with 27 doubles, 28 home runs and 100 RBI in 115 games for Houston this season. Entering tonight’s game, he led the National League in RBI.

This is obviously a big blow to the Houston offense. We’ll see if Carlos returns this season, but with the Astros in 4th place and 12 1/2 games out in the NL Central, don’t look for Lee to be on the field the rest of the year.

That was ugly.

As I stated in my weekend Hardball Times column:

I think this explains the degree of ennui toward the Jays. They really haven’t gotten on a major run that gets everyone excited. They get on a roll and it quickly dies. Yet, there have been no shortage of nasty skids. It’s hard to feel good about a team that has won six in a row once in the last five seasons but has suffered through 12 separate spells of five or more straight losses.

The Jays sweep Oakland in a four game set to get three games above .500 and welcome in the AL Central cellar dwelling (49-64) Cleveland Indians and promptly drop the first two in classic Blue Jays’ fashion–the bats go limp and score two runs in each game.

Today’s game was beyond brutal–Roy Halladay gave up ten hits (eight singles), a lot of which were seeing eye hits and was squeezed by home plate umpire Ron Kulpa but managed to give up a single earned run as he was victimized by poor defense.

Due to Kulpa, and the defense, Halladay threw a season high 130 pitches and didn’t get out of the seventh inning.

Joe Inglett tripled, doubled and singled in his first three at bats and the rest of the lineup was good for three hits and zero walks. Indians starter Paul Byrd–who pitched very well it should be noted–got calls all afternoon that Halladay was not as Byrd’s outside curveball was consistently called a strike by Kulpa whereas anything close by Halladay was ruled a ball resulting in extra pitches–some of which became base hits.

It’s not sour grapes on my part–look through all my articles here, at the Hardball Times and MSN Canada and see how often I’ve blamed the umpiring. I think this may be my first at all three outlets.

But I digress.

Regardless, it wasn’t Kulpa, it wasn’t the defense–once again it was the bats that derailed the Jays today. There were just two non-Joe Inglett base runners as Lyle Overbay tried to stretch a hit into a double with two out in the ninth only to be thrown out by the arm and quick feet of Ben Francisco.

It would be a defensible attempt at an extra base any time except when you’re down by two in the bottom of the ninth and there’s nobody on base.

Alex Rios is 0-for-9 in the series, while Brad Wilkerson and Matt Stairs (two players that need replacing–Wilkie‘s RBI double today notwithstanding) hit back-to-back in the lineup. Amazingly, Byrd needed just 94 pitches to do in the Jays today.

Obviously, I feel badly for Halladay–his nine losses have seen him post a 3.92 ERA and a HR/9 of .56. In fact, his pitching line in his nine losses looks thusly:

   	              IP   H   ER   B   K   ERA

   Halladay (L, 0-9)   7  10    3   2   7  3.92

In his nine losses, the Jays have scored 2, 1 ,3, 0, 1, 2, 4, 0 and 2 runs of support–about 1.7 runs per loss.

On the bright side, at least he doesn’t have to share a locker room with somebody that doesn’t like baseball.

I can’t help but wonder if the reason that the position players hide in the part of the clubhouse inaccessible to the media is out of embarrassment. How would you like to answer on a nightly basis why you suck? The offense has been held to four or fewer runs 67 times this year, three or less on 53 occasions and two or fewer 34 times.

It would be like being asked two out of every three days about how kicking the bed-wetting habit is going.

As I wrote over at THT–it’s a big reason why there’s so much ennui toward the Jays; watching outstanding pitching and sparkling defense is for the hardcore fan–losing and limp lumber is a turn off for the casual fan and the Blue Jays have had the last two items in abundance the last two seasons.

Let’s face it, there are few things more frustrating than watching your team struggle to score runs–especially behind outstanding pitching–but since the beginning of last season, fans have been subjected to 157 games when the Jays scored four runs or less and that’s over the last 279 games or over 56% of games played. How frustrating is it to watch your club score three runs or less 121 times over that span? For that matter, how about watching a half season worth of games (81) when the home nine scores two or fewer?

Is it any wonder fans are turned off?

As I stated yesterday, the Jays haven’t had a six game winning streak since 2004–they have had just three five game runs since then yet have lost five-in-a-row seven times, six in a row twice, seven straight twice and a nine gamer once.

How can the fans get excited when there’s so little momentum or red hot runs (not like you get after a night of suicide wings) and a whole lot of black holes of inept play and ineffective hitting?

This is all during the J.P. era. It’s why he has to go–he cannot construct a roster that gets the fans base worked into a lather with sustained runs of success.

Here is how clueless Ricciardi is:

One year, the Toronto Blue Jays enjoyed a very good season. There have been others of course (stop being so pedantic) but I do not wish to give the answer away too early.

At any rate, the team had a fairly good lineup–at season’s end three players topped 20 HR (43 lead the league) one of whom finished top five in dingers and a total of seven reached double digits.

Toronto tied for second in the league in home runs and were tops in slugging percentage even though no regular topped .500.

The middle of the lineup had a couple of 100 RBI men and seven players in the everyday lineup hit at least 25 doubles.

In short, the team had no problem putting runs on the board and they finished second the AL in that department.

However, they had a black hole in the bottom of the batting order. Looking back, he wasn’t as bad as originally thought (some recent Jays have shown me what real offensive suckiness looks like) but he was an everyday player because the lineup could carry his amazing glove. He was the Johnny Mac “Prime Minister of Defense” on the Jays back then.

He may not have been as good as MacDonald with the leather (then again, who is?) but he was a stellar defender. I remember that year grousing why the Jays shouldn’t be looking for a better bat yet my brother told me to focus on watching his defensive play. It didn’t take me long to appreciate why he was in there. He didn’t pull as many highlight reel plays as our boy Johnny but there were a fair share of them.

He also made the routine plays with staggering consistency. He wasn’t one of these guys that make average plays look amazing due to a poor first step or lack of anticipation. He was a professional gloveman.

Still, that bat (or lack of same) drove me nuts.

The thing is, despite the fact his offense paled in comparison with the rest of the team he was still far better with the lumber than Brad Wilkerson. Our mystery player batted ninth and played short, Wilkerson is a corner outfielder and has batted first second, cleanup and fifth in 2008.

Now, J.P. had been lusting after Wilkerson for years and now that he has him in his warm embrace is reluctant to let him go. The passion in his game is of far more value than Adam Dunn’s .377/.534 OBP/SLG, 32 HR, .244/.387/.567 line w/RISP (including nine HR in that situation which would be good for second on the Jays in 2008) to Ricciardi.

But I digress (yes, even here).

So, how did our slick fielding shortstop stack up against the love of J.P.’s life (or holder of some incredibly embarrassing photographs)?

Wilkerson .223/.314/.324 (72 OPS+)

Player X  .263/.343/.316 (83 OPS+)

O.K.–give an edge to the shortstop–but how about in big situations? Surely Wilkerson’s veteran goodness can step up with runners in scoring position–right?

Wilkerson: .194/.315/.236 (1 extra base hit) 72 AB

Player X:  .330/.377/.404 (5 extra base hits) 94 AB

Ooooh, not good–another win for Johnny Mac’s spiritual forefather. Well, maybe that veterany deliciousness comes through with two outs:

Wilkerson .202/.295/.274

Player X  .302/.397/.389

(buzzer)

I’m almost scared to look at the numbers with RISP and two out…

Wilkerson .171/.261/.244

Player X  .386/.460/.500

EEP!

Hold it, hold it, Wilkerson had more HR in a season that our mystery man had in his entire career four times–surely, that home run stroke would be a huge advantage with the bases loaded–right?

Wilkerson .300/.231/.600 (3/10; 1 extra base hit: grand slam--11 RBI total)

Player X  .308/.333/.385 (4/13; 1 extra base hit: double--10 RBI total)

We’ve gotta give J.P.’s pinup boy a slight edge here. Of course, our mystery player was in the lineup for his glove so cold streaks are to be expected. Wilkerson is in the lineup because who else are you going to run out there? It’s not like Ricciardi has given Cito Gaston a lot of options. Which of our duo had the nastier cold spell?

Wilkerson .174/.294/.232 (35 games)

Player X  .234/.318/.234 (25 games)

That ain’t good.

There you have it folks–J.P. Ricciardi has no problem seeing a corner outfielder that could not outperform 1992 defensive whiz Manny Lee with the lumber. Hitters are being put through waivers, there are bats in the minor leagues that could surely outhit what Wilkerson has done over the last 35 games but since the GM finally got his man he’s going to live or die (I‘m guessing die) with his boy.

Thirty-five games may not be much of a sample size but you have to extend the sample back to his days with the Expos before you’ll get to well above league average totals with the maple. The truly ironic thing is that the club feels it cannot afford to keep John Macdonald’s bat in the lineup yet over their last 80 PA McDonald is out slugging Wilkerson .279 to .231.

It would seem they could keep Mac’s bat out there provided they kept Wilkerson out of the lineup. By the way, over their last 80 PA…

Player     H  2B 3B HR RBI  OPS

Wilkerson  11  2  1  0   5 .519

McDonald   14  2  0  1  10 .532

Now you understand better why I’ve been so hard on J.P.–an easy way to upgrade the roster is to cut Wilkerson and bring up the organization’s best minor league bat.

All that Brad Wilkerson needs is a little butter and marmalade and be sent on his way–it’s a shame the guy in charge of the 25-man roster is oblivious to it.

Best Regards

John