McGowan’s Debut The Bright Spot Amidst Blowout Loss For Blue Jays

While the whole of last night’s Blue Jays game against the Red Sox wasn’t really much to write home about (Perez got beat up, Lester pitched a gem in a 0-14 loss for the Jays), but overshadowing that depressing mess of a game for the home team was the debut of Dustin McGowan, who can finally call himself a major league pitcher again after 3+ years of rehab work. Even though last night wasn’t really the spot to gauge McGowan’s performance (3 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks over 4IP, 5Ks), the stuff coming out of his hand looked as promising as ever. McGowan mixed a mid 90s fastball that topped 96 with good life, along with a slider/changeup/curve repertoire that was a little wild at times, but managed to fool its share of hitters. The runs – 2 of them coming in the 5th inning (when McGowan took over) and a solo home run by Reddick in the 8th – can probably be chalked up to nerves more than anything, I think. He didn’t make a real major mistake unt...