Quick relief: Toronto's Marcum making waves as starter

Jun 18, 2007 - 7:41 PM By Ian Parker Special to PA SportsTicker

TORONTO (Ticker) - Every cloud has a silver lining, and the Toronto Blue Jays are finding theirs in Shawn Marcum.

A rash of injuries earlier in the year made this a lost season before it had really begun at the Rogers Centre.

Of the five pitchers the Blue Jays tabbed for their rotation, three - John Thomson, Victor Zambrano and Gustavo Chacin - already are on the disabled list, and A.J. Burnett appears to be heading there.

But from this mess, Marcum has emerged as an impressive young pitcher who could be a fixture in the rotation for years to come.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

"He was and he wasn't," Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said, when asked if Marcum was on the radar for the rotation at the start of the season.

"We brought in Thomson and (Toma) Okha (as free agents) and being veterans, being around a while, probably gave them the edge. Marcum was kind of a fall-back plan."

Marcum is making any plan that kept him out of the rotation look silly.

On Saturday, the 25-year-old gave up only two runs over seven innings and struck out a career-high 11 as Toronto defeated the Washington Nationals, 7-3.

Marcum (4-2) lowered his season ERA to 3.41, but it is his numbers as a starter that are really impressive.

In seven starts since first filling in for Zambrano on May 13, Marcum has gone 3-0 with a 2.38 ERA in seven starts.

"He's been unbelievable," Gibbons said. "He has been that way since Day 1."

Gibbons can hardly believe his luck at stumbling upon a pitcher who looks to be just as reliable as ace Roy Halladay.

Finding Marcum was about luck as much as judgment for the Blue Jays. With an ERA of 6.06 in the bullpen, he did not stand out as the first choice.

"We asked ourselves, 'Who do we put in?' and (Casey) Janssen was dominating down there (in the bullpen), so we didn't really want to mess with that," Gibbons said.

"Marcum has four pitches, which is what you need as a starter, and maybe he wasn't using them all effectively in the bullpen. As a starter, he has a chance to get them all going."

He has done just that, returning to his changeup as a way to baffle hitters. Never was that more apparent than Saturday, when he was racking up those strikeouts by getting the Nationals lineup to swing at pitches that weren't there.

"I have no idea (how I did it)," Marcum said. "I'm not a strikeout pitcher. Just trying to keep the ball down. When you can throw a changeup for strikes and keep the hitters off balance, it just makes your fastball and everything else a little better."

When you can call on a struggling reliever and make him into a dominating starter seemingly overnight, it can make a tough season a whole lot better.