15 Reasons Why The Jays Won't Make the Playoffs

Following the Toronto Blue Jays spectacular, 15 nothing loss at the hands of Baltimore today, we here at 63 Years have officially given up on them. In honour of the occasion, we present fifteen reasons you should do the same.

(1) Because the front office has. We were fine with the Jays dealing away a middle reliever the other day. No problems there. But to trade away Eric Hinske, one of the Jays' key bench players to a division rival? The Blue Jays' brass has given up on the team.

(2) Their division is unwinable. The Jays are eight games back, and need to leap frog two teams, the Red Sox and the Yankees, in order to win the division. To put it bluntly, that is not going to happen.

(3) The wildcard is unwinable. The Jays are seven and half games back, and need to leap frog three teams, the White Sox, the Red Sox and the Twins, in order to win the wildcard. To put it bluntly, that is not going to happen.

(4) Their starting rotation is looking thin. Operating with three-fifths of the original projected starting five, with Gustavo Chacin still another week away, and Josh Towers not likely to get on a Toronto mound for a long long time. The fourth and fifth spots have been filled by an unconvincing collection of relievers and rookies.

(5) Their bench is looking thin. The Jays started with too many players on the bench, and not enough spots on the field. Now Shea "Play For Yourself" Hillenbrand and Eric "Rookie of the Year" Hinske are gone, and the Jays have nobody to come off the bench to make a difference.

(6) No key rookies. Unlike everyother team in the majors, the Jays have not had a single rookie come up and turn heads. Casey Janssen looked like the real deal for awhile before crumbling. Guys like Shawn Marcum and Fransisco Rosario have been mediocre at best.

(7) J.P Ricciardi can't keep his mouth shut. The Jays GM finds the worst possible times to criticize his team, calling out Vernon Wells, even though he's putting up solid numbers. Stay out of the locker room, J.P

(8) Troy Glaus is hurting. The power hitting third baseman has been limping around for a bit now, but with Jays' depleted depth, there's nobody to replace him with. He's going to have to play through it.

(9) This team can't seem to get hot. The Jays have been consistently ok all throughout the season. With the exception of their recent seven game swoon, the Jays rarely lose in bunches, but conversely, rarely win in bunches. Their best effort so far was a fiver a month or so ago. If they want to do something, they're going to have to pull a page out of Minnesota or Los Angeles' book and start winning big and often.

(10) This team can't sweep. Stemming from the above, or rather, causing the above, the Jays are woeful when it comes time to apply the pressure and sweep away a team. This season is riddled with series where the Jays squandered sweeping opportunities. The Jays have lost their broom.

(11) Because... um... fifteen is a big number, did you know that? So we only got to eleven, but frankly, we didn't even think we'd get to six, so we're on top already.

The point is, we've given up on our baseball team, with a month and a half to go. We'd change the site's name to "64 Years and Counting" right now, but we figure we owe it to the Jays to at least wait until they've been mathematically eliminated. And because we still have a whole whackload of business cards. More the latter than the former.

Jason